Personal Journal

Weight Watchers

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn

I think I have not cried so many various times during the day as I have today.
I cried at work. I cried on the drive home. I cried when I got home. I cried after my nap at home. I cried on my way to weight watchers. I almost cried at weight watchers. I cried after weight watchers big-time. That was the last incident tonight.

Never, not once, have I cried THIS many times in a day.
Isn't that odd? You'd think I was crying maybe a little less.
I'm not sure why I cried today, other than the obvious: I miss my Jean.

I cried a lot today because of the relationship weight watchers has with Jean. I would have NEVER joined weight watchers if it were not for Jean. I'd probably have been like most men and allowed myself to slowly gain weight over the years. Maybe not with my bike riding needs, but certainly the reaoson I did WW was because Jean wanted to, and it made it easy to do for myself and simultaneously be a good partner and support her wholely.

It was easy, going to weight watchers and losing weight. I forget why I quit originally - I think I needed to take that second job for that time I had it. So I wasn't free Tuesdays, and Jean and I thought we could succeed without meetings. We couldn't - the meetings are essential to the success, I would say for us, but really it's "for me" now.

And listen.
Weight Watchers is the ONLY PLACE ON THE EARTH that I can go into a room of 40 people and be the only goddamn man. It's the only place I've ever gone in my 36 years that is like that.
I've been the white minority before in El Paso, Texas during my years there. That was nothing.
I walk into weight watchers, and I cannot really describe how it feels. I am the ONLY man. Not only am I younger than the average woman, I'm taller. I'm more athletic than the average.
I feel truly like I am a member of a different species in that room.
I certainly noticed that before when I went with Jean, but when I went with Jean, I had a buffer. Maybe that's how a woman feels when she walks in a park at night with her boyfriend or something - protected. More than simply protected.

It's like in that metaphor with the park at night. A woman alone, her most glaring sensation is of being a high profile target - a prey animal if I may. When I walk into weight watchers, I feel like I'm the easiest target in the room for judgement. When Jean was there, it was like I was protected from being judged.

I feel incredibly naked in there - not so much "vulnerable" but clearly exposed. I've been to two meetings, and a couple of the people who run the meetings remember me and have said so. But none of the women in meeting have spoken a word to me. And I know it's because I make them uncomfortable in some way.

I deal with it, because I'm there for me. I don't have any motives other than to advance my goal, and I can consciously remember that.

I didn't realize how needed Jean was in my being comfortable with that before. It never crossed my mind.

The other thing that sucks about weight watchers now is that I cannot share my success. When you're a man, and you're losing weight in a group of women, you're not really allowed to say anything about it. I have a genetic advantage. I lose weight at twice the rate of the average.

During the meeting, the leader always tells the group how much we lost collectively. Hell, in that room of 40 women, my week's weight loss was fully 10 percent of the GROUP's total!

Do you think those women want to hear ME say how much weight *I* lost. As much as she wants to hear she can't fit in her wedding dress anymore.

I know the rules of life, and if I say how much I lose to them, they're going to resent me, maybe even hate me. No, thanks.

And with Jean, I had someone who I could tell, who would really applaud for me, and who would really be proud. And when I lost more than she did, she didn't care about the difference. We were succeeding together, with different physiologies, and that was it.

We used to have some great sex on Tuesday nights when we were happy about weight loss.

I think I cried so much today because all day long, Jean's absence was being ingrained into me. There were certainly other areas in my life where I needed her. But in this one, I have come to recognize that Jean's presence was an essential element of my WW attendance before.

I'll have to find a way to deal with it. I don't want to quit by any means, but I'm going to have to find a way to teach myself to be comfortable in that setting. Without feeling like I have to be a martyr to my past memories of going with Jean.

And I haven't been presented with this challenge so much before. Cooking for myself was a bit challenging, but not nearly so as this.

This realization stunned me tonight.

You spend all your life imagining how things can be in your future. By the time you're in your 30s, you've imagined so many different things, let alone experienced so many, that you figure you're prepared for the rest of your life.

Hell, I said it to Steph today, I thought I was prepared for Jean's death, and in some ways I was. But when I was on the other side and Jean was alive, I had no idea how many things I would not be prepared for, and that I simply could not have imagined before I experienced them.

I"m amazed at how much we are tasked to learn in our lives. That also makes me pissed off that Jean is gone, because such a smart person missed those lessons that would have made her an even more rich and wonderful person. But really, that's not my point.

My point is that if life keeps evolving like this, and I continue to learn things of SUCH significance about being human, then I can't possibly know what it will mean to be human at age 70 and beyond.

For the first time in my life, I can see how the future might possibly be frightening. I can't control it. Things can happen that could rock my existence, as they have with Jean's death.

I hope the river of my life does not have any more such cliffs as this one, because I want to be excited about living the rest of mine.

Jean's death is the first car wreck in the road of my life. MOre than that even.