Going Through Hell

What the travel brochures want you to see... (the dream)

In reviewing the titles of my last two posts, I realized there is a decidedly religious bent to both of them. While I do have spiritual and religious roots and will, no doubt, refer often to that foundation, it is not my intent to approach this blog any more seriously than needs be, so in an effort to diversify, I will share an experience I had over this summer that took me through Hell and planted a couple of the seeds that inspired my need to deal with my health and weight.

I love to travel, a hobby made exponentially easier and more affordable because I work part-time for an airline. I can't say that getting my job at the airline is the best thing that has ever happened to me, but I would safely put it in the Top 10. Having access to free flights (albeit with stand-by status) has been life-changing for me, to say the least. (I pontificate at the risk of being inundated with requests for buddy passes and job referrals, but I can't help you with either. Sorry.)

The challenge with this hobby is that in the airline industry (and by my own employer), I am technically referred to as a POS. No, not that. A Person Of Size. That's their nice way of saying bigger-than-our-one-size-had-better-fit-all-and-we'll-decide-what-size-everyone-should-be seats. Nobody wants to sit by the fat person, especially on a small plane, and that includes me. Especially me! So I'm always ultra-aware of my size when squeezing into an airplane seat, taking special care to stay sucked in and tucked in. And I do shower.

Of course this also means that before I squeeze my tush into a seat, I must first ask for a seat belt extender, a request that seems to bring more embarrassment to the flight attendant than it does to me. They act as if I was not aware that I was large until I began to board the plane, that I woke up skinny that morning, ate too much at one of the exquisite fine dining establishments that are airport restaurants, and suddenly and without warning ballooned  to excessive proportions. It seems they feel that by giving me an extender, they are the ones to have to confirm the fact that I will not, in fact, be able to get the regular seat belt around my awesomeness. They're so discreet about passing it off to me, like school secretaries passing off tampons to pubescent students, that it's almost worse than if they just got on the loud speaker and announced that a fat chick was boarding the plane. Just give me the extender. I'm a big girl. Literally. I can handle it.

None of this stops me from getting on a plane as often as I can. I wasted far too many years worrying about what other people would think about my weight. There are countless times I didn't go places or do things because I was afraid someone might be offended by the sight of me in a swimsuit. I cringe every time I think of the times I wouldn't jump in the pool with my kids or go to a water park with them. What a waste (or in this case, waist?)!

Sadly for my fellow travelers, that is no longer the case.

What the travel brochures don't show you...(the reality)

For better or worse, I now own seven swimsuits, and I'm not afraid to use them.

For our thirtieth anniversary of never getting divorced, my husband and I traveled to Grand Cayman this summer. I wanted to go to a beach in the Caribbean where I didn't have to worry about vendors approaching me on the beach wanting me to pay them to braid my hair. Seriously. I have about six total hairs on my head. It so wouldn't be worth paying someone.

Grand Cayman is also the location of Hell, a small rock grouping on the island that the locals thought looked like what Hell might look like. They brilliantly put in a post office and not one, but TWO gift shops adjacent to each other. They're making a fortune on tourists like us who think it's hilarious to send their missionary son a postcard from Hell. A visit to this thus-named place in paradise also seemed appropriate considering some of the experiences we have had over the years. We have a sign in our house that says "This marriage was made in Heaven - but so was thunder and lightning." To experience Heaven in Hell was too perfect. And it really was.

But it was also here that I came to the realization that if I want to continue to travel at the rate I love, I need to get some weight off. It's not so I can make Seven Mile Beach look better for others, or even to avoid seat belt extenders, but so I can haul all my beach gear from the car to the shore without collapsing. Or so that I can walk in that deep sand without passing out. But mostly it's so I can go places with my family and make up for some of the times I didn't dare jump in.

I've discovered the joy of bathing suits without shame, and I'm not going back.