Point of Beginning

I haven't slept tonight.  At all.  It's currently 4:24 a.m., which I believe qualifies as "this morning" as opposed to "tonight," especially considering Sous Chef's alarm is set to go off in six minutes.

I had an extra cup of coffee at work today (oops, yesterday).  This is the reason why I found myself sitting at my computer at 3:00 a.m., working on freelance assignments instead of cuddled next to My Three Favorite Mammals.

While browsing online, I found out that our County Executive, Ken Ulman, issued the "Ulman 1000" earlier this month, to encourage 1000 county residents to join CPS-3, a major cancer prevention study.  Basically, participants give a little blood at the beginning, and commit to filling out a survey every couple of years for the next two or three decades of their lives - all in the name of research.

I happily signed up, and since it's not like I'm sleeping any time soon, I decided to go ahead and complete the initial 45-minute survey.

One of the first series of questions was:

1. What is your highest weight ever?
2. What is your current weight?
3. What weight were you at age 18?

I instantly knew the answer to the first and last questions; I was at my highest weight when I was 18.  When I started college, I joined the crew team and immediately lost 30 pounds, and for nearly 15 years I have prided myself on being able to say, "I weigh less than I did in high school."

And then I stepped on the scale.

My pride is officially gone.  My last scrap of denial - thinking that at least I wasn't as heavy as I was in high school - has vanished.

The number on the scale was the same.  Exactly the same.  The same number I read on the scale when I was 18 and weighed myself in my freshman dorm room, before the first crew practice.

The same number.  That number.

I'm taking a course in real estate, and just yesterday I learned about metes-and-bounds.  It's a way of surveying a piece of land - figuring out whose land is whose.  It always starts at what is defined as the "Point of Beginning".  From there, it can take any number of twists and turns, over boulders and brooks, curving and swerving wherever the boundaries of the land take it.  But it always ends back at the original Point of Beginning.  That's how you know the property is completely encompassed.

I accidentally encompassed myself.

I know I will bounce back; I will come up with a plan, I will take steps, I will move forward.  It won't always seem this bleak.

But this is what's gnawing at me; this is the thought that won't let me go: This is the very thing I've been afraid of; of ending up exactly where I started, all those years ago, all those meal plans and workouts and goals and mistakes and triumphs ago.  As if it has all been for absolutely nothing.

That's how it feels right now.  I'll let you know when it feels better.