Okay, so I’m totally going to share this even if it sounds incredibly self-serving.  I share it because it’s a lottery moment, an I-never-thought-that-would-happen-to-me event.

I went to a networking thing last night.  It was a wine-tasting and, because I’d never been to one and didn’t want to look like country comes to town, I went home and changed into an almost cocktail dress before I went to the event.  When I got there, I was WAY overdressed; but, I like the dress, I liked the people there that I’d already met and I was ready to have a little wine and a good time.  I relaxed and began to enjoy myself.

Sitting next to Shelley, who has a wicked sense of humor, I was rolling the entire time!  After the formal part of the event was done, several of us were standing around chatting. Of course, I brought up my blog (since it’s kind of my baby and all) and a woman I had just met said the funniest thing to me!

Y’all ain’t gon’ believe this.

Now, in the South, that sentence usually means that you’re about to hear a story of alien abduction, Aunt Elma’s ghost or some coon dog with supernatural powers.  Not today, friends.  Today, that sentence leads into my very own don’t-hate-me-because-I’m-beautiful story.

While we were chatting, Anita said that she had been all set to dislike me when I walked in on account of I was overdressed and on account of my overdress is pretty flattering. I was THAT woman!  For the first time in my life, I was her!  While we talked she was all like, “Girl, you are wearing the hell out of that dress.” And I was all like, “Girl, you don’t even know! Lemme show you when I was a jumbo-tron.”

Alright, so we’re not 14 and it didn’t go exactly like that, but, at 46 years old, that is exactly how I felt.  I felt like the pretty girl at the dance and, I’m not gonna lie, it was amazing!

Throughout my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to have people who were kind to me and who said uplifting things.  For a multitude of reasons, I didn’t believe them.  I saw only my own shortcomings, faults and less-thans. As Vivian Ward says in Pretty Woman, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”

In the Deep South, we are reared to NOT toot our own horns.  We are NOT to be proud or vain.  Somehow we’ve taken that too far.  I felt like I looked pretty last night and other people thought so, too.  And, let me tell you: it was pretty freaking awesome.

As most things are, there is a fine line between giving myself appropriate credit and being proud, vain or a braggart.  I’m not sure where that line is and when I find it, I’ll let you know.  However, in the meantime, I’ll give myself a little more credit and enjoy that feeling.  This isn’t ultimately about weight loss: it is ultimately about being healthy.  If healthful choices result in some weight loss and if that weight loss results in increased confidence, then both body and mind benefit.

Plus, it’s such a rush to have that moment.  Even if I never have another, it was fantastic and totally worth the work!