This is how tequila works...

So, my husband "liked" this post on facebook last night. Ordinarily I don't pay much attention to what he "likes" because it's usually something related to his work in the Army or his love for firearms. But last night, this one in particular certainly garnered my attention, and I was at once both shocked and wounded that it was something that he would have ever thought to "like."

The picture, as you can see, shows an overweight woman as a blur in the background, but as the man looks at her through one of many empty shot glasses, she appears to be thin and busty, of course. And the caption reads "This is how tequila works." Now, we've all heard jokes about beer goggles and coyote ugly. About how alcohol seems to make going home with the bottom of the barrel tolerable at the time. But when I look at this picture, what I see is...no sober man would choose to go home with this woman. Despite her seemingly beautiful smile or her confidence or her personality. Without the power of inebriation, this woman is going home alone. And lets face it, even if some guy is so desperate to get laid that he does go home with her, she's never going to hear from him again once morning rolls around and he's gotten what he needs.

None of this is anything new. The asshole who made up this picture hasn't exactly broken new ground in the fat girl humor department. In fact, my initial reaction to the picture was "Hey, tequila works like that for women too. Except it doesn't improve your physical appearance. It just makes you seem like less of a fucking asshole." The picture itself, while not exactly an ego-booster, isn't what upset me. It's that MY HUSBAND "liked" it. Now, as far as I know, the first time he asked me out, he wasn't drunk. The first time we were intimate, he wasn't drunk. He definitely wasn't drunk when he proposed or on the two separate occasions that we got married. In fact, in the four+ years that we've been married, I can count on maybe three fingers the number of times I would say he was actually drunk.

As someone who has waged an all out war with my weight every...single...day of my life, the fact that my husband "liked" this picture, quite frankly, scares me a little. I had gastric bypass in 2008, my great last bastion of hope that I could lose weight. I lost about 150 pounds, not nearly as much as I had hoped. We met and married when I was at my lowest weight. And then I got pregnant with his children and managed to gain about 50 of those pounds back while growing, birthing and raising two ten pound babies. I am not thin. I, in fact, more closely resemble the blurry woman in the background of this picture than the little tart in the glass. As we speak, I am battling severe anemia trying desperately to get the situation under control so a plastic surgeon will proceed with my extended abdominoplasty, during which she will slice me open from hip to hip, pull my skin up to my rib cage, cut out all of the fat and extra tissue, tighten my abdominal muscles like a corset, stretch the skin as tight as humanly possible, and then reposition my navel in an appropriate place. I will have an 18 inch incision, a wound vac, and two vacuum drains. All so I can have a flatter stomach. So that maybe my husband won't wake up one day and decide he doesn't want to be with me any more.

So what's the moral of this story? There isn't one. Except maybe that if you're married to someone who is at the very least a little sensitive about their weight, then "liking" the fat girl meme on facebook just isn't cool.

It's a Wonderful Life...

Sometimes, often actually, I find myself pondering this life that I live. Some people might find my life mundane, and I suppose I might think the same if the 35 years that led up to the last 4 years hadn't been so miserable.

I spent the first 35 years of my life pretty unhappy, in general. There were, of course, moments. Milestones in life that I was proud of, family get-togethers, the occasional trip out of town to some place new, and time spent with a handful of good friends that I had managed to separate from the chaff. But, most of the time, I was a lonely, overweight, and sad individual. And after 35 years, I had pretty much given up all hope of ever finding someone to love that would actually love me back, and I had definitely given up on ever being a mother.

For most of those first 35 years, I bounced back and forth between believing that God didn't exist, and believing that He had simply abandoned me. I felt like I was being punished. I felt like He had either forgotten I was alive, miserable and alone, or that the life He had given me was just a part of His twisted sense of humor. Either way, it seemed painfully obvious that He had no intention of making my dreams of love and children come true. My heart ached for things that everyone else seemed to get so easily, but that were never within my reach.

But then finally, at the ripe OLD age of 35, I finally found my somebody to love. And he loves me back. And then we had two phenomenally beautiful, smart and loving children. And maybe my mundane little life doesn't seem all that exciting to other people, but to me it's just plain heaven. I remember when Shaun and I got married and were on our way to Kansas, our mutual friends in the military all joked and made fun that Fort Riley, KS was the place where dreams went to die. But that has not been my experience at all. In fact, the place where dreams go to die is the place where all my dreams came true. The place where the giant gaping hole in my soul was finally filled up with hugs and kisses and the sound of children playing. The place where God finally remembered that I was here.

I used to hate my life. I dreaded waking up every single day. But I realize now that everything happens when it is meant to happen. If I had found love with someone else earlier in life when I was so desperate for it, I wouldn't have had Jameson and Fallon. I might have had kids, but not these two kids. And while these two children are certainly not without their issues, they are the perfect children for me, and I am the perfect momma for them. And while Shaun and I are each flawed in our own ways, together I think we make a pretty great team. Our marriage is a partnership, the way we both grew up believing marriage should be based on the model set forth by our parents. I love him while leading him in the direction he needs to go, and he loves me while holding me back from the things that aren't good for me.

I still remember how lonely and painful my life was for such a long time, but it makes me look at the life I have now with such amazing gratitude. I feel so incredibly blessed every single day. Even when something bad happens, I'm still able to focus on the big picture and remind myself that my life is nothing short of wonderful. Instead of feeling alone and abandoned, I feel like God always has His hand on me and my family, holding us together in good times and in bad. And maybe for those first 35 years, He hadn't forgotten me or abandoned me at all, but He was just holding me back from settling for something far less amazing than what He had in store for me.