1. For me! I want to be able to skate, swim, dance, run, bike, participate in sports and—oh, who am I kidding? I want to be able to walk up one flight of stairs in my own house without breathing so hard I nearly hyperventilate! I want to show everybody that I can do it! I want to go to school, church, and family reunions with my head held high. I want to wear hats and pretty clothes and feel good. I want to stop pretending that I don’t recognize people I haven’t seen for years… and stop praying that they don’t recognize me. I want to stop making “fat-people” jokes intended to let people know that I know I’m fat. I want to start living again.
2. For Allen! I want him to be proud of me again. Years ago, when Allen introduced me as his fiancee to one of his old college friends, his friend kept exclaiming, “Allen, how did you ever get someone so beautiful to marry you?” Oh, how Allen beamed! I want him to beam again. I know he loves me. I know that he desires me emotionally. But I want—yes, I need — to be physically desired, even craved. I want to be the girl he married, not twice the girl. I want Allen, once again, to be able to do some of the things he used to enjoy— skiing, dancing, snorkeling —and to enjoy them with me.
3. For my children! I don’t want them to be embarrassed of me. I don’t want them to suffer the sometimes cruel remarks their friends may make. I have one haunting memory from the fourth grade. Susie Franklin was a girl in my class. She was overweight and rather unkempt. One day, there came to our classroom door a woman who was also overweight and not very well dressed. How it stung when a classmate said, “That must be Susie’s mom.” But, no, it was not Susie’s mother. It was my mother. I wanted to crawl under my desk and never come out. My poor, little, nine-year-old spirit was experiencing two distinct emotions: humiliation and self-hatred.
I had reason to be humiliated. She was fat. She was poorly dressed. She wore no nylons. Her hair was frumpy, anything but stylish. I also had reason for hating myself. I couldn’t bring myself to say, “No, that’s my mom.” I was relieved when they thought it was Susie’s mother. I cried over that later, feeling terribly disloyal and sneaky. The memory still bothers me. I can’t help wondering what my children are thinking when I visit their school. I want to spare them that kind of distress and the sad, enduring memories it brings.
I want to be able to play with my children. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my little Matthew. He’s seven. I told him that this summer I’d play tennis and ride bikes and do all sorts of fun things with him. He opened his eyes wide and gasped, “You mean, we’ll even hike up Rocky Butte, and I can show you my fort?” His fort! I wanted to cry. He had never experienced a mother who could jump, climb, or hike. Oh, how could I deny my children and myself so much? I’d never seen my darling seven-year-old’s little hideout. I can diet. I will do it. I musn’t wait until Matthew’s grown up and it’s too late for him to show me his fort.
4. For other fat people! Everyone has gifts and talents. Mine is the ability to give a speech that holds an audience in the palm of my hand. I can electrify people with my enthusiasm. I can motivate people to activity! And I am certain that in learning to conquer this dread disease of obesity, this monstrous madness, I can help others do the same. I can inspire those who have almost given up. I can use these past twelve hell years to good purpose.
I know firsthand what it’s like! I have been there! There is a way back. There is hope for a real life. For fat people (I’m talking porkers here) life is a sit-on-the-bench observation of others having fun… like the butterfly that never escapes its cocoon, like the roll of film that never gets developed.
5. For young people! Who can young people look up to these days? Who can they emulate? Who can they imitate? Take a serious look at the movie stars, rock stars, TV idols. Really think for a second. Think of the vulgar and sick lyrics to many of today’s most popular songs. Think of the evil, the pornography, the filthy words in nearly every movie. Yet these people are those in the limelight, those our children idolize.
I have a burning desire to do something distinguished. To fight and win a major war. To do something worthy of public notice. To be somebody. Young people need someone in the limelight to look up to who stands for right, for decency, for modesty, for motherhood and the American way! It’s hard for any people, let alone young people, to look up to someone that they can barely look around. For them, too, I diet.
6. For credibility with adults! I have been an avid fighter of pornography for five years. I have been appalled by the dress standards—or lack of standards—of our schools, our television shows and commercials, and of our nation as a whole. But what impact can a blimp weighing over 250 pounds have on the subject of modesty? I mean, really. Can you imagine me rolling and bouncing up to a bikini-clad, 110-pound sex goddess and persuading her to cover up? Who would believe I’m anything but jealous? There are many issues with which I want to get involved, where I want my voice to be heard. But I’m so obviously out of control in my own life, what could my distorted opinion possibly be worth? “Who cares what that fat old biddy says?” But I do have some fine, even noble ideas —and I am yet going to have my day in court!
February 3, 1992. At the time I wrote the above entry, improving my health didn’t seem an important reason for losing weight. I was only thirty-two years old. I thought I would be forever young. But as the big 4-0 looms hideously before me, I realize I am headed on a crash coirne with middle age. And yes, losing weight for health reasons has become extremely important to me. In fact, only last month, a forty-six-year-old friend of mine had a stroke. I am sure it was more than coincidence that this friend was extremely obese.