Alright, I'll give this a try. I've found so much support in the group, and I know journaling is supposed to help too.
A bit about me. I'm 37, happily married with 2 cats. I grew up in rural Illinois, got my engineering degree from a top 10 school, moved to Virginia where I worked and lived for 17 years. Last year, things were looking a little shaky at work, so I decided to make a major move. I applied for a job in Texas, and I got it. It was a good move professionally, but personally, I wish I had stayed in Virginia. I don't make friends easily, and it was very, very hard to leave my friends behind.
When I was a senior in college, I decided I didn't want to be a mechanical engineer, but I was too broke and too tired of school to change my major at that point. I went to work and spent a couple of years figuring out what I wanted to do. I was very fortunate in that my work paid for me to take a leave of absence and go back for my master's degree.
Also while I was in undergraduate, I met my future ex-husband. I've been heavy since I was 12, and I never dated in high school. I had a few disastrous dates in college, and when I met my ex, I thought this is as good as I'm ever going to get. In retrospect, I sold myself short. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't meant to be. After a few years and much soul searching, I decided to strike out on my own. My birthday wish that year was to find a guy who was smart, sexy, funny, well-adjusted and who thought I was pretty just the way I was. Six months later, I found him, and we ended up getting married a couple of years later in Vegas. By Elvis.
I don't regret any part of my life. It's made me who I am today, and I'm very happy with that person. One of my mantras is "no regrets". If I do something, I'll grab it by the horns and do my best at it, no matter what, and I'll learn and grow from it.
So that's who I am, in a nutshell. I'm by turns crazy, utterly practical, the perfect straight guy, the mad gamer, the brilliant engineer, a renaissance woman, and the woman who melts in front of a kitten. I'm also 60 pounds less than my highest weight, and so very excited that for the first time in my adult life, I'm going to be 'normal.'
I can't wait to go back to amusement parks and not worry about fitting in seats. I want to shop in all the cute boutiques and not just for quirky jewelry. I think I might even want to run a half-marathon someday. I want to shock all my friends and family who haven't seen me in months by showing up looking utterly fabulous. I want to make sure that I have no more sad moments in my life that are related to being overweight. I want to live my life to the fullest, and that means not being held back by anything.