Daydreaming, dieting and dating

The emails continued on with Soldier Boy. Even though he was in Iraq, he remained in constant contact. I would daydream constantly about how our first meeting would go when he returned to the U.S. In these daydreams I was always my perfect version of me: flawless skin, perfect hair and a body to die for. Well, on a good day I have decent skin, my hair is toss up - it is baby fine and requires some serious product for volume - but I could make it happen, the only thing wrong was the bod. It needed serious repair work.

I had to make the daydreams real so in March I made the committment to jump start the weight loss, my choice of diets was the Atkins diet and I started on March 23rd. I lost 12lbs the first week! I was so excited. At the same time I joined a gym. I was starting to finally feel good about myself, my clothes became loose and I started to see that maybe I could win the dieting challenge. I became more focused on losing weight and feeling better and spent less time obsessing over what could happen with the Soldier Boy. By June I was down 20lbs and becoming alternately shy and beaming with pride when people commented on my weight loss.

During this time, I was still in the dating frame of mind. I daydreamed but didn't expect that Soldier Boy would really be for me, I still harbored enough insecurities about myself that I couldn't see it happening. So I joined the internet dating site, the one with the annoying Dr Phil. I attempted the 90 page questionnaire for the eharmony site but was turned off by the types of questions - all seemed slanted toward a religious theme - I am Catholic but I don't practice and I have enough doubt to be classified as an agnostic. So that site didn't seem to be for me. So I put together a sweet, sincere essay about myself and included the only picture of myself that I had available. Now I just sat back and waited for the responses to come pouring in...