So, here goes...

Last week, I rejoined Weight Watchers. I woke up, put on my favorite pair of lightweight leggings and a cute top, made my way to the WW facility a few miles from my house, and let a complete stranger in on information that not even my husband knows. Well, I guess not a complete stranger; “Evelyn” was printed pretty clearly on her tag and she gave me that “I have a son your age” grin. Anyhoo, yesterday was “make a change day” and I’m sharing that experience with you.


But first, let’s get something straight: I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. I just don’t. There’s only one person I know personally who has ever kept a New Year’s Resolution and she’s OCD about finishing things, so it doesn’t count.

For the most part, NYR’s make it easier to fail because there’s some sort of false magic around that day.


“It’s a New Year, a fresh start.”


No, it isn’t. January 1 is no different than any other day, but somehow, we suspend our disbelief; and that sea of non-biodegradable Mylar confetti becomes some sort of resolution baptismal where we think change can wash over us, purging us from whatever vice is most inconvenient to how we’re perceived by others.


But it doesn’t last. A day, a week, a month later, you find yourself grabbing
“just that one” cigarette/soda/hookerwhomightbeaman and suddenly the spell is broken. You begin thinking that it wasn’t “your destiny” this year and that maybe next New Year, cross your fingers, High Aldwin will come and choose you.

Yeah, I made a Willow reference. Deal with it.

Well, that’s utter crap.

The truth is that one can only resolve to make important change when one is ready for said change because the impetus for change doesn’t follow a schedule.

Duh.

I find it important to share that information because I want to make it perfectly clear that my choice to get healthy is in no way a New Year sort of thing. This is also neither a jump onto some conformist bandwagon to be skinny because I read about it in a magazine nor is it a way to make me feel pretty. Though I sometimes struggle with self-esteem issues (who the heck doesn’t), I generally feel like an attractive woman.

No, I find that change for me either comes from hitting rock bottom or from extreme highs. This change is the latter. This change is about having an experience that had me feeling extra good about me and deciding to use that high to jumpstart. I know some of you are thinking “well, isn’t that what New Year’s rezzes are all about? A jumpstart?” My simple answer is this: the New Year is a jumpstart…for some people. For most, however, it’s a half-baked rite of yearly passage for people barely paying lip service to end their vices before they creep in again. For me, the onset of another year is not a jumpstart. This, however, is…

A few nights ago, I was having a post-rehearsal dinner with some friends at a local pub. We stayed late enough to close the place down (don’t worry, I tipped 30%). I was the last of our crew to walk to my car when one of the waiters pulled up beside me in his car. I recognized him from the bar instantly. He was tall, mid-twentish, with a Nordic sort of look about him, a traditionally good looking guy. I thought he was going to see if I was okay to drive or make sure I got to my car safely. Before I could say “Thanks, but I didn’t have anything to drink”, Thor’s little brother was nervously telling me that I was “totally cute” and asking if I was single and if I was interested in a date-like scenario.

To put things in perspective, I was not at my best that night. I was in a pair of jeans and sneakers with my very best Avengers Tee to top it all off. My hair was tangled with the remnants of rehearsal sweat and the fact that I’d forgotten my brush. I did not feel “totally cute”. I felt like a tired thirty-year-old who ate too much French dip and steak fries. I certainly didn’t feel like someone who gets asked out on the way to her car. I wasn’t wearing a stitch of makeup. I wasn’t doing anything particularly groovy. And, yet, this attractive guy was pleased enough with my looks to track me down and let me know. That’s a booster for anyone. It boosted me enough to immediately go home and price the new Weight Watchers. It boosted me enough to go to the meeting. It boosted me enough to look at the scale for the first time since my wedding because, gosh darn it, if some handsome twenty-something thinks I am cute, then that number is just a number, a number I needn’t be scared of even if it’s something that I want to change.

So here I am, making a decision for me. Let’s see how it goes…