Today I had to dig my Daily Checklist out from a two-foot high stack of papers on my desk. No wonder I’ve climbed back up to 255 pounds, more than I’ve weighed for a couple of years.
It is hard for me to comprehend being this fat. It is impossible for me to understand how it all came about. In searching for someone or something to hold accountable for the disgusting state of my body, I can’t think of a better place to point the ugly finger of blame than at my marriage. When first married, I expected my husband to come home at 5:15 every day, just as I had seen my father do for eighteen years. But I didn’t marry a truck driver, I married a corporate vice president. Corporate vice presidents don’t come home at 5:15 every day. In fact, I can honestly say they never come home at 5:15.
After only a few months of marriage, my husband accepted a volunteer position in our church. It was a very time-consuming job, involving serious responsibility. He was also the steady drummer for two singing groups and one dance band, often performing twice a week. Night after night, week after week, month after month —yes, even year after year — he would rush in the front door, wolf down his dinner, and be out the door again in less than half an hour.
Many nights, I wept in my loneliness. Many more nights, I fell back on my childhood habits and chose to invite in questionable company. I had a full-fledged, illicit affair going with… chocolate and pastries and ice cream. I combined enough high-voltage calories with mushy love stories (either from books or TV) to cry and eat my way up to 300 pounds. My heart still goes out to that disillusioned, unfulfilled young woman who was me.
These heartrending memories are tragic for me, but the greatest tragedy of all is when we can’t learn something from the miserable experiences of life. I have learned two important truths from this particular part of my past. First, the best children in the world can’t take the place of a husband. Second, one cannot fill one’s needs by filling one’s mouth!
May 1971, 142 pounds, and September 1972, 210 pounds. And so it all began. On my wedding day, I had no idea I would look like this in sixteen short months! I ate to fill a void… and I created a mountain!