Witnessing a breaking point

You know, if you go to any kind of regularly scheduled, structured meeting, you know what to expect. You know when you'll arrive, you know what the usual motions are, you know when the show will get on the road, and more often than not, you know who will be there.

This rings true for my Saturday morning meeting. There are a few of us that are always there, never choosing to go to an alternate meeting time or location. I like that, because I get to experience this lengthy journey with some very nice people.

When shit happens, you know it. And yesterday's meeting was no exception. We were sitting around waiting for the meeting to start at its usual time, some people were still weighing in. A couple of us had whipped out some knitting (I actually uttered "there's nothing I love more than seeing a purse that isn't mine loaded up with yarn.") and we were shooting the shit about the week.

There's a lady who faithfully attends every meeting, I'll refer to her as "D". Every Saturday morning she sits down front so she can hear, and she loves loves loves our meetings. She has a fantastic husband who does all the cooking with her program needs in mind. Sometimes one of her daughters (also a member) comes with her, and yesterday I wished this had been one of those weeks.

D saw a gain on the scale and D got VERY upset. Not the usual level of frustration that we all tend to show (mine being "ah man, what the fuck?", others showing more class and less swears). She threw her record booklet across the floor and was near tears.

And would you fucking believe that none of the women sitting near her did a goddamn thing to help her out or see what the problem was? So, I put down my knitting, walked over, picked up her book and marched right over to her and did what I could to talk her down. It was a place we've all been to, especially the ladies sitting behind her who have been going to WW since the 1970's.

D had faithfully followed program all week to the letter, and she still went up 1.4. She's been at it for a long time and, in her words, "only lost 26lbs". I put my arm around her and I said "those 26lbs would still be on you if you chose not to make a change, and you know it". It helped her to know that almost everyone in the room gained this week, myself included with a whopping 2lbs. We joked that there was something in the air in that room that made us all heavier this week.

But D was still pissed off, and I told her that it's alright to be mad and frustrated, but you gotta take a deep breath and keep going. Fuck knows I've taken plenty of deep breaths in the past little while, and it's those deep breaths that keep us alive sometimes.

D will be fine. She will go back, do some fine tuning and get back on the path she wants to be on. She needed to vent, she needed a friend, she was at a breaking point (not THE breaking point, just A breaking point, there's a difference). She'll be down front next week, and I will be glad to see her.

We all have a million breaking points in us, some bigger than others. Sometimes those breaking points will change your life, sometimes they will change your mind, sometimes they affect a seemingly tiny change in your life. But they're all important, and we all need them.

Breaking points are always turning points.

And, by the way, fuck those 2lbs I gained. They won't be here for long.

xo
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