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What is it about weight loss in America that we treasure so much? Girls re-create themselves into skeletons for it. People read blindingly small little charts and ingredient listings every time they buy food. They toss around relative words like "serving size" and stress if they enjoy more than their alloted 12.5 potato chips. They drink brown chalk twice a day (calling it a meal), or give up carbohydrates until they slip into ketosis. All for a smaller number on the bathroom scale. It's considered the epitome of self-control and all that is good and right with the world. (Okay, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but not much.)

I have lost 30 pounds since leaving for college. Now, on most girls this is a huge change. For me, it's a comfy fraction that could use expansion. But I do feel really good. I didn't need Slimfast or a strict diet, I just stomped up and down four flights of stairs several times a day last semester, and walked half a mile to and from classes this semester. The unintentional exercise did wonders for my couch potato self, especially since I spent last summer literally on my patootie, working on DCMI and occasionally making McD's runs when I got sick of sandwiches from home.

When the new athletic center was built, an extra eighty dollars was added to our tuition for its "usage fee." I decided, if I'm paying for it, I'm going to use it, and I use the stationary-bike and the arm cycle thingy three times a week. It's a great way to relieve stress and read copious homework at the same time.

People keep telling me I look nice. Granted, I'm not gorge-amous yet. I still wear a size 14 or 16, and if you saw me and my 5'9", big-boned self you'd understand. But somehow, knowing I'm thinner makes me happier than any other accomplishment I've ever achieved, including my improvements in singing and finishing DCMI (although if someone agreed to publish it, that statement would change).

Why does weight loss have to be equated with happiness? Why does it really matter what number is on the inside of my jeans? What value does a cuter butt possess, anyway? True beauty is on the inside, right? And a guy who's really important will love me for who I am, whether my figure is an hourglass or a sundial. But I feel so good.

People have told me to ignore the source of my happiness and just enjoy it. :) That would be the most logical tack, wouldn't it? Especially since the combination of fewer pounds and higher levels of happy makes my energy shoot through the roof, thus making it even easier to keep moving and keep losing weight.

But still, I worry. If I begin to gain the weight back once the lazy summer comes along and I'm 200 miles away from the athletic center, will I slip back into bitterness, or will I maintain my chipper attitude? I think we can all guess the probable answer to that question.

Looking back, this has been the hardest year of my life. I've encountered separation from everything I knew for the past 17 years, stress, date rape, heartbreak, suicide attempts, drunkenness (and the ineveitable hangover), sleep deprivation, and last Friday I took a nose-dive (literally) off my upper bunk bed and now resemble a crash victim who walks like an old lady.

But this has also been the best year of my life. Because I dealt with it. All of it. And I had friends to help me when I began to feel that it might be too much. I realized how good I am at finding the bright side, and keeping on no matter what (hey, I have swollen split fish-lips and deep rugburn patches on my face, but I don't have a smashed nose, missing teeth, or broken bones- that's what I get for being a hefty German chick). I realized not how strong I could become, but how strong I've been all along. I should consider that my personal miracle, not some piddling 30 pounds.

But I still giggle when I pull on my size 14 stretchy flarelegs and remember how I looked in the Disneyland vacation pictures from last summer. I still throw back my shoulders, stand at profile and pat my stomach, squealing, "I'm so skeee-ny!" Ugh.

So call me shallow. I guess perspective will have to come later.

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