And Now, a Little (Lotta) Backstory.

So...hi.

I'm Jahaira.

That's jah-HIGH-rah, for those of you who will unintentionally (but alas, inevitably) mispronounce it in your mind.

There's probably a much snappier, punchier way to rope someone into reading this blog, but since neither snap nor punch have ever been my strong suits, maybe I should just lay some framework here. Let's start by telling you what this Mission (henceforth to be known as MSAPF) is not.

MSAPF is not the melodramatic whining of yet one more obese woman whose husband left her because she was too fat, who can't play with her kids, who can't stand being seen in public, who can't, can't, can't, ad nauseum. MSAPF is not about my quest to whittle myself down into roughly the size of a Dixon No.2 and blow you all away with my gently retouched Auschwitz-esque figure memorialized on-screen in a designer bikini. MSAPF is not a pass-the-buckathon blaming my weight on my mother (well, mostly), my exes, or my life in general. Sorry, it's my cross, and I'm gonna jog with it. OK, maybe I'll powerwalk with it, but there will be some movement involved here, people. Which probably should bring me to what MSAPF is.

MSAPF is me. A girl who is pretty much the life of any party she's at. A girl who commands respect with the kind of presence that only the internally fragmented can manufacture, who entertains almost everyone she's around with acerbic wit and one-liners that would've made Jackie Mason retire before he ever got started, and who's got the ever-faithful sidekick role down to a fucking science.

But inside, she's dying.

Inside, I'm dying.

Dying because I have no recollection of the exact moment when my health no longer became a factor in my day-to-day existence. Dying because I know a girl 5 years younger than me and at least 60 pounds lighter than me who had her leg amputated above the knee due to diabetes. Dying because I now live in a city with far more subway stations than elevators, so I'm praying just to make it up the steps to the above-ground landing on W.4th. Dying because I have honestly wondered if I could get one of those Rascal© scooters because I'm losing mobility in my legs. Dying because tying my own shoes is something I have to internally psych myself up for.

Dying because I'm afraid that if I don't do this, I really will die.

I'm afraid. So unbelievably afraid. I'm afraid of what that scale is going to tell me after years of politely but firmly asking every nurse who ever weighed me not to read the number out loud. Looking straight at the faux-stucco ceiling so that I wouldn't see a number which I knew would only depress me, and make me want to go home and carb my cares away. I'm afraid because in about a week, I'm going to the doctor's to be weighed, just to have a starting number for me (you, us together) to go on. Yes, I will post it here. And yes, I'll be breathing into a paper bag as I do. But I refuse to bullshit my way through this project, so brutal honesty will be the order of the day. Or year. Whatever.

By the way, did I mention that I have a propensity to not finish anything that I start? Yeah, there's that, and the fact that I smoke like a chimney and curse like a drunken sailor. Just so everything's out on the table at once here.

Now I'm depressed. Enough to sleep, but not enough to eat. Maybe that's a good sign.