Ok, so this is it.  My one year anniversary of having gastric bypass surgery.  Whaddya think? 

I thought I was going to get philosophical about my one year anniversary, but it didn't really happen.  There has obviously been a dramatic change thus far because of the surgery, but everything has pretty much happened as it was supposed to.  I had surgery and I lost weight.  There were parts of it that were really easy.  There was much more that was really hard.  And after a year, I'm not done, I've still got a lot of work to do.  I've got 30 pounds to lose to reach my surgeon's weight goal for me, then I have to surpass that by 10%, then not let any more than 10% of my weight come back.  Only 80% of weight loss surgery (WLS) have maintained their weight loss at the 5 year mark.  That's a 1 in 5 rate of failure.

I've got some other things going on that are on my mind.  Prepare for another random thought download (you've been warned)...
On Sunday night I saw the woman I had a terrible crush on last fall.  I had finally broken down and asked her out which was very hard for me.  She turned me down saying that though she'd love to in May she was getting her Masters in Divinity degree and would be assigned who-knows-where.  With the pressures of school and knowing that it might all have to end in May, she didn't want to start something that might end in heartbreak.  We stayed friendly, but then didn't see each other for a while, though we did email from time to time.  I was invited to a graduation party that was thrown for her, but it was on a boat and I was late and the boat left without me.  She went to Germany after graduation and I thought I would hear from her when she got back.  I didn't.  I figured she moved on to her new gig and moved somewhere or maybe she was taking the summer off after school to travel.

I saw her Sunday and she was distant.  After a while she came over to talk.  The church assigned her locally.  She bought a house and would be staying for at least three years.   She said she was glad to see me and hoped she'd see me more often. I got excited by the prospect that we might have a chance to spend time together and think about dating.  She danced with other people.  I danced with other people.  Then I noticed she was dancing close with someone else.  Very close.  We all walked out together, but they lingered talking quietly and touching before they went to their cars.  I'm disappointed and a bit hurt.

monkeys
On the drive home tonight, a sculptor was talking about how he goes to Africa to observe animals so he can sculpt them.  He talked about how similar chimpanzees are to humans and how interesting and cute it is to notice the similarities and differences between humans and primates.
It made me wonder - do other animals observe animals like them and think - oh, that's so cute!  They're trying to be like us!  Do bears look at raccoons and think "look at them using their little hands to wash their food, just like us when we're trying to fish.  That's so cute."  Do wolves hear foxes barking at each other and think "aww, they're trying to bark.  arf! arf!  listen to me, I'm a fox!  arf!"
Or is it just us?

Journeys
Right now I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. and re-listening to Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole by Jerri Nielsen and Maryanne Vollers. 

A whiny part of me fusses that I'm reading about these other women's fantastic journeys while I'm just farting around, getting older, and not doing much with my life.  But another part of me disagrees that I am living an interesting life.  Maybe it's not traveling the world, or living on Antarctica, but it's something.

Liz Gilbert's book has had me thinking about my spiritual journey in life.  She shares some wisdom I've heard before and it sounds like she gained some peace in her life that I've heard about.  It all breaks down to what Frank Baum told us in the Wizard of Oz.  When looking for peace there's no place like home and it was with you all along.  You don't have to travel across the planet to find serenity, it's right there inside you.  It's the quiet between the thoughts. It's the intake of breath between the words.  It's the dark between flipping the channels of life.  I think the trick is to just pay attention to the little silences instead of skipping them.  Look for those instead looking for the next thing to be stimulated by.  Find stimulation and emptiness in the silence.

Going somewhere to find the silence is like the training wheels of it.  I'm not saying it's bad. Lord knows I have a hell of a time listening to the silence in my everyday.  I am driven to distraction constantly.  Distraction can be really comforting, you know?  If you can find a place that creates an environment that supports the exploration of silence and practice, practice, practice it, maybe you can learn to look for it when you're not in such a supportive environment.  As you build the skills, you can go there more and more often, get the feel for it, and do it again and eventually live it instead of just practicing it.  That's what I'm hoping for.

I used to meditate on Sunday mornings at a Zen center.  I did it for almost a year, but left when the leaders of the center decided to get more hardcore and the hardcoreness of Zen was getting too distracting for me to be in silence.  I'm thinking I need to find another place nearby to practice and try to make a habit of it.  I'll have to do a little research in that..

aloha