Stacey Halprin
I have two birthdays… The first is the day I was born; the second is the day I chose to resume living. I weighed 7.5 lbs at my first birth and 550 lbs at my second one (talk about labor pains). My second birthday is 9/11/01.
The day that changed the rest of the world is also the day that saved my life.
Prior to 9/11, I spent most of my life eating, dieting and hating myself in the process. A lifetime of gaining and losing had resulted in diabetes, high blood pressure and the inability to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without stopping to catch my breath. My need to block out the emotional and physical pain in my life only increased my need for food.
By the morning of 9/11, my world was rapidly shrinking to the size of my one bedroom apartment, yet I woke up every day thinking it wasn't so bad. Talk about denial. Denial is more addicting than drugs, or in my case food. For me it was denial—not hope—that sprang eternal.
It wasn't so bad… I could still travel outside my apartment— I had a car. Sure, I got parking tickets everywhere I went because I absolutely HAD to park right in front of where I was going in order to make it to the door. I guess I could have gotten a handicap parking sticker, but its not like I was really handicapped.
It wasn't so bad... I could still get around. Sure, my knees were so bad I couldn't walk more than a few hundred feet at a time, but if I took a shopping cart and a chair with me everywhere I went it was ok. The shopping cart supported me while I walked until I needed the chair to sit on when I got tired— but its not like I needed a wheel chair or anything.
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