Continuation

So: back to my rant.

The story thus far: When I was young, all I heard about from my mom was how I needed to watch my weight. How I was already too heavy. How I shouldn't eat X, Y, or Z--regardless of the fact that those were foods she had chosen, portioned, and prepared. Vegetables--in fact, anything vaguely wholesome--were a source of battle--and anyone who's read my writing for very long knows what happens when I'm faced with a battle! And yet despite all this, I didn't really GET fat til I was 22. But all my life--and my friends can tell you this--I always believed I was fat. ("We kept trying to tell you different," Firefly said one time, "but you didn't believe us." But how could I? Mothers don't lie, do they? And they're not....you know, WRONG...)

An aside: how is it that I can reject NEARLY EVERY OTHER THING MY MOM BELIEVES, yet the one thing I can't toss out is the one that affects me most profoundly? Because it plays into my fears, that's why. I can reject, say, her brand of religion because I have never thought I believed the things she does; but because I have always been afraid of being thought of as ugly, I can easily accept the thought that it might be true.

Anyway. From the time I was 22, my weight has fluctuated pretty widely. I was in the low 140's when JP died; however, the minute I quit heroin the weight started coming back. I was a solid size 12 in November of 1995; by the time I came back from Charlotte I was a size 18. (Right now I am a 24; the lowest I've been in the last 6 years was a brief stay at 20 before settling in for a long back-and-forth between 22 and 24.) Part of the reason I got back on heroin was that I wanted to be a size 12 again, so I could be pretty. It didn't work; apparently the weight-loss is specific to the first experiences with the drug, and in the end I found that it was actually stimulating my appetite. Just my luck.

That was when my sweet tooth took off, as well. I could drink vast expanses of Pepsi, shovel down anything sugary-sweet--candy, ice cream, cake and cookies; and I DID, because there was no one there to stop me. This went on for quite a few years...and slowly, slowly, my weight climbed.

Which brings me to the here and now. I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see. With very few exceptions I don't even ENJOY food anymore; what I eat is often based on what's quickest to make, cheapest to buy, and easiest to clean up. Much of the time it's noodle-based, sometimes just exactly that: plain noodles, with a bit of butter and parmesan. And sugar, of course (no, not on the noodles--ewwwww!--but after food, there's always something sweet.)

I talked to Debbi today--having sent her the link I'd discovered to our old mutual friend--and she said the following: "I hope he DOES e-mail you back, and you can tell him I said hello and to e-mail me so I can send him a picture. Because you know what? I want ALL those fools to know what I look like now. I'm 163 pounds, I'm damn cute, and my ass looks FABULOUS in a pair of jeans." (As you may have guessed, I hadn't said anything to her about my current emotional state; all the same, that was not an enjoyable piece of the conversation for me.) I can see her point, I guess; however, I also happen to know that she's only switched addictions, and though I'm surely not enough of a hypocrite to judge her for that, it does kinda give the lie to her whole "I'm skinny now, happily-ever-after" story. During our talk on the way back from NASCAR, she said something to the effect of "What they don't tell you, when you have the surgery, is that they're taking your crutch away. You literally CAN'T use food as a crutch anymore, because it will make you sick, and they're not taking away the problems you were using food to escape from--so you just find something else to use instead."

I've been encouraged to have the surgery, at least the lap-band kind (though Debbi says "if you're gonna do it, you might as well do the whole damn thing--the complication risks are pretty much the same and the band has a few other dangers as well.") After seeing what she went through, though, I have steadfastly stood against it. She had complications, a second surgery, weeks of healing time, oozing surgical sites, infections; she lived on fluids for weeks, semi-solids for more weeks, and at one point she was malnourished enough to be experiencing hair loss. And this surgery has been done for such a short time, scientifically speaking, that no one can say for sure whether or not there are any long-term dangers, 20 or 30 or 50 years later. It would suck to have the surgery, be thin enough and pretty enough to actually attract someone, put together this awesome perfect life, and then--20 years from now, as I'm approaching my "golden years"--die from some long-term side effect nobody knew about at the time the surgery was done. That would suck.

And furthermore--#2 on the list of "Why I Don't Want Gastric Bypass Surgery" (#1 being "because I really fear pain")--I don't want to do it because--to me, at least--it seems like cheating, somehow. I'm not saying that I think the people who DO have the surgery are making the wrong choice, or judging them for how they chose to do things--but if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it with consciousness of the process. If I'm going to do something that requires hard work, then, so be it.

If you sense, reading this, that I'm forming some sort of resolve here, you're not far from the truth. I don't plan to make it a big dramatic crusade, announcing some grand majestic goal and then subjecting everyone to the endless minutiae of food diaries, calorie counts, and the rest. For one--BO-ring!--and further, I don't operate well under such circumstances. The fewer people I tell about a goal, the more likely I am to actually achieve it. (I've been told that's not how most people succeed, but that's just how I work best.) So, without turning it into a big announcement, I will only say: Yes, I am forming some sort of resolve here.

I sort of HAVE to, really, because otherwise I'm going to hate myself into an early grave.