Laurel, not hardy

Somebody once said that the wrong thing to do with one´s laurels was rest on them.
Another thing one shouldn´t do, it seems, is leaving them outside in winter. I had been trusting the information I had, namely, that the cherry laurel bush I have on my balcony, was winter-hardy and would not mind it if things got cold. What with the siberian cold that has been holding all of Europe in its grip these days, that seems to have been too optimistic. Yesterday I went out on the balcony to look after the plants, and the cherry laurel is frozen stiff. I brushed it with the edge of my coat, and immediately a couple of leaves came off, brittle as glass. So, if I´m lucky I´ll be able to cut it down in spring and allow it to grow back up from the roots, but most likely, it´s a goner. As for the buxus, it doesn´t yet show signs of advanced frostbite, but with temperatures dropping to something like twenty degrees centigrade below zero every night, that, too, may be deceiving.
It makes me glad that at least my two oleander bushes are well and warm inside, which was also what DH and myself were over the weekend.
The enforced rest has been doing both of us good, I think.
Unfortunately, it also meant being too close to the refrigerator, so, I allowed myself to be tempted by a package of vanilla-flavored yoghourt, and some rye bread with cheese and sausages. This morning, I got my just deserts for just desserts, to a tune of a four-pound gain in two days. Most of that, of course, would be water. Still, it means that these last weeks, on average, I have just been maintaining, and the limit of obesity is as far off as ever.
I wonder if the unusual vanilla-lust means that I am once more sabotaging myself. At every  approaching milestone, my weight has been plateauing for several weeks, and I have found it difficult to stick to my plan. Once the milestone was past, things went smoothly until I approached the next one.
Which brings me back to the fact that just condensing off those pounds isn´t enough. I also have to think about what they mean for me, what unconscious motivation I could have to hang on to them. And I have to find something to motivate me instead of the threat of that now-past family celebration looming over me.
One great motivator, for me, is seeing my own reflection wearing something form-fitting and realizing I´m no longer The Blob. What with MIL´s fur parka, I have been looking like a giant furball on legs for some days now. It really is time it got warmer, and I could return to more shapely apparel. Then again, I know that just two years ago, I couldn´t even wear that parka because it wouldn´t close over my extra baggage, so, that furball look still means there´s less of me, even with that uptick over the weekend.
So, now that the vanilla stuff is gone, it´s back on plan. I only hope that means going on below that limit of obesity soon.
Even if I´ll have to redefine myself then.
It´s a strange feeling to be so close to the point where the one defining criterion I had for over ten years when describing myself will no longer apply. Perhaps that was the mistake, that I let my obesity become the most important thing about me in my own eyes. I was Julia, and I was morbidly obese.
I was -and am-also a loving wife, accomplished cook, good friend, able professional, music-lover, caring DIL.
The fact that I had to pause and think for a moment to list  these up tells a lot about the way I have reduced myself for too long, as if the fact that I was fat cancelled out everything else about myself that might be positive. Talk about fat hatred. I didn´t need the external haters, I was doing too good a job of putting myself down. And now I have to find out about those parts of me that got smothered under layers of fat.
Like any archeological dig, that can only be done layer by layer.
But perhaps there´s some treasure to be found under all that debris, after all.


Julia