Zipping through life

I should be speech-writing, packing, doing a number of other things but blogging. But whatever. I'll sleep when I'm dead (as the song says).

On Saturday, I put another check mark on the list of things to do in the Summer of Cindy. Ziplining.

I should start by saying I have a terrible fear of heights. The other phobia that would prevent a sane person from doing this is my fear of breaking things. I've always been very careful not to test things that might not bear my weight. I still have that going on in my head to a great extent, needing to remind myself of my 225-pound weight loss.

Erich, my brother-in-law Robert and I headed to the local ski hill, Chicopee, to get this thing done. I went online to find out information about the zipline and discovered there was a 275-pound weight limit. Definitely something I wouldn't have been able to do pre-op.

When we got there, they strapped us in our harnesses right away and off we went to the top of the hill. There are people movers, like you find in airports, for a lot of the trip but it's still a fair hike, especially at the very top when you have to climb several flights of stairs. I was breathing a bit hard but not overwhelmed or anything. I recovered in a few seconds. I consider myself to be in pretty good shape at this point.

They position you in front of two gates. Two people can go down the hill at once. Erich videotaped while Rob and I went first. I have to tell you I was ok till I got up there and looked down over the valley. Whoa. Then the guy opened the gate for me. There are four steps that lead to nowhere. Literally.

I had to laugh. I mean...there was nothing else to do! What the hell was I doing?? It was just funny to me that I was even considering doing this. The guy told us it was sometimes better if you sit down on the next to last step and scoot off rather than just jump into nothingness. So Rob and I elected to sit. Rob has height issues, too, so he was conquering a phobia himself. We sat down and Rob started counting "Ok, Cindy! Here we go! One...two..."

I yelled "WAIT! NO NO WAIT!" LMAO! Not quite ready. We sat there a few more seconds and Rob just pushed off. So I followed him. I hurt my throat screaming on the way down. I'm just saying. That feeling of 'Ok, I'm jumping off a cliff and trusting this wire to keep me from hurling towards the earth to certain severe injury if not death.' Again, I have major issues with worrying about things bearing my weight.

At the bottom of the hill is a huge spring that stops you. OMG, that is a shock! If you're little it's probably not so bad but man, I crashed into that thing full boar and it took my breath away.

Erich has no height issues or weight-bearing fears so he just jumped full speed ahead. On our second jump, I videotaped him and you can hear him screaming "YEEE-HAAA!!!" He had a blast.

Here we are. Watch it and have a laugh. When I'm videotaping Erich, there were three teenage girls in line behind me and they were starting to freak out a bit. It's them you hear chattering when he's getting ready to jump.



My second jump was much less traumatic and I was able to enjoy it more. Talk about a feeling of weightlessness! It was pretty cool. I would definitely do it again!

Tomorrow Erich and I travel to Detroit for my induction into the Centurion Club, where I'll have to give a short speech. We're supposed to say a few words about how the surgery has changed our lives and talk about how we plan to keep the weight off. I dreamed about my speech the other night so I woke up and wrote it out in about 10 minutes. I'll tweak it tonight and we'll see how it goes! Wish me luck! Public speaking is right up there in my top five nightmare-inducing things to do. So if I pull this off without making a total idiot of myself, that'll be another thing to check off the list that I didn't think I could do pre-op. Then on Wednesday I have my one-year check-up with Dr. Genaw.

The past year has just been incredible. I'm not finished yet. :)

Fabulous freedom at 40

We're gonna be in the poor house by the end of the summer! And it's all my weight loss angel's fault.

I find I want to get out and enjoy all the things that life has to offer. Everything I couldn't do before I want to dive into now. I want to see, experience, feel, touch...soar and SWEEP! Out with the old life and in with the new. I worry I'm overwhelming my poor husband with the 'I want to do this' stuff. And yes, it all costs money. But this is my coming-out party. My summer of Fabulous Freedom at 40. LOL!

- Zip lining. Yep, you read that correctly. There's a ski resort in our town and during the summer they offer zip lining. My brother-in-law and I are ready, man. When they open, we're there. We're both afraid of heights and this is another thing that I would NEVER have considered doing at 444 pounds (they probably wouldn't have let me on the thing, even if I wanted to!). Should be interesting.

- Camping. I mentioned this a couple blogs back. Erich and I are going for our anniversary next month. Now, camping IS cheap but it still costs money. The last time we went it was pretty bad. My knees had just started really acting up and I could barely walk. This time, we're gonna hike all over the place.

- Nashville! Erich and I are going to Bo's fan club party during CMA Fest (aka Fan Fair) in June. I've been to Nashville twice but have never been sightseeing. There was never time and besides, I couldn't have walked around downtown anyway. On this trip, I will with no problems. Oh yeah!

- We're not totally sure, but think we will be taking a trip to Utica, NY the weekend after CMA Fest to see Bo perform there. We have friends near there and may not be able to resist the temptation. We'll have to see if there's any money left after Nashville! LOL!

- Bon Jovi/Kid Rock concert! I am going to see two of my all-time favorite performers TOGETHER live!! My friend Randi scored us awesome 7th row seats, right behind the pit. I am so psyched I can't even tell you! This is in July and should be a really good one-year post-op anniversary present to myself. I will not worry about walking all over downtown Toronto. I won't be worried about fitting into any seats. I will just be having a good time. I can't wait. Randi has also had gastric bypass so she is looking forward to all this stuff, too. We are AWESOMENESS. That's what we keep telling ourselves! LOL!

- Annual trip to Ohio for my family's reunion. This time, we're going to Kings Island and Cindy will, for the very first time, get on a roller coaster. I couldn't fit on one before and I was always afraid it would screw my back up anyway. And there was the fear of heights thing. But now, my back is pretty much a non-issue and I think I'll be ok to put the roll bar down. The last time I was there, I was so hot I thought I might pass out plus I had to rent a scooter because I couldn't walk around. And I ended up breaking the damn thing. I was 32. Haven't been back since. Ridiculous. No scooter this time and lord knows I don't get hot like I used to.

This may not sound like much but to us, this is a big summer planned!

There are little things, too, that I take the time to experience now that I can. Like today for example. I went on my daily 30-min. walk/jog and decided to go to a local park. The entrance to this park is something I can see when I look out my kitchen window but I have never been to. You have to walk down a pretty steep hill to get to it and I have just never bothered. Isn't that awful? Now that the weather is nice, today I thought I'd go down there and walk around. So I did. There's playground equipment, of course, a slide and swing set. No one was around.

Could I get on that swing set? That might be fun. I never would've considered doing THAT 200 pounds ago. I would be afraid it would break or that I couldn't get my ass into the seat in the first place. I never would've even tried it at all.

I look at the seat. Hm. Maybe. I sit down (HEY! I fit!) gently, as if I'm still concerned my weight will break it somehow. I look up at the steel hooks securing the chains to the top of the frame. Not even creaking or anything. Ok. I lift my feet up and sway back and forth, slowly at first then I push myself. Higher and higher. I close my eyes and feel the sunshine on my face, the cool breeze blowing against me. I lean back and just let the motion of the swing carry my body through space. It was so freakin' awesome I can't even tell you. 'I Gotta Feeling' is playing on my mp3 player and feels like fate. I stayed on that swing for a good 15 minutes. This is what freedom feels like.

And I ain't stopping now!