A night out on the town!

In 2005......

That's me.....in the white sweater....dancing????

That's me and my friend Judy hanging out.....

In preparation for a dear coworker's retirement party, the office has been all a-flutter pulling old pictures to put together a scrapbook.
Although it's been fun to recall those memories and see those smiling faces and relive those good times and laugh at some of our crazy antics, the pictures themselves can be rather jarring.
Yes, I realize that most people look at old pictures of themselves and wonder--what the hell was I thinking....with that hair cut? wearing that shirt? yadda, yadda, yadda---I always find myself a wee bit horrified by what I really looked like.....so many pounds ago.
Here's a fun fact: these particular pictures were not taken at the height of my obesity.
I was more than likely about 25 pounds less than my highest weight.  
Weight loss surgery was the furthest thing from my mind.
Based on the year and month these pictures were taken, I am pretty sure it was during one of my forays with accepting my weight and learning to adjust to being big and....ah-hmm... beautiful.  
One of the things that struck me as I went through the pictures from that night was the fact that I did not have a manicure.  I thought I always had a perfect manicure. 
As silly as that sounds, the fact that I did not have a manicure made me very sad.
It made me realize that in that period of time, I gave up.  
I gave up on me.  I gave up on the things that made me feel good about myself.
I'm utterly shocked.  
Saddened and shocked. 

Before deciding to post these pictures and write about them on my blog today, I looked at them many, many times--asking myself....  how did  I get to that point? 
Perhaps I will never know the true answer.
Perhaps it was just all part of the journey that took me to where I am today.
And, perhaps that should be good enough.
And, perhaps knowing that I have the memories of fun times with great friends trumps all the other feelings that come along with looking at pictures of myself that make me go....UGH.