Well, why does anyone. I love food. And eating. I think that's a big reason why I could never succumb to anorexia when I was a late tween struggling with being overweight. I thought about it. If I could just NOT EAT today, I'm sure I will lose at least two pounds. And then if I keep it up I'll be skinny by ____ (insert appropriate seasonal dance here). But in the end food always won out over the fantasy of having Jock Strap Joe standing under my bedroom window in his letterman jacket with a sign that said "I love you Erin. Make me the happiest popular kid in school and go to the dance with me.", and my newly waifish frame rushing down the stairs, into his waiting arms. (Romantic Comedy fan since 1992).
I don't really know where my love affair with calories began. It might be from the way my parents set up our food lives so seperately from theirs. Growing up we had the kid food and the adult food. Kids got Cheerios for breakfast. Mom and Dad had danish and coffee. I know now that it was just danish. But back then it was a forbidden fruit, and that made me even more curious about what was going into my meals, and theirs.
Which brings up another point - my parents knew nothing about nutrition. As kids we were fed macaroni, chicken nuggets and pizza. We had donuts for breakfast on the weekends, and candy on a fairly regular basis. I understand why - my mother had four of us at one time, and any kind of money/ time saving trick was helpful. Including television, which we were allowed to watch for long periods of time every day.
All of these factors added to why I got fat. I had food curiousity, poor nutritional education, and wasn't pushed to be active. But by the time I hit my 20's I should have been able to take the initiative and educate myself. Except I didn't. Which leads to the real reason why let food and eating take over my life.
It took me some time to work this out on my own. Hours of self analyzation as I laid in bed every night, full but still somehow empty. I was struggling with depression. My freshman year of college, the week before I turned 19 my mother walked away from our family. By then I had 5 siblings, and she put up a nasty custody battle for the youngest two so she could avoid paying child support for the next 13 years (the youngest was 5 at the time). At the end of the custody battle my father won, and I remember sitting in the courtroom as my mother's attorney took the court order from the Judge's clerk that talked about visitation with her "6 children every other weekend" and watched her attorney scratch out the number "6" and write in the names of just the two youngest.
At the time it just seemed like another moment that happened within a series of terrible events, and I pushed it out of my head. Three years later my mom tried to get back in contact with me. I was a senior in college at that time, heavy but no where near my rock bottom weight, and ended up meeting her for dinner a few times, thinking that she was finally realizing what she was missing out on. After six months of dinners, she asked me if I would testify against my father in court, on her behalf. Shocked, I of course said no, and she followed by telling me I would be subpoenaed if I didn't cooperate. I left dinner that night and never spoke with her again.
After that I put on weight very quickly. Within a year I put on almost a hundred pounds, although I maintained my friendships and an active social life. What I realize now is that I was not only eating and seeking comfort in food, but I was also using food as a way to stop a situation before it could even start. I was completely shutting myself down from loving anyone by making myself the most undesirable form of what I could be. I was using my fat as a security blanket so I would never have to feel the hot shooting pains of someone you trust have her lawyer scratch you off an order. Someone who you thought would unconditionally love you, severing all ties because they gew tired of the effort it took to maintain a two sided relationship. And while I was doing it to save myself, I know I was also doing it to save others. In the very back of my mind, constantly nagging me was (and still is) the idea that I could hurt someone too.
My mother's DNA makes up half of who I am. I see her mannerisms in things I do every day. I have the same hands and feet as her, the same ability to make conversation with strangers. My hair is the same color, we have the same shaped face. What if I inherited this same personality trait, and one day, long into the future, I too grew tired of the life I had developed with a husband and kids, and I walk away from them? I can say now that I would never do that, but what if? I think my mother had dreams of living a carefree suburban life, with cocktail parties and monthly vacations. Instead she had six children and a homebody husband whom she had to dedicate herself one hundred percent to. What if my family life becomes humdrum for me, and I feel so overwhelmed I just walk away?
So I did something that I have found I do a lot. I didn't deal directly with the problem. I avoided the issue, and ate myself into a life of solidarity and safety. Until I couldn't stand being alone any longer. I was 25 years old, in the prime of my youth, no boyfriend or prospective boyfriend, putting up a happy front for all my friends, as I drowned in pizza and chocolate. I was throwing away my life because I was too scared to deal with it.
And in a moment of rash bravery, I went out and bought a treadmill and slowly got to the point I am at right now. I am tired of letting a fear of the future keep me from living in the present. The mistakes of my mother shouldn't be defining who I am. They should guide me into being a better version of myself, and most importantly I need to realize that her mistake isn't my own. I don't have to follow in her footsteps even though we have the same feet. And one day, in the future, maybe I will find someone that I love and want to spend the rest of my life with him. And I can tell him about my fears, and if I ever do start to get an itch, we can talk about it and work through any problem together. And maybe I won't meet someone. But whatever the case may be, I am not hiding from the future anymore under layers of fat.
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