A leap of faith

I wasn't expecting any spots to open up for another month or two within the office spaces I've been courting. As you know, yesterday I got an email telling me that something opened up and to please come look at it because she secretly hoped I would be smitten and choose that location. Smitten I was.

As a morbidly obese woman I am forever concerned with perception and judgements. I try not to let it paralyze me, but at some point during every day (unless I never leave the house) I have a moment of insecurity about my weight and what someone else might think. Throughout the phone calls and emails with the two people that run these creative coops I've been told how well they think I'll fit in, how much they hope I'll love it, and made to feel like I was fabulous (and not in a sales pitch sort of way). When I went to check out these office spaces I was nervous. Nervous that once they met me and saw the 360 pound girl making an entrance all would be lost. I would no longer be the cool designer chick they liked so much. I was more nervous to meet these people, whose world I so desperately wanted to be a part of, than I was to meet the boy taking me to lunch afterwards.

If you are my size you always expect to be the biggest person in the room, but you hope that everyone else in the room is accepting. Here, at this new location, I felt accepted (that's not to say I wasn't at their other location, but it was different). Sarah was late so I was waiting just inside for her. From the second she opened the door she had the biggest smile and was giddy to have me there. She gave me a tour and towards the end I pointed to the spot I wanted and gushed, "I want that spot." She got a huge smile, her shoulders hunched up and her head cowered down and she said, simply, "Yay." Everyone that I was introduced to seemed hugely excited to have me there. It felt like home. I wrote her a check. I can move in Saturday. And so it begins.

It's a right of passage for me. It's a leap of faith. It's believing that I can do anything I put my mind to and it's taking the necessary steps to live the life I've always wanted. My weight has kept me from doing things like this in the past. I've been content to live a life steeped in the belief that I wasn't good enough. That I would fail and it would be somehow ok because, at my size, it's just expected. Well, I am not defined by my weight. I don't fit the stereotype that people lump me into. I am destined for great things because I will bust my ass to get them and always remember the girl that thought she never could.

So, I challenge you to take your own leap of faith. To find something you thought you could never do and prove yourself wrong. Start changing your life one day at a time.