Wrap that rascal, an epiphany, and a heartfelt thanks

Wrap that rascal
There's been some talk about getting together with Bonnie and Linda as we all live fairly close to each other (I'm totally excited by this possibility but that's a whole different thing).  So I had run a possible date by Brad last night and it prompted this little convo with him this morning.

Brad: Who might you be going out with?

Me: I’m meeting some strangers I met on the internet.

B: (bursts out laughing) Make sure you wrap it up before you do anything.

M: (eye rolling – geesh) Actually, it’s true, They are strangers I’ve met on the internet.

B: WHAT?!

The Thanks!!!

So yesterday I really had to battle back some of my uglier demons after my Dr’s appointment.  Maybe the band just won’t work for me.  Maybe I’m doomed to be a failure.  Maybe I am in fact dumb and the fact that I felt like I was on a merry-go-round and we were just talking in circles was all me and not because he’s a tool.  Sure there’s a part of me that knows I was speaking clear English and had good, well thought out points of view and he was just being a total idiot and countering just about anything that came out of my mouth I’m thinking just to make himself appear superior – but the other part of me – the scared little fat kid that hides behind the big personality and all that fat – well she wasn’t so sure.  I could feel it wasn’t good so I pushed the entire appointment into one of my handy lid-less boxes in the back of my brain because I was afraid if I let myself think about it too hard or look too closely it would rock me off of my really good head-space.  You never know what it’ll take.
Anyway – I’m really wanting to say thank you, to all of you from the bottom of my heart.  My appointment yesterday rocked me for a while.  I blocked it out because I knew it was not a good thing for me and then I put it out there and gave it to you guys so I could get a sanity check.  I was prepared for you to say he was an idiot.  But I was also prepared for you to couch that with... “but he does have a good point about this or that…” because I feared it was just me.  But what you gave me, what I've consistently seen on blog after blog is just plain support. 

I can't tell you how much it means to me to just feel the love.  This is truly such a lovely and supportive community and each and everyone of you should feel proud at how well you represent it.  So thank you again, truly.

The epiphany
I'm smart.  It’s the one thing I always knew I could count on and it’s the thing that I feared more than anything not being true.  If I wasn’t smart then what the hell was I?  This is actually an epiphany for me – you are watching it take place right before your very eyes.  In my head I’ve never once doubted that I'm smart.  I’m not any kind of genius or anything crazy like that, but things have always come pretty easy to me.  I went through school and then college and wasn't ever really challenged.  If I ever did feel challenged I’d end up with the best grade in the class because I had to prove I was still smart.  If I wasn’t challenged I was just as likely not to show up and get a C (but that's a whole other story, I clearly had some issues here).  But the point is, smart was always the thing I knew I was – and yet, it’s the one button that can really rock me - as happened yesterday.  If someone can do something that calls my intelligence into question – it rocks me.  And (here’s the epiphany) – it’s because it was always the one thing I had - that I was really sure of.  “You’d be so pretty if you just lost the weight”  “You could excel at sports if  you just lost the weight.”  Yadda yadda yadda.  But I was smart.  So if you take that away – what’s left?  My sparkling personality??  Well as that was a fake for much of my life – that wasn’t very comforting…  

And okay I was dumb for choosing this particular doctor - but in my defense my husband picked him.  I don't really do people easily.  He is much better about reading people and much, much better about asking relevant medical questions when choosing a doctor so we decided that we'd find a doctor he was medically comfortable with that I didn't want to kill.  That was our criteria.  And while I didn't like him from the outset, I didn't think he was the true and serious idiot that I now believe him to be.

Okay - so there's my totally incoherent ramble for the day.