Saying Goodbye to Signature Lines

A reader recently wrote to ask why I don’t include my weight statistics in my signature line. A great observation and excellent question.

Typically in on-line weight loss communities a signature is written with starting weight/current weight/target weight – so for me that would be (287/146/140). For a long time after WLS I did carry the weight stats on my signature line – it was part of who I was and a measure of progress.

But the day came when I didn’t want to be measured by those numbers any longer.

One of the most difficult things for me to hear is, “I heard you used to be really REALLY huge!” Ouch! I also used to be a newspaper editor and I am accomplished pianist, yet somehow that never gets mentioned. It seems, however, there are plenty of people around to remind me that I used to be really REALLY huge.

So one day unannounced I dropped the weight stats from my signature line. It was time to move forward from defining myself as a person who used to be really REALLY huge. Certainly I have not forgotten that person and I am humbled today by my small size and my good health. But I don’t need the numbers on my signature line to define or remind me anymore.

I don’t object to others using the signature stats and applaud each pound that is lost in this after WLS living. But I submit that one day others, when the time is right, will say goodbye to the weight stats in the signature line – moving forward and onward in new and better lives.

My signature line reads, “Welcome to Your New Life: You have Arrived.” And that’s how I feel each and every new day when I wake in my healthy, trim and fit body. “I have arrived”. This motto is the name of our official Living After WLS newsletter: You Have Arrived! My wish for our community here is to always wake with the fabulous feeling “I Have Arrived.”

Best wishes,
Kaye

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