So the social media thing du jour is something called the “Decade Challenge,” wherein one is called upon to post side-by-side photos of one taken a decade apart. I always enjoy seeing my friends’ social media posts; for all of the criticism social media gets, it still makes me happy to see my friends out and about, excited enough about their lives (or maybe even just a particular moment in time) to post something. As I scrolled through my news feeds on Friday, I found myself pausing briefly at each #DecadeChallenge post just a little longer than the usual swipe, taking an extra moment to look at the physical changes that happen over a decade.
For the majority of my friends, the decade that has transpired since 2009 is our 30s. Most of the people closest to me are, more or less, right around 40 in 2019. And to be honest, the physical changes between the two photos aren’t usually all that dramatic. My friends are uniformly beautiful people; whether I see them every week or a couple of times a year or once a decade, they always seem to look the same to me. For better or worse, I tend not to notice weight fluctuations, updated wardrobes, more salt than pepper in their hair or a more rapidly retreating hairline. Can we still laugh together? Do you still like good wine? Then we’re good.
My “Decade Challenge,” however, is a little different. My 2009 photo was taken while Hubs and I were on vacation in Mexico. I remember that trip very well. It had been ill-timed – shortly after I’d booked it, a judge had scheduled a trial in one of my cases to begin in Dallas the Monday after I returned. I didn’t have to cancel the trip, but getting out of the office the day of departure was…challenging. At any rate, Hubs and I had a week at an all-inclusive, adults-only resort where the patio just outside our room led directly into a pool. The occasional trip to the business center for last-minute trial prep notwithstanding, it was paradise, and I loved every second of it.
My 2019 photo was taken the day of the spring concert for my community band. I was excited that day because the theme of that concert was “Wind Band Classics,” all music written specifically for concert bands, as opposed to transcriptions of pieces originally composed for a symphony orchestra. I’m wearing my favorite formal concert dress and was having a good hair day. That concert was some of my band’s best work to date.
What stands out the most between the two photographs, however, is not the context or the stories behind them. It’s the 100+-pound difference between them. I don’t think I knew my weight at that time in 2009. But I can tell you exactly what it was on that day in May 2019. Because one of the changes that happened between 2009 and 2019 is that I finally put myself in the driver’s seat and took the wheel away from my lifelong struggle with my weight. The physical difference is obvious; I can’t hide it, so I’ve chosen instead to embrace it.
Over the last few years, I’ve taken an interest in studying the reactions to my weight loss from people I’ve known for a long time. In other words, people who have known me “before” and “after.” One word I hear a lot is “transformed.” A colleague with whom I’ve worked closely since 2012 uses that word all the time to describe my weight loss.
I have mixed feelings about that term “transformed” because it implies more than just a physical change. On the one hand, I guess it’s sort of true. There’s a lot of stuff, beyond just the physical, that’s different about me post-weight loss. I dress differently – because I can rock clothes I never thought I could before. I don’t feel like I’m being judged adversely because of my size or appearance anymore, so I’ve found myself being more extroverted and comfortable in social situations, even around people I don’t know. I think I generally hold my head a little higher when I walk into a room. And I think people who know both “before” and “after” me notice subtle changes like that, even if they can’t quite put their fingers specifically on what they are. I suppose “transformed” is as good of a catch-all word as any to capture those changes.
Other long-time friends have a very different take. One friend told me a few months ago, “Sure, you look different, but you’re still the same pulled-together person I met 20 years ago.” Another, “Your weight loss is impressive, but it’s not even remotely the most interesting thing about you.” To these women, whom I love like sisters, the physical change you see in these two photographs is just superficial; only one piece of the pie I don’t eat anymore.
This perspective is a little more comforting to me. I mean, I didn’t have a personality transplant, for God’s sake. I didn’t get an IQ lift or a sense-of-humor augmentation. I’m still me.
So I battle with words like “transformed.” Have I, really?
But maybe the more nuanced reaction should be, “Haven’t we all?”
Photographs are deceptive that way. The roadmap of our lives over the course of a decade is rarely written across our faces or our bodies in a way that others can see. We can’t look at two photographs taken a decade apart and see the smooth paved roads we traveled, or the rough gravel paths, the detours, or the hairpin turns. They don’t show the times we drove, white-knuckled, through blinding rain, or had to pull over to ask directions, or took a wrong turn, or took a moment to breathe in a scenic overlook.
Sure, my photos show the obvious physical change I’ve made over the last decade, but they don’t show anything else. They don’t show how ten years’ worth of problem solving and hand-holding and negotiating and maneuvering have changed me as a legal counselor; they don’t show the way ten years’ worth of laughter and teamwork and exploration and joy and stress and grief and mistakes and hurt have changed my marriage.
Whether the last decade of life has fundamentally “transformed” us or just tweaked us in subtle ways that we can’t quite describe, experience always changes us. And whether we can see those changes in pictures or not, we owe it to ourselves to examine them and keep learning about ourselves.
After all, some say change is the only constant we’ve got.
Lawyer At Lunch 