I've never had real girlfriends before. Truthfully, I've never had friendships
of any kind. Not that others didn't want to befriend me, but I was so wrapped up
in my own head that I couldn't see it. Couldn't respond to it. Wouldn't even acknowledge
that it was possible.
Then, something changed inside of me. Partly because of years of therapy, partly
because of Richard influencing me to lose weight, partly because I couldn't go on the way
I was. And I lost weight and joined Richard's Clubhouse, and found Beth and Claudia and
Vennie. Women who, without Richard and his web site, I never would have known existed.
Between us, I think we have lost around 600 pounds. And maintained that loss within
reasonable boundries. We've laughed and cried and adjusted our mindsets to our new
realities together. We were lucky enough to find each other at around the same
points in our weight loss journeys, and were experiencing the same astonishment at how
the world didn't work the way we had thought it did, all at the same time. It didn't matter
that Beth was an East Coast Girl, Claudia lived in Florida, Vennie hailed from the MidWest, and
I was located in Los Angeles. Richard introduced us, and our common experiences bound us
together in a way that few can know.
In 2006, Richard held his first Retreat at Slimmons. I met Vennie during
the filming of his PBS Special a month earlier, but had never met Beth and Claudia. Vennie
was staying in a hotel near Slimmons, and Beth & Claudia were going to stay with me.
(All these arrangements were made before we met and knew we liked Vennie.) We picked Vennie up every day and my, what adventures we all had! Between the retreat
itself, and our agenda between sessions, I don't think we stopped running and seeing things
and laughing the whole weekend. And we named ourselves The Fab Four.
We were fabulous together. None of us had ever had anyone pay us
any individual attention before that weekend. Ever. But we became the It girls. We felt
like we were Cheerleaders in high school. Everyone was watching us. We knew it.
And we loved every moment of it! It wasn't like we planned it or anything. It's just
that we kind of glowed when we were together. We were having fun - like in the times
of our lives - and nobody could miss it.
And we realized that that's the reason that the Cheerleaders were the envy of everyone
else around. What the big secret was. It wasn't that they were that brighter or more beautiful or
better than everyone else, even though we thought it to be true at the time.
That was just our own value set applied to them in our youth. The truth was that we were jealous, plain and simple. We thought
they were evil. We were wrong.
They were simply determined to have fun and were not going to let anyone deter
them from getting the most out of life. And that's what we did, together, last year.
We had fun. And we didn't let anyone or anything stop us. We did not take time to
be sad or depressed, or terribly introspective. We simply had a ball.
Now Richard is having yet another Retreat at Slimmons. And the Fab Four is
reuniting! This time, we are all staying at my home, even Vennie. I have no idea
how I am going to accomodate us all plus Cosmos, plus Sunny, but we'll figure it out.
We're sooo looking forward to meeting many of the webbies that we've chatted with and
gotten to know from Richard's site over the past year. And to spend time with them at
the retreat.
But I know that the best of all will be during our down times at my condo.
Because we are going to have simply a fabulous time together! We are going to have fun.