Body Amnesia

As I left work the other day.  "Are you loosing weight, sir?" the stranger-woman on the elevator asked me.  "Yes, I am" I responded with a smile as the doors slid open and I began to exit into the parking garage.  "Well, you look great!" she told me.  I had just enough time to get out a sincere, "thank you" before the doors closed.

Then, I began to think.  The conversation with myself started as I walked to my car, continued as I drove home, and finishes, I guess, with this post - HOW FREAKING FAT WAS I?!  I mean really, for a total stranger to notice my weight loss, notice it to the point of commenting on it, means that at some point that same total stranger had to have seen me and said to herself, "damn, that man is HUGE."  Then, as we rode the elevator together, she thought "self, is that the HUGE man we saw a while back?  He looks like he has lost weight - alot of weight - you should say something."

Don't get me wrong.  This woman was sweet and made my afternoon.  But, I have to take pause and ask myself what impression I have been leaving on people.  Now that I have lost so much weight, it is hard for me to remember what my face used to look like.  I forget the curves of my hips and how plump my belly was.  Perhaps it is my minds way of preventing the pain that is caused from loosing my physical identity - I simply don't remember ever looking any differently than I do now.  But, the thought that "gargantuan" is what I was giving off is depressing.  I just have to look forward and hope that in the future, people see me as more of a Denzel than a Marshmallow Man.