2008 Flashback

Today while I was poking around in my Photobucket accounts I found this photo of me from August of 2008:

Note to self:  Strawberry blonde is not my color.
Second note to self: do not get to 380+ lbs again.

It's funny, because I wore that same necklace the other day (it seems so much longer now!)  and a black t-shirt.  In that photo above, I was "dressy casual", acting as a tour guide around Old Town in Albuquerque for friends of mine who had come in from Utah.  Back then, I thought this was a really great photo of me.  I also, for some reason, didn't think I was showing too much cleavage.  I guess percentage-wise it wasn't, but...

Sometimes it's really hard for me to remember me like this... to be able to relate to the woman I was at all.

At the same time, I do remember... I remember being tired all the time.  I remember feeling weak and sick constantly.  I remember when my good days were even worse than my bad days are now.

I remember enough to not want to go back.

I have set the fabulous in me free, and I'm not ever going to bury me under and burden me with all that fat again.

When I look at that photo, I see that my smile doesn't go all the way to my eyes.

It does today.