One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

-Margaret Mead, anthropologist(1901-1978)

Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.

-Honore De Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

Here's something I never expected... It really makes feel weird the way people react to me losing weight. It's becoming more noticeable (I would hope so, since it's almost 40 pounds now), but it's strange how people react. Mostly as though my weight loss were some kind of statement about where they were in their own weight loss journey.

If I had had bunches of smoker friends when I severely cut back on smoking, I think I would have some expectation that this was going to happen. People feel judged because they think you are commenting on their own limitations, even though you're not. I'm not.

I know how hard it is to start fixing your bad habits. I had to get pretty far into the 2's before I realized that. I didn't want to watch my portions and I didn't want to eat more fruits and vegetables. I didn't want to bring my lunch to work every day. And I damned well didn't want to exercise.

I didn't want to change.

And I know I probably reacted to other people changing in a similar way to how people react to me. That's weird too.

There's a woman at work who was going to go with me to WW a while back and wound up changing her mind. Now whenever I go up to say hello to her, if she is eating anything she tries to explain why she's eating it. Explains why she isn't going to a meeting this week. Whatever. I don't get it. If you're not ready, you're not ready.

Even when people are happy for me, their happy comments are generally followed with, "I know, I need to do something..." Or the newly popular, "I think you're sending it my way." Come on now, is that right?

Does anyone care how hard it is to stay motivated to keep losing weight when I can't even drop a pants size??

Let me say this once -- I have lost weight, this is not a comment about you. I mean, seriously -- have you met me? Don't you know it's all about me???

another rambling post about how much Heather loves her female friendships

Had the medical issue in the house this week with Scott. Sorry to those of you who don't know the complete details, but rest assured that it is all okay and he's doing much better now.

It was surreal on many levels, but really one of the strangest things is that he chose not to share the thing with any of his friends. Obviously, he's much more private than I am -- duh, he's not publishing HIS private thoughts on the world wide web -- but still, to not need that support?? It's weird to me.

Me, I shared his private ordeal with most of my closest friends and some who don't even qualify for that title. Not because I wanted to blabber about his private life, which I certainly do feel bad about, but because I needed (as they say in the Verizon ads) "the network." I needed to know that I would have people to call on when shit went down. I needed to know that people would be there for me to talk me down from it and help me get through my feelings.

I needed the women.

I always need the women, and I do talk about this all the time and I don't care. The older I get, the more and more and more I cherish the women and love the women and appreciate how much deep female friendships have enriched my life and made me the woman I am today. If I didn't have someone holding my hand or cheering me on during the phases in my life, how can I hope to have the strength to hold their hand and cheer them on? Anyone. Women, especially "MY" women, are awesome and wonderful and fanstastic mythical beings. I just don't know what I would do without the women. To worry, to stop the worry, whatever -- they just know.

Thank you, my women -- I love you all and feel so eternally indebted to you and what you give to my life. We get sentimental and ridiculous about how much we mean to each other all the time, but it's just like any other sacred relationship -- we should cherish it and relish it because not many people are as lucky as we are to have each other.