I’ve been obese for the vast majority of my adult life. Even after losing 191 pounds, I am still considered obese.

In my particular case, carrying excess weight for so many years took a hard toll on my body. Sure, there were the usual suspects: high blood pressure, insulin resistance, and the myriad of health issues that eventually caught up with me. But probably the biggest issue I had was the damage done to my knees.

During the years that my knees were decidedly crappy and I was at my heaviest weights (yes, plural, because I have never stayed at one weight for very long, it seems), I coped in various ways. In the past decade or so, I went through three braces; two were DonJoy rigid frame braces that were custom made for my body, and the third (last year) was a different kind of brace that saw me through the rest of the weight I needed to lose before having knee replacements.

In addition, I’ve had canes, a travel (folding) wheelchair (with extra width), and I’ve coped with the restriction to being able to walk very far in a lot of ways that amounted to being able to travel shorter and shorter distances.

Just this past Wednesday, I donated the braces — all three of them — to a local charity thrift store. When I did it, I felt like crying, or changing my mind and taking them back; I just had a really rough time letting go of those particular things. I felt like I was giving away something intensely personal. I don’t have the same attachment to the other disability-related items we still have in the house, but I’ve struggled with why I felt so odd about releasing the braces. Heck, since two of three were custom fit to my formerly short-and-wide self, I’m not sure anyone will ever be able to use them, but it seemed wasteful to me to throw them away if there was the slightest chance of someone else benefiting from them.

Even if I were to reverse my path (please, God, no!) or develop knee problems again (DOUBLE NO!), I could not use these things. They were specifically off-loader braces, and I’m not even sure it’s possible for knee replacements to end up in the same situation that my knees were in before replacement. So essentially, keeping them was total nonsense.

The week before last, I took the cane I’d been using after surgery and tucked it in the back of a closet. I’m not sure why I didn’t just go ahead and donate that, too, except both my husband and I have used that cane during surgery recovery, so I don’t feel like I own it.

It’s hard for me to grasp, at times, that shedding these items is a good thing. I struggle with releasing these things, even though I know that there’s no way I could ever use them, again. Sometimes, I feel like I live a fraudulent life; getting up in the morning and strapping on a leg brace to keep my knee from locking in place was a fact of life up until May 29 of last year.

Most times, I feel like I’ll just wake up from this dream and be back exactly where I was when I started. Lord knows, I did that to myself enough times, sliding backward and regaining not only every ounce of weight but every disability to function that came with it. There’s still a part of me that doesn’t really believe that I’ve accomplished what I have, and that I don’t deserve the rewards I’ve received. I suppose I’ll always keep a little of this with me; being able to remember what my life was like even as recently as last spring, dealing with two belligerent knees, keeps me honest and focused.

Emerging from my disabilities has been my biggest goal in my journey toward health; giving away the things that I used to depend on just to function has been a cathartic recognition that I’ve achieved one of my biggest goals. It takes my breath away at moments like this; I hope I never forget these hard-earned lessons, and remember it every single day.