Tess: Why I Felt Amazing Here

This is a picture of my sister (in white) and me taken in October 2002. We are standing on the city wall at Changsha, China. I weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 280 pounds on this trip. I had been cautioned before going on this trip that I needed to walk walk walk to be in shape enough to just be able to get around in China, since most people walk or ride bikes everywhere.

Before the trip, I was worried about fitting into an airplane seat. We had to catch several connecting flights before we even got on our international flight in LAX, so that meant lots of maneuvering in small spaces and squeezing into small seats. The trip back home would be the same way, with lots of different flights and lots of small seats.

I had a lot of fears that I had to deal with leading up to this trip. Fears of flying, of being out of the country, of a very different culture than what I was used to growing up in the deep south. Fears about how my size would be perceived and reacted to in China. It isn't easy being a woman who is 6' tall and morbidly obese here in the States, but I would be traveling to a country where I would definitely stand out from the norm.

Offsetting all my fears, though, was the knowledge that this was the trip of a lifetime and I couldn't let anything stand in my way. Not my fear, not my weight, not anything. I needed to be able to set aside my fears and reach out and grab as much of the experience as I could, knowing that I would probably never have another opportunity to take a trip like this again.

I will never forget this day. My sister and I were going exploring around the city without my niece (who was living in China at the time and was the whole reason for the trip), armed with a guidebook with phrases that we could point to if we needed something, our backpacks, and our cameras. We took a taxi to the city wall and started exploring the park there. I remember it was a very warm day and it didn't take long for me to start sweating in the sun. I got some amazing shots that day, but this one is one of my favorites. I set my camera's timer, propped it on the city wall, and then ran to stand on the steps next to my sister and get in the shot before the shutter clicked.

It is still amazing to me when I think back on that trip and everything I got to see and experience in my two weeks in China in spite of my weight at the time. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.