All Weight Limits Lifted at Midnight

                                               
                                                 I ain't talkin' Cinderella, here!

"All weight limits lifted at midnight" used to be the cry heard round the quad every Thursday night when I was in college in the - ahem - late 1970s..  Thursday night was the big party night and many a young buck with an alcohol level that should have rendered him comatose would encourage his fellow young bucks that if they hadn't scored with a woman by midnight, the "big girls" were then allowed into the arena of possible hook-ups.  No questions asked the following morning.

As someone at or near my normal weight back then I would always laugh along with my fellow partiers.  Lowering the bar when things became too hard was a novel approach back them.  Not so much these days.  Limbo classes abound as the race to the bottom intensifies in arenas such as politics, education, civility, life in general.

Unfortunately, I too have lowered the bar on my own personal standards.  Always generally within 10-15 pounds of my normal weight, 35 years is a long time to keep reaching a new low by my weight reaching a new high.  It all started rolling downhill after I got married - you know the old saying," Once you've caught the bus, you can stop running."  So tomorrow I'm having lunch with a friend from those college daze who hasn't seen me since then.  I almost feel like I have to fire a warning shot to let him know not to choose a booth seat should  he arrive at the restaurant first.  I am already cringing at the thought of the impending double-take and the eyebrow raise that temporarily becomes part of his hairline.  Wearing black and hoping for a dimly lit room will only get me so far.  Granted, I doubt he's been on the cover of GQ in all those years but still, most folks I'm reconnecting with are still making the best of what metabolism they have left. 

I've moved back to the area where I grew up after living out of state for the past 30+ years and haven't seen a lot of these friends since I was literally almost half my size.  To say I am anxious about my appearance grossly understates my feelings.  But...I can't hide forever.  I can't keep living this life of limits.  Tomorrow will be the figurative pulling off of the bandaid.  And then, again as my new saying goes, "All weight limits imposed at midnight" on New Year's Eve.  Again.