Inspiration comes from the strangest places.

I've been in a bit of a weight-loss and training funk lately. Three weeks of lots of work, bad sleep, missed WW meetings, and too much social life has left me decidedly off track. Still, I recommited to making sure that I at least journal and stay within my points this week, and I've been doing OK (i.e., I've actually journaled, but I've eaten a bit too much every day).

I was in one of the local boutiques this morning, trying on some dangly earrings, when a woman sharing the mirror said to me, "those look good on you, you have a nice long neck and can carry them off." I looked at her astonished and thought, uh sure lady. I looked again,at her and saw a compact, trim person, who really did have a short neck. But me, I'm a tallish, round, still fat girl, and I don't have a neck either. All of this is running through my head when she says "you have one of those necks like a ballerina."

Clearly this lady is a lunatic. Ballerinas are long, graceful, slender, willowy, and they do have those lovely swan-like necks. But I'm *nothing* like a ballerina, right? See mental image, above.

When I got home, I went immediately to the bathroom mirror, pulled up my hair, and looked. The weirdest thing about significant weight loss is that your body becomes unfamilar to you in the oddest ways, and sometimes the changes come out of no where. So when I looked in the mirror, I did see a neck. Reasonably long, actually. Not surrounded by rolls of fat, or drowned in multiple chins. Yes, there is still a bit too much chin above, but the fat rolls are gone, and the collarbones are visible, as is the hollow at the base of my throat.

Today, I stayed within my points. And I went running.

Maybe, just maybe, there is a ballerina-like person, fighting her way out. Maybe I *can* be slender and graceful and willowy.