On the lighter side...

When I ventured out on this new life I am now leading, I went through a number of metamorphosises... metamorphoses... hmmm... changes.

Address, naturally. Downsizing, of course. Lifestyle, as any woman facing a newly-single lifestyle will tell you "duh, ya." But the biggest, at least the one that garnered the most comments, was weight loss.

Maybe that's because it's the most obvious, easiest to make light conversation over... It started with simple little "wow, you've lost a lot of weight" to which I initially responded "ya, about 180 lbs but who's counting" ba dum bum. Ha. Some people laughed, some just looked at me with heads cocked to the side wondering how I hid all that weight for so long. But now, two years later, this new reality of who I am, what I look like is starting to be accepted by people with whom I interact. Sort of.

I still get gratuitous comments on what I do or don't order at breakfast, lunch or dinner; sideways glances still come if I go to the washroom after eating any amount of food. And people still feel (as I have mentioned here before) very comfortable in sharing their viewpoints, in this particular instance, on my eating habits.

So I would like to allay their concerns, and yours for that matter. I eat. I eat plenty. I eat badly most of the time, but I do eat. I have found, living this solitary lifestyle, that cooking for one essentially... hmmm, how can I put it???? Well, it sucks. Putting together a gastronomically impressive meal for me to sit back and say to myself, "what a remarkable introduction of saffron into this dish... it has really added to its complexity" to be an anti-climatic experience really. And who wants to wash that many dishes for one person? I can tell you right now, not me. So I either eat out (and being an on-the-road salesperson, that means a lot of drive-throughs... as is evident if you look in the back seat of my car on any given day), or a lot of frozen cardboard sculptures that disguise themselves as meals. Now let me assure you, I am a good cook, a really good one. But it is talent wasted on a meal for one, so I save it for when I am lucky enough to enjoy the company of friends or my boys.

And so, I have lost weight. I'm not sure how. Poor dietary choices (well, I'm guessing that's the most likely answer)? Stress? Lifestyle changes? Living on the third floor of an apartment building with no elevator? Whatever it is, this is who I am now and, really, I have no problem with it.

I am happy, typing away at 11:49 on a Thursday night, eating my chips and dip after a night out with my girlfriends. Yup... I'm feeling pretty good.