Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish (20 page)

Or however long it takes. Because I might not be the fastest or the best at everything I do, but that is not going to stop me anymore. I will not bury my talents (parable of the talents) just because they might not be as big or bright as someone else’s. I will not cut my efforts short just because it’s apparent that I won’t win. Everything is worth finishing. And as long as I do the best I can and give all that I am, then I will be successful in whatever I do—regardless of how I stack up against anyone else.

Let’s be honest. Sometimes the electricity goes out in my brain, or that little epiphany lightbulb burns out for a minute. I cannot be perfect. I can’t even live my own philosophy perfectly. I’m going to make mistakes, and that’s okay. Because I am in the driver’s seat, I will take responsibility for that, then choose to initiate that little spark of correction or put in a new lightbulb. But my faults are not the end of the world, and I don’t have to beat myself up about them. The sun will come out tomorrow and all that jazz.

I’m not ashamed of who I am anymore. I am a collector of finisher medals. Some are going to be real, because even as I’m writing this, I have begun training for another marathon. (I think it’s like childbirth; after a little time you forget the pain of labor or, in this case, training.) Others will be symbolic like the necklace my sister gave me. It is the symbol that I survived a very tough time with my daughter. Then there are the medals I create in my mind that stand for all the other things I do. These are the ones that keep stacking up, building a mountain inside of me—the mountain that I stand on and look at the world and its possibilities. It’s getting so high I can barely see the wall of failures I had built below.

B
etsy Schow accidentally changed her life while trying to wish away her fat. After losing seventy-five pounds in a year, this stay-at-home mother of two and “former fat person” is now a finisher. She lives in northern Utah with her husband and attempts to keep her two small children in line while writing, training for the next marathon, and finishing up a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science and English.