I remember when Facebook used to be strictly for college students so they could connect with people in their classes for study help. Now, everyone has them, including my sixteen-year-old cousin, Payton. We are not friends on Facebook - I'm not incredibly close with that side of the family - but Facebook suggested her to me so I was browsing some of her photos. I'm not sure why, but it THREW me into a very emo state.

They say that high school and college are the best years of your life - the times when you don't have too many responsibilities, when you can just be young and enjoy life. I did enjoy life; I enjoyed high school, and college. I had great friends, some amazing experiences, and a few relationships I wouldn't trade for anything. But at the same time, I know my life could have been very different if I had lost weight in middle school, before turning fourteen and moving onto the big leagues, when everything mattered.

I'm 24-years-old, and by no means is my youth over, but at the same time I look back and hate myself for not giving myself the chance to really LIVE when I was younger. My weight held me back, even when I didn't care or even notice - it did. I matured very young and new very early on what things mattered and what things didn't. I knew that being Prom Queen wasn't going to get me into college, that spending summers sun bathing on the captain of the football team's yacht wasn't going to land me a promising career, and that being "that girl" would fade away so fast and only leave behind reality. I knew this, and so it didn't matter to me at the time.

So why in God's name should it matter to me now?

Well. It does. I hate that I may have lost "the best years of my life" to the ever wonderful battle of the bulge. I hate that I became a smart, passionate, level-headed person not because it's the right thing to be but because I had no other options. That's the kind of person you become when you are overweight. It's not a bad thing, but it's not the best way to fall into that lifestyle either. It would have been nice to wake up one morning and think, "You know what? I know I'm beautiful and am leading this teen-movie life, but I think I'm going to focus on my studies and becoming a decent human being instead." Thinking back, I probably would have lived the exact same life actually. I would have chosen choir to cheerleading, quiet get togethers with friends to crazy parties, dating level-headed, respectful guys to conceded, controlling jocks. BUT - it would have been nice to CHOOSE those things. Instead of just... getting them because I was fat.

At this point, if I can successfully make it to goal by my birthday as I'm planning, I will be 25. I will still have five good years of my twenties to enjoy as a healthy, thin, beautiful girl. But I don't know if that will be enough. Will I be satisfied with that? Will I be okay with the fact that the last ten years of my life were spent hiding under this blubbery disguise? Will it all wash away, allowing to only focus on the here and now and future? I don't know. I wish I did. I guess time will tell. Maybe. Ugh... I hope so.