I wonder at the many compliments I’ve received because I’ve lost weight. This morning, the receptionist at my dentist’s office wanted to know what diet I was on. Oh, if she only knew it wasn’t an intent, but suffering.

If only I could patent suffering, mine, my longing as a diet plan, I would be a very wealthy, unhealthy person. For all to admire at how much I’ve lost in such a significantly accelerated motion.  You’d know the day it began. If you we were paying attention.

I marvel at my own response to the sudden regard. I feel like at least something “good” came out of suffering, even if I was to be turned inside out, and any person, reasonable or not, would be repulsed by what I looked like on the inside: a soul that no longer soars, but who’s wings have been clipped; a mind that is stroked with obsessive thoughts of yesterday’s singular mistake; a diseased liver; blacken suffocated lungs; and a broken heart that can’t even catch every other beat.

Oh yes, I’m very happy to be thin!