Couldn’t sleep. Jones-ing all night for the white stuff. I actually had hunger pains although I know from the calorie counter app on my phone, that I had more than enough calories. Considerably more than enough calories. The hunger was in my head and heart. My stomach was along for the ride, much like a designated driver.
The physical hunger is just the beginning. All these random memories of pain brought on by way weight keep surfacing and I have nothing to push them down with since I can’t eat bread. Nothing like a baguette to force a bad tasting memory down your throat. Nothing like a binge and then a nice full belly to bring on a little amnesia, because as far back as my memory goes, I am fat. And even if my body wasn’t fat, I was inside. I’ve always been fat inside.
And, yes, I say fat like it’s a bad thing. And it was for me. I was the fat filling between a skinny sibling sandwich made by a narcissistic mother. There had always been something inherently missing, a sense that there was something terribly wrong with me and since I was fat, I figured that was the problem. But we lived near a library and it was open after school and during the summer so I sat in a corner of my house, with books and snacks on my lap, while the other kids played outside. There wasn’t anyone around to tell me to go outside and get some fresh air so I breathed in pages of books instead. The stories took away the loneliness and I became someone other than a fat girl. What I loved about books and stories back then, and even now, is there always that moment that changes everything. Every story has its climax where the character gets what she wants or deserves. In the story I wrote for myself, the lonely little girl loses weight, her father comes back, her mother stops taking pills and going to sleep for weeks at a time, the kids stop picking on her, the debilitated triple decker they live in is magically turned into a castle and, of course, they live happily ever after. But it all had to start with losing weight. I still do that, I realized this morning. My happiness hinges on the scale and it’s been that way for as far back as I can remember. I realized this morning that that little girl blamed her weight for all that was wrong, and there was plenty wrong. I realized this morning that the woman I’ve become is still harboring that little girl’s feelings. I realized this morning that I don’t want to do that anymore.