Valerie,
Me, one year ago - 30 years old, single mom because of a relationship that didn’t last much past the conception, living in a trailer park, weighing 350 pounds. My mother telling me I needed to lose weight so I could find a dad for my son, and at the same time not wanting me to spend any money on the prospect. Most of my dates only wanted…well, you’ve heard that big women are easy right…no, me neither, though they all apparently had. I had completely given up dating, and hadn’t in several months. I had a good job, luckily, but not a lot of friends, because I am a single mom. My sister had all three of my other sisters, plus my niece stand up with her in her wedding, but didn’t want me to, because “the style of dress she had chosen wouldn’t be flattering for my body type” (In other words, I was too fat)

Me, Today – 31 years old, under 300 pounds for the first time pre-pregnancy (7 years), married to my high school sweetheart, who showed up on my doorstep one day, literally (okay, he called first, but it had been years since we had talked), buying a home with a yard (I actually got to mow my lawn last weekend, it was cool!), telling my mother to kiss my arse, and best of all, making sure that my sister was the FIRST one I asked to have stand up with me, so she could “help me choose a style of dress that would look good on all of my sisters, not just some of them” (she looked very uncomfortable when I said that, but she did apologize.)

I say if you want to give up on finding love, go for it. It usually happens when we aren’t looking for it anyway. But don’t give up on yourself, because you are a great person. Who’s to say that if you started having some confidence in yourself someone wouldn’t take note, and snap you up. But if that never happens, and it doesn’t for some people, you need to be happy enough with yourself to get through the years.

You are a great person, and you don’t need to have a “significant other” to be that great person.

Sorry about the book, sometimes I just can’t seem to get down from that darn soap box!

Ellen