And so it goes

The house seems to be filled with places I cannot sleep. I am up at 2 AM counting the places, 17, I think, counting the three sofas I am not sleeping on. The house seems full of noise and memories in the early morning, my husband’s snores, my son making late night trips to the kitchen, the quiet empty place my daughter left behind, the echo of laughter from all my children’s friends that once filled every room. Mostly I am restless, driven by the old passions of my half remembered self. I was asleep for a while on the sofa, but woke with a dream I can’t remember. It left me with a feeling of afterglow and a burning desire for another go at some unknown lover. Instead I came here to write out my passion. I have done a chapter in my book, I think. I never know right away if it’s finished. I’ll sit on it a few days and find out, but meanwhile move on to another. People who don’t know me always mention how patient I am, and oddly enough, my husband is the only one who knows I’m not. He’s always recognized that I am driven, probably one of the reasons he married me, to roust him out of apathy.

Now that I have made the decision to leave him, or at least to maintain separate homes, I am bursting to move forward with my plans. I know the time is not right but I wonder if it’s kindness or cowardice that makes me draw this out. I find I am less irritated with him than before. I have quit complaining about the trail of plates, papers, clothes, and trash that he seems to leave in endless supply wherever he sits, stands, or even passes by. I just pick it up and tell myself it won’t be much longer. I do long for an orderly life again, the way I remember it so long ago. He doesn’t recognize this change in me as a danger sign, and I almost want to warn him. If I thought it would do any good I would try. I am weary to my very soul, exhausted with pretending we have a marriage. The guilt of wanting to go after so long is always with me, but then I think about how little he does to nourish this marriage and how much of the time I spend trying to make him look good.

In my job I am privy to many things I must keep secret, but I think I can tell a small part of a conversation I had today with a patient without violating that trust. He had so many health problems, including diabetes and cardiac issues, but the thing that struck me about him as his deep sorrow. He had been in Nam, still had a bullet in his body left from that horror. I couldn’t tell him or counsel him in anyway, but I left a note for the nurse to find out if the man was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. He was telling me about his medications early in the call, then, when we were ready to hang up he said, “I sometimes take Viagra.” With his health issues he should never take the drug, but when he said it, I saw the young PFC in camouflage, stepping out of a helicopter into a muddy swamp, hands clutching a rifle he prayed he didn’t have to use to kill anyone. It was probably not professional, but I spoke from my heart to him. I told him that I was very close to his age and that my first housemate had been a 19-year-old widow, married less than 3 months. “I’m glad you came back”, I said. He choked out a “thank you” in a voice that was fighting back tears. I sat thinking about the man I married during that same era and just being amazed at the difference in people.

I’m headed back to the sofa for another try at dreams. May your own head rest easy on whatever pillow you have found.

THE BEST GIFTS

The wind captured a branch and set it beating drum rhythms on my windowpane.
Roused from my long deep sleep
I stretched my white arms overhead
And languidly bid my body rise and greet the day.

My first step is dizzying, but I push on
And walk straight forward into summer,
Blown by a breeze that comes strong and steady from the north,
Lifting the hem of my pale gown.

He steps quietly outside the tree line, garbed in silver, hands dripping with treasures,
And gives me jewels to fill my empty spaces.

The sound of our delighted laughter carries softly on the wind.

I absolutely swear this is the last post where I use the word whiney

I realize I haven’t updated a bit on the original reasons I started this blog, the weight thing. I have posted some things I love, and a lot of rather whiney stuff that I could have left unsaid. Maybe the whiney stuff gets all out in this format and does not stretch over to my daily life, because that is actually going great. I find myself in an almost magical spot as far as the weight. I am enjoying exercising again, not having any trouble with my knee, and have lost all desire to snack. In fact, I have almost lost interest in food. I’m not going back to anexoria, (been there, done that, got too fat for the tee shirt) but neither am I counting calories. I cancelled the surgery that I was going to have in September, and got my hair done on the day I was suppose to have the preliminary lab work and MD visit. I just have too much to do to eat, and I have as of this morning lost 27 pounds. I don’t expect to be where I want to be before spring, but still, Christmas should find me back in all the nice things I got for myself when I lost the last time. I know the loss will slow down a bit from time to time, but that will give me an opportunity to get work on muscle tone and keep my metabolism going.

I just can’t seem to resist those Internet tests, so took the true age one last week. I was surprised to find out that I scored 10 years younger than my actual age. Irrationally I started to take it again and alter the numbers to see how much younger I could get if I was thinner, or got more exercise, but then I caught myself. Now just whom would I be lying to? As great as it would be to be younger, it’s not going to happen. I will “surrender gracefully the things of youth”, but embrace eagerly the joys of wisdom gained through experience. Not wanting to be whiney again, but my husband takes many hundreds of dollars worth of pills each month, while I take nothing at all. He came home from the pharmacy a few months ago with 5 extra daily dose pill boxes that he got on sale. I asked him why he got so many, since he already has two in every room. He said, “I got them for you when you start taking pills”. You would think I would have been mad, but it was so typical of him, I just shrugged.

Right now I’m off to the gym, but not before I stop by the mall and see about a new bathing suit. I spent the morning cleaning house and doing laundry while he slept. He woke at noon and I asked him what his plans were for the day. He told me the car races were on TV and he would be flipping between them and a couple of old movies. I know he will top that off with an evening of drinking in front of the computer. He won’t even notice I’m not here.

44 thru 80, not necessarly in order

44. This is not the family blog and I can't resist. Maybe Teddy's stick wasn't all that big.

45. The first thing that attracts me to a man is his intelligence. I mean, what are you going to talk about between times if he’s dumb?

46. The second thing that attracts me to a man is his sense of humor.

47. I sometimes have a twisted sense of humor. My favorite online site for amusement is “A Softer World”.
48. My mother caught me in my bedroom with a boy, with the door locked, when I was 17 and decided to believe me when I said we were just listening to music.

49. I should have told her he was just explaining to me where babies came from because she never told me a thing!

50. I rarely curse and almost never use the f word except in moments of, well, never mind.

51. I don’t dance unless I’m drunk.

52. My Mother taught me that both dancing and drinking and cursing were sins, but was totally mute about sex.

53. I once climbed out of my bedroom window in my parent’s home to meet the boyfriend they had forbidden me to see.

54. I found the secret place my parents kept their condoms stored when I was 12, but had no idea what they were.

55. When I realized several years later what they were, I started checking to see how many they used.

56. Considering the hours they spent working, I wonder how they kept doing it seven or more times a week for that many years.

57. I started smoking in college because girls were not allowed to but boys were. I added it to a long list of things my parents never knew about me.

58. I stopped smoking before I got pregnant because I realized it was a stupid thing for both boys and girls.

59. Despite being surrounded by potential missionaries and preachers, I managed to find 6 hell raisers to hang out with at the Baptist college I attended.

60. We pooled all our resources and bought a 53 Buick for $45 at Big Ed’s Used Car Lot. The brakes were linked with a coat hanger and there was a metal tray we took from the drive in restaurant serving as a floor on the passenger side.

61. The hell raisers and I used the car to drive to the next county to buy beer, because it was illegal to sell were we lived.

62. I had my first taste of beer from a quart bottle that was being passed around that very car.

63. I threw it out the window thinking it was spoiled. The hell raisers were pissed (US definition, not British).

64. I found out later that it is an acquired taste, and set about acquiring it with a modest success.

65. Now I actually prefer red wine, or maybe a crisp dry white on a hot summer day.

66. My mother sent me off to college with my first checking account and no indication of how much money was in the bank or how much I could spend.

67. She acted shocked when I wrote checks without recording them and spent way over the secret number she had in her head.

68. I grew up in town of 2000 people, got out of there before I turned 18 and never had a desire to go back to live.

69. A few times.

70. My husband wants to retire to a small town, perhaps on some large piece of property in the middle of the woods.

71. I am grateful for the beautiful home I have, but I am so tired of the bland sameness of the people in suburbia. I ready to move back to the city.

72. I think we can afford two houses.

73. I adore getting flowers, as long as they look like they were enjoying themselves before they were picked. Spring wildflowers are my favorite.

74.My husband bought me long stemmed red roses for every occasion for 25 years even though I tried gently to tell him I hated them. My daughter finally got him to stop. After that he could never figure out what to buy me if she wasn’t around to tell him.

75. Even after all these years I wonder if he fell in love with me or some idea he had about who I was that has stuck in his mind unaltered for three decades.

76. I had no fear of heights until after my second marriage. On my honeymoon we climbed the Hatteras Lighthouse, and before I came to the top of the winding stairs I was clinging to the wall terrified. I made myself go out on the windswept overlook anyway, but could not stay because of the feeling of vertigo.

77. I made myself overcome that fear after many years, but I am still frightened on bridges at times, especially if other things in my life seem out of control.

78. My husband and I never argue. I have learned to follow the example he taught me. I agree with him then do what I want to do anyway.

80. I always though he was a wonderful dad but I am ashamed that I was blind to how much hurt his drinking did to them, as well as to me.

The Bed I Lie In

The dog next door has been my excuse. He is a dreadful annoyance, barking almost constantly all day and night. Until the neighbor moved in last fall I never knew dogs could have insomnia, or it could be contagious. His plaintive anguished cry seems akin to my own as of late, and I can identify with the plight of a chained dog in a dreary setting. The dog didn’t put himself on that leash like I did, but he has given me an excuse to give my husband as to why I haven’t slept with him for over half a year. Last night for the first time since my father died in January, I went to lie in the king size walnut bed that I have shared with my spouse for these 32 years. The old dragon must have been surprised to find me there when he stumbled in around 3 am, his usual bedtime. He was drunk, of course, but still the memory of what we once shared drew him to put his arms around me and in some half remembered way start touching my body in places he has ignored for years. I gradually came to consciousness warmed by his caress and rolled to meet him, forgetting in my half sleep state that this would have no conclusion but frustration. By the time I was fully awake, he was snoring loudly in my ear, his dead weight pressing so hard against me that I struggled to extract myself.

Words are all I have. I’m out of tears. I’m tired of talking that goes in circles back to the same dead end and is forgotten by him the next day. His dream of our future is to sit in some rural backwater by a river and watch, half conscious, as the rest of his life passes by on the current. I have been trying to find the words to make him understand it’s not enough for me. Marriage is not about the words on paper. The contract we have with each other is like a carefully negotiated peace treaty. It has been bound and sealed over the years with the spider silk of shared experience, common goals, and genuine friendship. Those clinging strands are much tougher to break than a cage of iron, and I doubt that I will ever be entirely free. I just know that there must be another life for me that is more stimulating emotionally, intellectually, and physically than this one I leading. The terrible conflict I have is not giving up a safe harbor, for I am a woman to be reckoned with, not the young girl who landed storm tossed in this place. It is because I know his heart as I know my own, and already feel the hurt that will be there in his uncomprehending eyes

ABANDON

Keeping in perfect form, feet together, torso straight, thumbs linked, she leaped into the waiting green depths. The first shock of the cold water washing over her sent a delicious thrill of pain and pleasure through her body. When she could hold her breath no longer, her hands reached upward through the darkness toward the shimmer of the moon’s glow far above. Breaking the surface suddenly, she gulped warm air into her burning lungs. Rolling, twisting, she lay safe on her back, letting the current carry her effortlessly. She felt the caress of his eyes wash over the secret places of her body, her soul.

This Poem to My Ben and Equally to all Mother's sons

Choose joy.
Life will make sure it is balanced
by the necessary pain
to bring your happiness to clear focus.

If you are driven,
let it be by love
but passion spent, let love abide
a warm and peaceful rain to wash your soul.

Step back
from those who would
cage and contain you
even if I am the guilty one.

Draw stregnth from solitude
but remember even solitude
may cling too tightly.

CARPE DIEM

My girl Janis was screaming it in my car yesterday, in that way only she knew how.

So if someone comes along,He’s gonna give you some love and affectionI’d say get it while you can, yeah!Honey, get it while you can,Hey, hey, get it while you can,Don’t you turn your back on love, no, no

I was right there with her all the way, but then she did Bobby McGee:

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose,Nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free.Yeah, an' feeling good was easy, lord, bobby sang the blues,You know feeling good was good enough for me, hmm mm,Good enough for me and my bobby mcgee...
One day up near salinas, lord, i let him slip away,But he was lookin' for that home and i hope he finds it.But i'd trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterdayTo be holdin' bobby's body next to mine

I realized again that Janis was as conflicted as I have always been about how to come to terms with a sexuality that seems to be at cross purposes with societal expectations of women. I don’t think Janis handled her conflict too well, but who am I to judge. She said she would trade all her tomorrows for a single yesterday with Bobby, and in a sense, she did. While I’m glad I didn’t throw my life away on sex, booze, and drugs, I understand what she meant.

Living life without regrets is only possible if you have Alzheimers. The rest of us will have to come up with a way to balance our lives between the guilt and the pleasure, the tears and the laughter. The price of freedom is often dear, but then, so is the price of slavery.

Late November

In the woods where we fled in summer’s heat
Autumn now lies heavy on the land
Not in that crisp, delighted way of first October
Where every leaf wears its brightest dress.
It is a dreary, sodden fall, with only browns and grays
Lining the fields and paths
The mad rush of May that glamored it with veils of softest green
Now fled to shadows.
Ugly things sulk behind the trees
Where once spring elves danced, almost in our sight.

Spring is forgotten, and summer seems a dream that passed
While I struggled to rise from slumber.
I know the winter comes, yet I linger
For in this damp and sullen woods,
The frilly green things of youth that once obscured my vision
Lie trodden and crumpled on the ground.
Exposing the bare bones of the forest.

I think for a moment I perceive some truth concerning all things natural,
Like sky and earth and air, and lives lived and wasted.
But now I wonder,
Was life only about us lying in the green woods,
With no other thought than joy,
And my long hair falling in happy disarray
Across your bare chest.
2001

And I did it all sitting down...

Yesterday I had an appointment with my counselor, drove 600 miles to visit my dying father in law, and wrote my first ever pornography. It was an interesting day and I actually liked it quite a lot. Here is a list of things I learned:

1. I need to drink 6 to 8 glasses of water every day, not milk, not coffee, not soda. Water! Margaret, my favorite mother in law, got that message directly from God’s lips.

2. The soul will cling to a useless body against all reason. It is a biological imperative. No matter what the cost in pain and misery, how much faith we profess to have in an afterlife, how sick and weary the frail shell becomes, so few choose to go gentle into that goodnight.

3. Everyone, even the very intelligent among us, see the world and the solutions to problems only from their own point of view. My therapist doesn’t want me to have the surgery because she thinks she can heal me. My surgeon wants to stop fat people on the street and offer them the magic salvation of the lap band. I’m almost ready to withdraw and let them fight it out.

4. My counselor smiles a lot, but has very little sense of humor. Professional hazard I suppose, in a job where every subtle positioning of my body, every careless word is recorded on her little notepad for analysis. She told me I had to find something to put in the place of food in my life. I smiled and said, how about sex? She didn’t write it down. I wish she had known I was serious. I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last two week by just thinking about the possibility. Oh, and she told me the food diary I kept faithfully for her was not in the right format, and she handed it back to me unread. Not to worry she said, and spent the rest of the session going over a form that has 21 columns where I must put numbers beside each morsel for the next two weeks, with ratings for hunger and “feelings”.

5. I didn’t know I could write porn, but it was actually very liberating. Because of the non-judgmental kindness of a wise young man, I was able to let go of the guilt and acknowledge wonderful memories of my sexual experience, and dare to think that maybe there is a light beyond these woods of deprivation. I have come to believe that giving myself permission to taste, to feel, to embrace that important part of my life is essential to my well being.

6. My husband doesn’t want to talk about it. I really tried on the three-hour trip to Roanoke and again on the three-hour trip back. He said he there was too much traffic for a serious conversation. I picked up his urine soaked jeans from the back of the kitchen chair this morning at five.

7. I still have two weeks to make this decision. I’m going to start slow on the treadmill and get back on the fat flush diet that worked so well for me before. I’ll even put the stupid numbers in the stupid boxes so my humorless therapist can show me where I’m gone wrong.

8. We’re all going to die and we’re all going to rage against the dying of the light in the end. I think I’ll start living today so when the time comes, I’ll really need the rest.

Dreaming Of Snowy Owls

Oh the blessing of a child who slept soundly, anywhere. This is how we rang in the New Year in 1971. 

Hiding in Plain Sight

I’m having an affair, or at least it feels like one. I have never before been unfaithful to my husband of 32 years (33 if you count the year we lived in sin). There were temptations in the early days; his “friends” showing up at our door unannounced, knowing he would be gone, or the hand left too long on my arm, my leg, while out to dinner with another couple. Once I found myself trapped against the wall by someone’s drunken husband who announced that he wanted desperately to fuck me, right now. Now as flattering as all those romantic proposals were, I declined, and I told my husband about them as soon as we were alone. We always talked it over, and decided which of these people to avoid in the future. I’m sure he had opportunities too, but women are usually a bit more subtle in their approach, with egos that don’t take rejection well. At least that was true 25 years ago in the professional world in which he traveled. It seems the model for women has had undergone some dramatic alteration, but I understand from my daughter that men haven’t changed all that much, which is some comfort in a constantly shifting universe.

My outward appearance as a girl was one of innocence, and I continued to look that way long pass the time when it was true. When I came into my own, I like to think I was both direct and honest about my needs, but at the same time, I’ve always liked the fact that my passion came as a surprise once the bedroom door was closed. The model I heard about from men of my era was to be “a lady in the drawing room and a whore in the bedroom”. I still think that’s kind of a turn on for most men, like a naughty secret only they know. When I decided to bare all and write this blog, I found that a lot of what I wanted to say about dieting and weight also had a lot to do with sex, and the residual guilt passed on to me by Victorian parents. The fact that I have married two men whose libido did not match mine, and still remember the best sex I had was outside the marriage bed, is rather sad, but also telling. Did I purposefully marry men who could not keep up with me because I felt I didn’t deserve satisfaction? Did they unconsciously marry me thinking I would increase their testosterone level? Am I an idiot for not dealing with this 30 years ago?

I am of the opinion that the answers just might still be important. No matter what kind of “euwww” reaction it may have for the younger crowd, sex drive does not necessarily disappear after age 50. Unfortunately it did for my husband because of a combination of things, mostly drinking and other overindulgence. Our communication on this issue hasn’t been stellar. When he first started experiencing sexual dysfunction he didn’t bother to tell me at all. I assumed his disinterest was because of my weight, and searched desperately for a diet that would make me appealing to him again. One day he came back from the doctor’s office and announced happily that he had a trial package of Viagra. My reaction was not exactly what he expected. It had been at least 5 years since we had done anything and I had spent that time blaming myself, depressed and often suicidal, while he sat silent behind a wall of male pride. When I got over being angry and relieved, we had a frank talk about all things sexual. I thought this would be the start of a new era for us, but when the Viagra didn’t work, he quietly slid back over to his side of the bed and started snoring. We have gone back to selective silence, quietly tiptoeing around the sleeping dragon in the middle of our relationship. I am exhausted by the silence. I have nothing left to lose except my soul. I have come to this place so I can write true, expose the lies I live with, and grow strong enough to confront all my demons.

Long ago, far away

My mother hated me looking like this. She wanted me to get my "stringy" hair cut and get a perm. This picture was taken on my trip home after my first husband and I split. 

Mother Drove Me Crazy and I Returned the Favor, or Notes From A Back Seat Driver

I sat right inside the door, facing the mahogany desk, waiting nervously for the doctor’s arrival. Mother sat beside me with her checkbook, willing to pay any price to make her not so pleasingly plump12-year-old daughter popular. The doctor came into the room with a great flourish, surrounded by a visible cloud of his own importance. Without a glance in my direction, he ran his rough hand over my forehead as he passed by, and inquired in a loud voice, “Do you want to get rid of those?” Caught off guard, I sat speechless. My mind raced and I stumbled out a tiny, “I guess”. Mother had told me I was fat, but I was unaware that the few tiny pimples on my face were problematic. Mother spoke first, explaining the trials and tribulations her ugly ducking was going through. He listened professionally for a few minutes, and then sent me to be weighed and classified by his nurse. I can only imagine the conversation inside the room while I was gone “… hasn’t started her monthly flow…teased by other children…sneaks food…I’ve done everything I can”. They looked at me knowingly when I returned. The doctor gave me a little tri fold paper with a meal plan and lists of food. He had crossed out the 1000 calories a day and written 2000 in a big bold hand. Soon we were out the door and into the car that would take us on the 100-mile trip from Louisville to our home in rural Kentucky, and the start of my first ever weight loss diet.

Mom was very helpful, delighted to be in charge of my progress. She made boiled eggs, dry fat free hamburger patties, and a lot of green peas, plus kept the fridge stocked with canned pineapple, carrot sticks, and cottage cheese, all her favorite diet items. I desperately wanted my Mother to be proud of me, and I ate every morsel, stopped snacking except for sugar free gelatin, and watched while everyone else ate the hot biscuits, dripping with butter, plus cakes, candy, and ice cream. From the beginning of the summer till the time school started I had lost 40 pounds, down to a fairly trim 143 on a 5’6” frame. I started my menstrual periods traumatically on the first day of marching band camp before 8th grade. I was afraid to tell my mom, thinking I had injured myself with my investigations in that area. My older sister let her know, and gradually over the next few days told me what had happened. Mom seemed angry, told me nothing, but gave me a washcloth to clean up, and a hospital size pad. I marched in the August sun for 4 hours that morning still believing I had injured myself and the awful cramps I was having were punishment.

For the first time ever I enjoyed shopping for clothes for the upcoming school year. No more chubby section! I wore my favorite new dress on the first day, light blue with a full skirt and a belt around my much smaller waist. I felt shy walking the gauntlet of prepubescent males that lined the hall out side of the classroom. I had fantasized that moment all summer long, how they would suddenly see that I was a beautiful and desirable girl, perhaps even whistle or gasp at my new look. The boldest of them did notice. He announced in a loud voice, “Here comes the cow!” They all rocked with laughter, and I felt hot tears on my red cheeks. I ignored them and took my seat, reigning in my emotions for the day. At home after school I cried for hours on my bed, something I was to repeat many afternoons that year as I continued to be teased. I was determined that I was just not thin enough so I worked very hard on my diet all through the holidays. It was difficult with all the wonderful cakes, pies, and candy, not to mention the huge meals mother made around Christmas. My brother had married while he was in the Navy and arrived home with his bride before the school year was over. Mom was distracted from my diet, as she considered it a task accomplished and checked me off her list. A year later when the first grandchild arrived, I disappeared from her radar entirely. I continued to lose, but yo-yoed up and down through high school in a pattern that I would repeat for my entire life.

Right before I entered ninth grade the school band had an opportunity to travel to Washington DC, then on to New York City to march in a parade. I had come to terms with my awful eight-grade year, and had even begun to catch the eye of a boy I liked a lot. Mickey was a little plump, in that adolescent way of 13 year olds, but our families were friends, and he was more sensitive to my feelings than anyone else in the class. We shared books with our desks slid next to each other, me waiting patiently for him to catch up. He came by my house that summer on his bicycle several times, not saying much, but acting shy and pawing the ground in a cute puppy way that let me know something was up. I looked forward to our trip together to New York, and we had agreed to sit near each other on the bus. My mother walked into the living room two days before the trip, while I was stretched out reading on the floor. “Mickey Casebier was just killed riding his bike downtown”, she blurted out. The room started to spin and the sun went dark. I screamed “No, No”, and burst into tears. Mom seemed surprised at my reaction. She insisted I see the body. Two days later she pushed me with a hand on my back up the aisle of the funeral home to the casket. I could only glance quickly at the still silent corpse of my friend before I turned and retreated rapidly to the door. Neither I, nor any of his classmates could go to the funeral, because the bus left that next morning for Washington.

The next week I sat quietly in the dark of Radio City Music Hall watching The Nun’s Story staring Aubrey Hepburn. A man came and sat on right down beside me, although there were plenty of other seats. After a few minutes he started sliding his hand over onto my skirt. I froze in terror, but did nothing. He continued to work his hand ever so slowly up under my skirt to the bare skin of my leg. I made some feeble efforts to stop him, but he continued to move his hands gently and persistently up my leg. I held tightly on the outside of my skirt to protect the target I knew he was headed for. I was confused, frightened, and in a bizarre way, excited. My only point of reference with this strange tingle of stimulation was how I felt around Mickey. I was a total innocent, not even warned by my mother about bad men who might hurt me, and having no idea what men and women did together. He persisted for what seemed like an hour, me pushing him back, and him slowly staring up again. Finally I stopped him decisively by tucking my skirt and double layer of ruffled slip entirely under me and put his hand squarely back in his own lap. He finally gave up and left, moving on through the theater to prey on another girl. Although he touched nothing more than the inside of my thigh, I felt violated, yet desperately confused by my reaction. I could not understand why I did not scream, or tell the management, or stop him immediately.

I could not tell my friends or even my older sister who was on the trip with me. The next day while visiting the United Nations building, I passed out and was taken to the infirmary by a guard. The nurse was kind, and knew something was wrong, but I could not tell the awful truth. I was a bad and wicked girl who had let a strange man put his hand under my dress. I envisioned the shame I would feel if my parents found out, if my friends knew. I kept quiet, just like the sexual predator hoped. For years he was a dark shape in my nightmares. I tried to tell my mother once, 20 years later, after I had some therapy during which I dreamed I literally dug Mickey’s body up out of a flowerbed in my front yard. I started with saying that one of the worst things that ever happened to me was when Mickey died. She began a lecture about there being a lot worst things than death, and I sensed she did not want to hear that some of those worse things had happened to me. I still think that if I had told her the truth about the incident and my conflicted feelings, she would have wished I had died in Mickey’s place.

I acted out my frustration in high school by alternately embracing both God and the Devil, but neither of them hugged me back. My sister headed off for college and Mother and Dad’s new business required increasing amounts of time. I took over the housekeeping for my Mom and made the family meal during the week. Mom was very critical of my attempts, telling me I put too much or too little seasoning on things, or that I should have made different vegetables. I never finished the washing up fast enough or did the other work to suit her. I made good grades in much harder subjects than my brother and sister had taken, but Mother told everyone who would listen that I never applied myself. I was also involved in Girl Scouts, and earned an award similar to Eagle Scout. I was very active in the church and had received honors for a religion organization in which I participated. For my work I earned two weeks at a Baptist camp the summer after 9th grade. Ironically it was there I had my first kiss while walking with a future minister 5 years my elder. When I arrived home I announced that I was going to be a missionary, which got me 15 minutes in the family spotlight.

I was at the fairgrounds at a band competition in the summer of 61 when I met a nice looking boy a year older than myself. He was from a neighboring town and had never seen me fat, and he asked me out. He was a high school drop out, the poor son of a coal miner and my parents were disappointed in my choice. We dated for 10 months and I convinced myself that it was love. He seemed very interested in the parts of my body my Mother told me not to touch, but since it never occurred to her to tell me not to let boys touch them either, I began to let him. I held out for a long time against his increasingly insistent onslaught, while he kept telling me if I loved him, I wouldn’t stop him. I lost my virginity at age 16 in the front seat of his 57 Chevy right after a Christmas band concert. I regretted it almost immediately and got no pleasure out of his speedy back seat performances. Since I was very naive about sex, he soon became bored and began hitting on my friends. He also bragged to his friends about his conquest and I had to lie when my sister heard and confronted me. My periods were never regular, so when a condom broke one night and I didn’t start for over a month, I thought I might be pregnant. When I told him, he broke up with me, joined the army, and left town. I resolved never to have sex again as long as I lived, no matter what any man told me, and I hid yet another guilty secret, one I have kept until this day. I remember when my mother told me that he had been killed in an accident in an army jeep, about 5 years later. My first reaction should have been sorrow, but what came to my mind was that at least he would never tell anyone else.

I flirted with anorexia and was down to a trim 130 when I headed off to a religious orientated college two weeks after high school graduation. I really wasn’t as interested in jump starting my education as I was getting away from my family and the bad memories. Accustomed to being ignored in a small town, I suddenly found myself in a whirl of proposals from eligible young men, some proclaiming to be God’s chosen and some leaning more in the other direction, but all with the same lust in their heart. I quit eating altogether except for ginger ale and oatmeal bars from the snack machine. It gave me little strength for fighting off backseat wrestling matches that I was engaged in almost every night. I began to mature sexually and I would often wake from sleep with the orgasm that I had denied myself during these trysts. The internal struggle I felt was horrible, and the guilt I took on when I finally gave in to one boy was overwhelming. When we broke up, I moved on to a few others. It seems I had found something I liked more than food and had even less control over.

When I went home for break before regular term I was gaunt, but with waist length hair, a beautiful face, and great legs, no one really noticed except my mother. On my visit she cooked up a storm, bought ice cream, and complained that my skirts were too short and my hair too long. I was able to resist her temptations, drunk as I was with the power of anorexia and youth. That September I attracted the eye of a tall, thin, seemingly brilliant young man in my Sociology class. He shyly asked me out and I accepted. Unlike all the other horny boys I had been dating, he told me how smart and talented I was, so different from the other girls. We spent the evening talking, and he gave me a brotherly kiss as he deposited me at my dorm. He was a poor boy from the big city and I was a little country lamb walking willingly to the slaughter. He was everything I was not, glib, argumentative, worldly, egotistical, agnostic, and disrespectful. I started smoking to fit in with his crowd and defy the school ban on women using tobacco. I became politically aware, and intellectually awakened, joining my generation in the movement for a more open society. When Kennedy was killed I called my parents and told them that I was going to go to DC for the funeral and stay with my new friend’s parents. It must have been a shock to them, their daughter and a boy they didn’t know, plus me wanting to go to the funeral of a Catholic president they had hated. They told me to come home immediately, so I brought John along for Thanksgiving holiday. The explosion when I introduced him to my parents as my fiancée was earth shaking. I finally had their attention.

Mother asked me if I was pregnant, but I wasn’t even having sex with him at the time. Mother threatened that I would not get a penny from her if I married him. We tried for a year to get their permission, but new conditions kept being put in our way. When they tried to get me committed to an asylum, we went to DC and got married in his church. I wrote Mom and Dad a letter to tell them they had a son in law. I was only 19, but I quit school and went to work, supporting us while he attended college and then graduate school. I began to gain weight on a diet of the cheap starchy food we could afford. After two years I had figured out that the reason he had not been aggressive when we met is that he had very little interest in sex, or at least with me. Our sex life, never stellar, became non-existent.

I first noticed he was flirting with other women when he started his teaching job at a university in Richmond. Sometimes I flirted too, right in front of him, trying to make him jealous, but it never had the effect I was going for. At the end of every school year he told me he was unhappy, and we moved to a new job and a new city. I packed without complaining, but even with my newly discovered bulimia, my weight gradually crept up till I was at about 160. On a vacation to California he started actively trying to sow the wild oats he said his early marriage had denied him. Shortly after we arrived in New York City for another new start, I began to have symptoms of some type of illness. When I went to the doctor he told me I was a perfectly normal healthy pregnant woman, about 4 months along. When I told my husband he asked me if it was too late for an abortion. We had been married 4 years and abortion was illegal all across the US. From the moment those words came out of his mouth, our marriage was finished. I focused in on the baby, ate exactly what the doctor told me to, and only gained 5 pounds during the entire pregnancy. After the c-section, and a 10-pound baby, my first walk was to the scales at the end of the hall in the hospital. I weighted 142 pounds.

My husband was as miserable as I was delighted with the new baby. He told me the world was overpopulated, that I should be working so we could afford a better life style, and that I was ignoring our dog. As soon as was possible, we moved back to Richmond for another new school assignment, this time with community colleges. He became increasingly distant. He told me he had married too young, he wasn’t ready to settle down, he had never had the opportunity to meet other girls, that the baby was cramping his style, and he had never really been attracted to me sexually. He began to hang out in a local pub, known for easy hook ups in those days. Things moved from bad to worse as he became abusive, brought home drunken men and women to our house at all hours, and told me to keep the now crawling baby out of his things. I began to binge and purge more frequently, desperate to get control of some part of my life. As I became thinner and more desperate, his friends began to come on to me. I swallowed all my pride and called my mother. I told her she had been right and begged her for help. After a journey home, she was satisfied that I was contrite, and she allowed me to stay in Richmond with an allowance she would supply for a few years. I found an apartment, a roommate, and eventually went back to college. Support from my ex dried up within a few months, but his parents continued to give me a few dollars from time to time. I vacillated between bulimia and anorexia for several years, dated a lot of men, and finally almost by accident, found a kind, loving, personable, man whom I eventually married.

We hit it off right away, but were both terrified of commitment. His mother had died of cancer when he was 19, and his brother had committed suicide the next year. His father, a minister, did not look well to his own household, so my man-child had turned to a beloved uncle for support. That uncle, a functional alcoholic, drank himself to death a few years later. The girl he turned to in his lost desperation turned out to be a lesbian, and their marriage lasted only six months. My love had beautiful, soulful, brown eyes, looked good in his clothes, had a steady professional job, and was kind to my baby boy. Coming from a teetotaling family I had no experience with liquor and overlooked the fact that he was also a functional alcoholic. We married in March of 74, two years after we met, this time with the approval of my parents. I soon found that the preacher’s son came with his own set of problems, some of which seemed familiar. We were both passive aggressive and had diametrically opposed positions on how to handle money. We each went to our own corners after disagreements, him with a bottle of rum and me with a gallon of ice cream. We gradually arrived at a silent contract. He would not say anything about my eating and I would likewise enable his drinking.

We both had agreed that we wanted children before the marriage so I was surprised that my new husband was also commitment phobic about babies. I was 28 and he was 31 and I felt the tick of my biological clock, but he was worried about financial security. I had finished college right before we married and had a good paying job. I worked the first year, banking all of my paycheck, and spending nothing on myself. We were able to buy a house in the suburbs with the profit from the sale of his house, the savings, and a check from my parents. In a year’s time we had paid off the small mortgage and owned the house free and clear. He halfheartedly said we could start trying. We fell into a pattern. After a full day’s work outside the home, I made dinner, washed up, made sure everyone was ready for the next day, and fell gratefully into bed, eager for marital intimacy. No matter how persistent I was, he usually had an excuse. Sex became a monthly chore, something he had to do when I was ovulating. I began to think there was something wrong with me; that I had some sort of sexual dysfunction like my first husband had told me. I do know our appetites were definitely not matched. I jealously listened to other women complain about their overly amorous husbands. I decided I could deal with it, redoubled my efforts to seduce him, but still, gradually began gaining more weight.

When I did finally get pregnant, the baby was lodged in my right fallopian tube. The day after Thanksgiving in 1976 the tube ruptured and I was rushed to the hospital. The doctor removed the tube and told me I would have little chance of a successful pregnancy, as these thing tended to repeat. Two years later I had a healthy baby boy. Even though I only gained 12 pounds with the pregnancy, I weighed 203 on the day before I delivered. My husband was delighted with the baby, and jumped enthusiastically into fatherhood. He insisted we try for another as soon as possible, so 28 months later we had a baby girl. I adored the children, but I was a bit besieged. My baby boy cried most of the day and night, and seemed comfortless till his father came home. I had quit my job just weeks before he was born. It was the dark of winter and I had few resources in the neighborhood. I did have my old friend, food, but since I was nursing, did not gain too much. Busy with the children I became less demanding about sex and found that my husband could go 6 months or more without approaching me. While I ate away my disappointment, frustration, and exhaustion, my husband drank steadily night after night. Even though he was so happy about the baby, the responsibility seemed to overwhelm him. He stopped going out with friends to drink when he had been arrested for a DUI on New Year’s night in 1980. Instead of coming to terms with the problem, I continued to enable him and cover up the fact that he was passed out drunk 7 nights a week, often urinating on the furniture in his stupor. I avoided close relationships with other couples and girl friends to keep anyone from seeing through the juggling act I was doing.

My youngest son started kindergarten in the fall of 82 and a neighbor watched my daughter, so I could go back to college part time. I finished a second degree in information systems and went to work as a COBOL programmer in 1984. Keeping up with family and classes, my life was stressful, but nothing compared to my first computer job after I finished the degree. I had been very successful in my courses and had been hired by a top company. Things went well till I was asked to transfer to another department. In my new position I was expected to work 10-hour days, be on call nights and weekends, and hobnob after hours with my coworkers. None of them had children, and they favored late nights in bars plus the car races on the weekends. I sensed the office politics were not working for me, but I was just too busy to pay attention. One morning I got out of bed unable to walk without extreme pain. I had also developed a few red swellings on my knuckles that I thought were mosquito bites. A doctor diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis and started me on a course of treatment that caused me to lose half my hair, but did nothing for the pain and joint problems. Unable to keep up with my job, I turned in my resignation and crawled home in defeat.

I moped about the house eating for a while, till my daughter asked me to be room mother for her kindergarten class. I began a new phase of my life, volunteering. I was a Cub Scout, Webelo, and Brownie and Girl Scout leader. I taught Sunday School and bible school, and cooked for all the church suppers, school events, and bake sales. I was chaperone for band and orchestra competitions, class trips, and field days. I made a little money placing students for a foreign exchange program. I was asked to coach Odyssey of the Mind and I threw myself into it with my whole heart. When my oldest started college, I started substitute teaching to have a bit of extra cash. This eventually led to a full time job as a teacher’s aide for special needs students. Meanwhile, unhappy with the course of treatment I was on for the arthritis, I consulted another doctor. He told me I had fibromyalgia and put me on anti-depressants when I admitted I felt suicidal at times. I took Prozac for several years till I came to terms with the reasons for my depression, a combination of my life situation and the beginnings of menopause. When my middle son began to have some problems of his own, I sought help for him, which led to family counseling. Because of some words from the counselor, my husband quit drinking altogether for several years, but before I had time to adjust to his sober state, he had gradually started having “just a few” from time to time. I’m not sure how long he drank in secret before I began to really notice.

All though these years we continued to spend every family vacation traveling to my parent’s house in Kentucky. Mom expressed her concern about my weight, but kept up her old patterns, trying to be the one in control of my eating. She offered to pay for any program I would enroll in to lose, and she took me shopping for new clothes when I came home having lost a few pounds. She insisted, however, that I get them several sizes too large, on the presumption that I would grow into them. When we went out to eat she would try to get me to order dessert. If I would not, she ordered some for herself, took one bite, and then pushed it across the table for me. I did go for counseling and hypnosis, plus group programs like TOPS and Weight Watchers, and I tried a new woman’s gym in my area. Each experience seemed flawed in some way. The counselor told me he could not help me anymore unless I was willing to confront my mother. I awoke from the hypnosis and left the room when the tape playing in my ear told me some foods were poison and I would die if I ate them. The TOPS group disbanded, and overeaters anonymous turned out to be a group of extremely judgmental people that belonged to my church. The woman at the gym insisted on me keeping a food diary and pronounced my 600 calories a day intake, “eating like a pig”. I did lose (and gain) a lot of weight during that time, mostly by starving, then binging and purging. I finally sought help for the bulimia and found a great program that was very successful. I lost weight at first, but after the program ended, I could not keep on tract. I did stop the purging, but that meant I had no working diet plan and continued to yo-yo, each swing going wider and higher. .

I waddled along through life for a while, starting a new diet every Monday morning and sometimes making it till Tuesday or even Wednesday before falling off wagon. I was up to about 240 when my mother died of cancer in April of 1994. My grief was complete and genuine, but right after the funeral I began to realize that Mom’s power over me did not extend beyond the grave. I lost 35 pounds without really trying in the next few months. On a visit to Kentucky, I tried to talk to my father about the confusing weight problem, but came to the realization during our talk that he was the one who was pestering my mother to make me lose weight. He told me I had been a beautiful girl, but I had sure gotten over that. He made it very clear that my value to him was tied up in my appearance. I was startled, because this was the man from whom I had learned tolerance for all people, regardless of race, creed, or religion. I went back to my old comfort, my drug of choice, for solace. I gained at a steady pace up to past 300 pounds. I’m not certain, because I avoided the scales. My daughter wanted to be vegetarian, and since I had been one when I met her Dad, I decided to try that path again, but it had no effect on my weight. Christmas of 1999 a friend of my daughters took some pictures of me and ran off copies within a week’s time. The reality of what I looked like hit me with the force of a sledgehammer when I saw those prints.

I read Oprah’s book called Making the Connection, and unlike other things that went in one ear and out the other, I got the message. I started walking, and later joined a gym and began to lose the pounds. I started on the fat flush diet my daughter had heard about from a doctor at Johns Hopkins. It was rigid, but sound nutritionally, and I soon found I was able to stay on it. I lost 100 pounds, down to 200, and was able to be in my beautiful daughter’s wedding in 2004, without being embarrassed. After the amazing build up to the wedding, the let down of her leaving for her new home in England left me feeling abandoned. I had been exercising a lot with her, doing step and strong classes. One day, after an hour on the elliptical machine, my knee just went out on me entirely. A trip to the doctor confirmed that I had arthritis in my knee joints. I got a knee brace and tried to continue the exercise program, but even with the strong medication he recommended, it was just too painful. I tried the pool and a water aerobics program, but soon got disgusted by the slow pace and the annoying teacher. The price of the gym was excessive considering how little of the equipment I could use, so I dropped the membership.

I realized at Christmas of 2005 that I was on a runaway train again, with my weight climbing to about 230. I know what I am suppose to do to lose, but have come to the realization that as soon as I go off of any diet, the fat cells in my body beg for their fix again. I have stayed a vegetarian, but added fish to my diet. I am fond of saying that I have healthy organic fat, because I have never been addicted to junk food, don’t like fried things, and make fruits and vegetables the bulk of my diet. I normally eat in moderation, but tend to binge when I am emotionally distraught. I do not eat because of stress, because I actually enjoy having a lot going on around me. The grinding routine of days is what gets me down. I worry about my husband’s health, since he has become diabetic. He is still drinking steadily, and is often just emotionally unavailable, even though he is in the house. He had been unable to have sex for over 10 years, I’ve lost tract of how long, and it makes me very sad to think that part of my life is over. I am not looking for a magic solution and feel very disappointed with myself for not being able to solve this problem alone. I know a lot of my issues are self-inflicted, and I see the obvious solutions, but do not have the courage or the cruelty to do what is required for the fix. Like a cancer that has grown intertwined about my vital organs, it seems the removal of the unhealthy parts of my life would cut too deeply into what keeps me alive.

I am not ready to give up the struggle. My children want me to come and visit and I want to be able to sit comfortably in an airline seat. When I get to my destination, I want to be smartly dressed and be able to walk, climb steps, steep hills with out getting out of breath. Although I have a high pain threshold, I want to reduce the pain in my joints so I can sleep more comfortably at night and have no trouble getting in and out of chairs. I want my children to be as proud of my appearance as I am of theirs. If I am lucky enough to have grandchildren someday, I want to be first, alive, and second, able to play and have fun with them. In short, I’m too young to sit on the sidelines watching other people live. I want to join in the parade. My husband seems content to kill himself drinking, but after 32 years of marriage, I know I cannot fix his problems. On the plane to Seattle last year, with the seat belt cutting deeply into my stomach and thighs, I listened to the flight attendant tell everyone about safety features. In case of an emergency she said, first put on your own oxygen mask, and only then, try to help others around you. I realized then that I have been frantically fumbling to save everyone else as we plunge downward, ignoring my own desperate need. I am tired of feeling like I don’t deserve to live life fully. I am ready to do what ever it takes to survive.

Final Solution

Obviously I haven’t been dieting since the last post. My father died on January 26. The hardest part was not getting to say goodbye. I have never gotten to say goodbye to any important person in my life who died. All of them went without me there, my friend Mickey, my grandmother, Wrenn’s grandmother, my Mom, and now Dad. I don’t know what I could possibly have done, but I somehow think I would be able to pull them back from the abyss if only I could have held their hands. It has always amazed me that notes and words from dying people to their loved ones say the same thing, “I love you”. That’s really all there is to say in the end. I said it lots of times, always ending our conversations with those words. Still, if I had been thin, I would have gone at Christmas when Eva and Nick went down. Knowing he would be disappointed in my flab, I stayed away.

I made a decision to have lap band surgery. It is scheduled for September 12, oddly enough, my Dad’s birthday. I have no idea if that’s some kind of cosmic joke or maybe a word of approval from beyond the grave. I would really, really love to be strong enough not to need anyone’s approval, but I am not and have never been. I listened to Buffy St Marie singing “ I’m cutting my own way, through my own day, and I dare say, it’s my way”. I sing along with a sense of despair. I wonder what kind of life I could have created if I had not let others dictate my actions. I’m not even going to consider what I would do if I had it to live over, because I don’t. The road ahead will be tough and require a lot of sacrifice, but it will be better than the alternative. Dad lived to be 91, but his quality of life was miserable for many years, and in the end he died alone, hard and without dignity. I want to find a better way.