Today was an epic day. At last I see the light….between my thighs.

Lemme explain.

At my office, we have a handicapped accessible bathroom that has a mirror designed for someone in a wheelchair, so it tilts down. The mirror reflects my image from my knees up to almost the top of my head.

Today, when I was washing my hands, I looked up and saw light shining back at me through my upper thighs that I hadn’t seen in 10 years. No, make that nearly 20 years. When I am standing, my legs are now two separate entities, not one mashed together tree-trunk-like structure. I can hardly believe it.

It seems appropriate that I have seen this kind of weight loss milestone in my legs because these are the appendages that have logged over 400 miles of running since I started this journey. Although it’s cliché, I do feel like the muscles that have propelled me all those miles are starting to break out of their fat cocoon and emerge as a much prettier butterfly.

In fact, I’m starting to feel that way about myself. I don’t know if it’s because spring is in the air and I’m wearing less bulky clothing, but my silhouette is looking surprisingly small to me. I sometimes catch my reflection in the glass windows of our offices at work, and I don’t recognize it as my own. It belongs to a more “normal” sized person. I need to readjust my brain that I am a normal sized person now. I’m wearing a size 10 jeans today. In my mind, I know that’s not a fat girl size, but I then tell myself that they are making sizes bigger now, and I really won’t be satisfied until I fit into my jeans from high school. Which luckily I saved by the way, in a box marked Halloween, since I was a teenager in the 80s and that means my old clothes are now a costume.