Did you ever see that ad about fleas? A flea can jump, I dunno, but say 10 foot. Now if you put that flea in a box 6 inches high, the flea gets used to the idea that they can only jump 6 inches. When you take that flea out of the box, the flea never jumps higher than 6 inches again in their life.

I've been like that flea. For many, many years, I thought that being fat didn't hold me back in life. If someone had asked me to list the things I'd want to do if I lost weight, I'd have told them that there was nothing. Sounds like a good attitude, doesn't it?

Trouble was, I was lying to myself. There are so many things in life that I have mentally added to a "not for me" list in my head, so that the concept that I could actually do those things never occured to me.

It wasn't just that "fat people don't do those things" or "that's just for thin people" - words my mum would say to me, I've had other limitations on my life for many years as well. When you are a single parent, sometimes the only goal you have is making sure there is food on the table for the rest of the week. You aren't going to go off sky diving or learning to play the mandolin when you are trying to decide which is more important - the phone bill or the electricity. So you put those ideas into the "not for me" file, or the "later" file.

And that's how it starts, I guess. Until you get to the day where even in your dreams with all the limitations gone, the framework of those limitations still exists. Your list of things you want to do was diminished to nothing.

Just lately, some tiny wisps of dreams has been finding their way back into my life. Things that seem stupid or impossible at first until I examine them more closely and ask why. Why can't I do these things? What is holding me back? I'm not a flea, I can change and adapt.

One of those ideas was learning to surf. At first, I thought the idea was really dumb. I'm not just too fat, I'm too old, too everything. Dumb thinking, huh? I did some searching around on the net, and the idea isn't so stupid. There are classes around. Sure I'd probably suck, but who cares? I could be the one out there surfing, not just sitting on the beach tanning myself and watching my boyfriend until he comes in from the surf to demand I get him food. Okay, so that is the plot of Puberty Blues, and not my life. Point is, there is nothing to hold me back. I have the power. My list of dreams will be growing a lot from now on.