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I have avoided, for as long as possible, saying online everything I think about my parents. I have done this because they ARE my parents, and because I love them infinitely. They’ve done a lot for me, and I respect that about them, because I haven’t always made the relationship easy. On the other hand, I think that both of them fail to see what they have done that makes the relationship hard. They don’t see the things they do that helped to form me into the difficult person I can be. They’ll tell me that at 35 they shouldn’t have so strong an influence on my life, but then they do everything they can to influence who I am. This is the line. I’m done. Not with them, I’ll never be done with them. I’m done with the crazy. It’s getting put out on the doorstep of the house in Short Hills where I grew up, and left there to die.

When I was 16 I got mono. I spent the summer in Israel, and my roommate hooked up with a guy who, we later found out, had mono. A few weeks later my roommate and I both got terribly sick, but somehow we never made the connection. That was July. I was sick, on and off, all summer and all fall. I kept asking my parents to stay home from school because I didn’t feel well, and the response I kept getting was “what’s going on that you’re not telling us? Why do you need so much time off?” and no one ever suggested that I see a doctor. Finally, after getting unbelievably sick in Italy over winter break and suffering through the beginning of January, my mother took me to a doctor, who diagnosed the mono right away. That night my father apologized for not believing I was sick, and my mother said “who gave you permission to have this stupid disease anyway.” I’d like to think she was “just joking”, but she wasn’t. I mean, she kind of was. But mostly she wasn’t.

That’s the night that I realized I needed to get out of my parents’ house permanently. I’d made regular attempts at leaving, but none were well thought out. I’d get angry, pack a bag, and make a run for it. I never left when I was calm and could think straight. As I was home with mono, and couldn’t make it to the kitchen much less out of the house, I had a lot of time to work out the details. I realized that there was an archery exhibition coming up at my high school and that I would shoot in the exhibition. That to do this, I would need to take a bag with me with bow and arrows, and that my bag had sufficient room for extra items. I checked with a friend of mine who lived about an hour away from my parents, and whose house was accessible by train. Her mother was going to be out of the country the day of the exhibition, and she could put me up for a few nights. Carefully, slowly, the details came together. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, or even that I was going - not even my boyfriend. I knew that someone would give me up and I couldn’t take that risk.

So I left. I walked out of school, got on a train, and left. No fight, and no drama. Eventually I came back, returned to finish the school year, and after laying my head in a variety of locations, moved in with my aunt and her family. I never lived in my parents’ house permanently again. That was the beginning of my life.

I always look forward to Jewish holidays for family and food. Normally I’m pretty committed to getting to services as well. Not so much this year. The thought of getting more sleep was far more compelling than the thought of getting to services on time. Or even on time by “Jewish Standard Time” reckoning. Once at services, all I could think was “why don’t they blow in more air conditioning? Are they trying to kill all the pregnant people?” I didn’t have half the stamina I usually do.

At dinner “we” tend to “debate” politics. By “debate” I mean that a large group of well-educated liberal Democrats sit around a table and yell at each other in agreement for two hours. By “we” I mean everyone except for my husband. Josh does not participate when politics are on the table instead of brisket. I knew I married him for a good reason.

Since I couldn’t travel up to New Jersey to see my parents, they made an effort to come to DC to see me. I was a little worried about the visit. The last time I saw my parents they hit me with such force about my weight, blood pressure, health, health of my baby, etc that my body couldn’t take anymore and I wound up in the hospital with contractions. This time I promised myself that no matter what was said I’d find a way to deflect the comments as a sad representation of what my parents are, as opposed to an attack on me.

Fortunately everyone behaved themselves. What I could see they wanted to say was almost nearly never said. And, let’s face it, even though I actually can read their minds it’s better to be able to assume that I could be wrong about their opinion of my flab than have them tell me and erase all doubt. They were so close to leaving. I thought I was safe. It was 1PM, Sunday afternoon and we were all saying our final goodbyes. Then my father says “so you’ll have this baby, and then we’ll address what you need to do for yourself.” It wasn’t the worst thing he could have said - far from it - but it did let me know that he misses the point.

I held my dad by the upper arm and said “look at me. I know you love me. I know you only say what you do because you love me. But really Dad, there’s no “we”. There’s just me. I’m the only one in this body. I’ll do what I have to for myself. If you keep commenting like this, you’re going to kill me.” Then we hugged it out.

I don’t think he understood what I was saying, or why I needed to say it, but he did actually hear the words come out of my mouth. When I repeated the interaction to Josh he said “if there’s any “we” here, it’s you and me, not you and your Dad.” I agree with that. Josh is the man who’s in my life every day, and whose unconditional love doesn’t come with the baggage of my youth. His skewed image of my body makes me more attractive than I am - and while that doesn’t help me with my weight it does help me with my self-esteem.

Most importantly, first I have to have this baby. Everything else will come later. It just has to.

I have come to realize that I have much thicker skin than most people.  Sure, a glance from my mother can send me spinning in a million different directions, but out in the real world I find things to be funny that would make other people cry.  So many pregnant women who contribute to message boards online, and pregnant women I know in person, complain about the “you must have more than one in there” and “wow, you’re getting big” comments.  I’ve made these comments many times myself, and it had never occurred to me that I could be hurting someone’s feelings.  I knew that such a comment, if I were pregnant, would not hurt my feelings, and didn’t process it any further.  I mean, if you’re pregnant, getting big means you’ve got a growing baby in there.  It would be more disturbing to me to stay the same size!

I was right, the “that must be twins” and the “wow, you’ve grown” comments just make me smile.  What I didn’t expect was how much further people would go.  Maybe it’s because the initial comment about size does make me smile and they take that as permission?  Whatever the reason, I’ve heard repeated comments, sometimes from the same person again and again, about how much weight I’ve put on.  Or how large my backside has gotten.  How wide my hips are.  How I’ll never take all of this off after the baby comes.  How they can’t believe I’m eating a bagel.  Or a cookie.  Or (this is my favorite) so much fruit, what with all that sugar.

None of what’s being said to me is accurate in the least.  I’m below the average pregnancy gain, and I’m posting really healthy numbers for blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.  My doctor thinks I’m doing great.  I’m exercising regularly, and I feel good at least most of the time.  Will I have weight to take off after the baby comes?  Umm, yeah, I had weight to take off before I got pregnant so that’s not really a surprise.  But it should definitely be in the “normal” range.  So far, I’m 24 weeks and I’m up 14 lbs.  Yes, I’m hoping I won’t add that much more, and that when I birth the baby it all goes away, but I’m also a realist who knows that I’ll have to diet and exercise.  I also know that my hips haven’t grown a single inch.  I have measuring tape.  Fortunately, I also still have my sense of humor.

The funniest part, without a doubt, is the compliments.  Women know how to give a compliment.  They say “you look so great” or “you’re carrying so well” and I know from where they’re looking when they say it that they’re talking about my size.  Hey, I’ll take the compliment any day.  Then there’s my brother.  He’s really trying to be lovely, and he’s totally supportive, but he can’t hear what he’s saying through my (or, apparently, any woman’s) ears.  Here’s yesterday’s conversation:

“You know, you look more proportionate now that you’re pregnant than you did before.”

“So my stomach has finally gotten big enough to balance out my enormous ass?”

“No, I was trying to say you look great.”

“And what exactly prevented you from saying that?  From saying ‘you look great’?”

“I thought I DID say that.”

We were on a level of disconnect that I could not fix.  I did think it was funny that his intention and my interpretation were so far apart.  Thank goodness for my thick skin.

Last night I was on the phone with my mother, and tried to explain the difference between “normal” people who just eat too much and people with Compulsive Overeating Disorder.  I don’t know if it sunk in, but it was a good first attempt.  I did let her know that it hurts me to hear the language she uses when talking about weight sometimes.  She tosses around things like “willpower”.  My will never had anything to do with it.  The fact that I let myself get to 280 pounds had nothing to do with a weak will, and my losing that weight had nothing to do with a strong one.  I felt I needed to say something so that she could begin to understand how hopeless it feels when I, with strong will perfectly intact, could still not stop myself from eating to excess.

I thought that maybe I could get everything to sink in by explaining with an example.  I told her to think of someone who is a drinker, but with no alcoholism, versus someone who is an alcoholic.  On a Saturday night, you might not be able to tell the difference.  In fact, if you saw either one at a party, you’d expect to see her enjoying a drink.  If there was no drink you might say “it’s a party; have a drink!”  It’s similar with food.  At a dinner party, everyone, including me, expects me to eat.  Perhaps to even indulge a bit.  It would be MORE abnormal to sit in the corner with a salad than to have one or two treats.  It’s so natural and expected to eat a little in excess at a party, that the next morning it would still be difficult to determine if I had just enjoyed my one treat for the week, or if I had taken the first step towards a massive compulsive binge.

The biggest distinction between alcoholism and food addiction is of course that the recovering alcoholic refrains from all alcohol consumption.  Any consumption at all is considered a back-slide.  Back-slides are normal and expected, and the definition is very straightforward.  The problem with a food addiction is that every day food must be consumed.  Failure to continue to consume food is simply the flip-side of the same problem and won’t fix anything.  So, eating on the Pyramid is my methadone.  Back-slides are a lot harder to pinpoint.  It’s not necessarily a back-slide if I have dessert, because dessert is a part of life.  A part, in fact, of the Pyramid.  It’s only a problem to have the dessert, or the entree for that matter, compulsively.  This is a very difficult to determine and subjective standard, and it can drive my brain into a self-defeating circle of second guesses.

It hurts to admit addiction to someone I love, but maybe it helps both of us to confront the problem I have instead of the one I wish I had.  It would be a lot easier on me if I just needed to step away from the Cheese Puffs or something.  Weight has never been that simple for me.  Someday I hope I can wake up and feel confident about eating the food that keeps me alive and healthy, but for now I’m just trying to get by.

Another summer, another family wedding.  My brother is getting married in six weeks.  A few months ago I had dinner with my husband and my brother’s fiancee, Nicole.  We talked about marriage - what makes it hard and what makes it amazing.  Nicole’s parents divorced years ago, and mine have been together for 40 years this August.  Nicole has heard from my brother and me about the ups and downs that my parents had along the way.  There were fights and tensions, and some of those still exist.

So the question is “what’s the difference?”  What’s the stuff that differentiates a marriage that works from a marriage that doesn’t.  ALL marriages are difficult, at least at some point.  So, she asked, from an affianced woman to a newlywed, “what makes it work?”

I told her that the difference is the willingness to stand there and MAKE IT WORK.  No matter what.  That knowing you’re independent, and capable of taking care of yourself, you choose not to.  You choose to continue the marriage and to figure out how to live together.  Even be happy together.  It’s easy to walk away, and hard to stand there and work it out.  Leaving just takes the problems to the next relationship, and working it out fixes the issues for life.

I told Nicole this was the most important lesson my parents taught me.  She told me that when she asked my brother the same question, he had the exact same answer.  I don’t think that’s just because we grew up in the same house.  I think it’s because knowing when and how to work it out is truly the “secret” to staying together.

When a child, grown or not, has a weight management problem it makes sense to me that the parents are concerned.  They’re concerned for the child’s health, and also for her appearance.  I get that.  With a child on the way, I get it even more.  I don’t just want the best for my child.  I want so much more than that.  Any problem, any struggle that my child could have I would go to any lengths to help.  I don’t fault my parents for wanting to help.  I got that, even then.  I do sometimes have an issue with their methods.

Both of my parents have this penetrating glare.  My father’s is especially developed.  If rage only had an expression, and not a sound, this would be it.  The rage was often disproportionate to the problem, and/or ineptly applied.  One french fry should not be enough.  One french fry does NOT make a person fat.  Showing rage at the consumption of a french fry could not, therefore, achieve the goal of helping me with my weight management.  In fact, I don’t think my father has ever seen me eat the foods that make me fat.  I’m an artist with smoke and mirrors.  That fry, or even a handful of them, couldn’t possibly explain my overweight.  I was a teenager at the time, and maybe he thought that the only food I consumed was food they fed me.  Wrong.

I was given lunch money most days.  I believe that my parents knew how much a sandwich/drink/chips combo cost and gave me that amount each day - something like that.  I didn’t use it on food quite the way they expected.  I’m sure they envisioned a turkey sandwich, milk and a snack.  Instead one of my favorite meals was three chocolate chip cookies.  Not the one inch diameter kind like Entemann’s sells.  These were great big ones.  As big as your hand.  They were baked fresh every day and I used to ask for the ones that were slightly under-cooked.  I usually had them with milk, but I don’t think that helped the nutritional content of my lunch.  And let’s face it, that’s not enough fuel to get through the day.  Calories maybe, but not sustenance.  I was always chasing after snacks, and I came home starving.

Did the glaring help?  Would it help you?  Or would it make you eat more cookies?  Would knowing that the food you were eating during the glare wasn’t the problem change anything?

I could not explain the worst pain inside of me to the person who would have done anything to take that pain away.  I could not tell my father, or my mother, that the help they offered was at best useless and misguided and at worst the problem itself.  I could not hurt the people who wanted so badly to help, and on some level also believed that they wouldn’t believe me if I told them the truth.  I gave them the best love I could by holding everything in, and in doing so ate away at my strength.  Without my strength, I had nothing to protect me, and the fat consumed what was left.

Everyone in Kindergarten thought I was odd.  I accepted this a long time ago, and when I talk about Kindergarten this is what most comes to mind.  My oddness.  But I guess that isn’t the entire picture.  There was another part of my personality that had already started to emerge, only at the time I didn’t know what it was.  Fortunately, neither did the other kids.

One day during the school year some emergency or other took the teacher out of the room.  In 1979 apparently you could do things like leave a room full of 5 year olds to fend for themselves.  Or maybe you weren’t supposed to, but on this occassion that’s what happened.  It was only a few minutes.  At first we sat there, mostly just confused about what to do.  Here was an opportunity for freedom.  We had to do something, but what?  What were we going to do, pull cigarettes out of our Sesame Street lunch boxes?  Being 5 is so limiting.  Eventually someone spoke.  Then someone else…somehow Underoos came up in conversation.  Really being 5 isn’t all that different from being 25 sometimes.

One of the ways I explain my current personality to people is that I have absolutely no inhibitions, but I do have a well developed sense of propriety.  That propriety stops me from, most of the time anyway, straying too far outside the bounds of society.  I developed that propriety late in life.  Because I didn’t interact with my peers that often in childhood I never got a great sense of what they considered normal, and never used that to guide my behavior.  So, now you’ve got a kid, with no adult supervision, in a conversation about Underoos, with no sense of societal mores, and no inhibitions.  Need I detail what followed?

I remember taking off my shirt.  I was wearing the Wonderwoman Underoos, which were my favorite ones.  Most underoos had a shirt that resembled an undershirt, but the Wonderwoman top resembled a bra.  It was really just the top half of an undershirt, but to me that was a bra, which made me all grown up.  Someone dared me to show what was underneath the bra, and I did.  Mosquito bites were flashed to the amazed room of toddlers.  Too amazed to assign a look out.  The door swung open, and I quickly lowered my “bra”.  There was still the matter of the removed shirt, but my normally non-existent reflexes got that in place with cat-like speed.

The most incredible part wasn’t that I flashed the class.  That was simply a preview of things to come.  What still boggles the mind is that every single kid in that room kept his mouth shut.  The teacher didn’t have enough evidence with which to prosecute, and so I never saw any consequences.  What she did see - my shirtless little body - contradicted everything she knew about the wallflower I appeared to be.  My reputation was saved by a tight-lipped Kindergarten class and assumptions about my purity.  Bring on 1st Grade.

I went to NJ this weekend to visit my family.  Aside from Mother’s Day, which was reason enough, my parents made an engagement party for my brother.  The whole thing was great.  Everyone was really happy.  My mom had turned 60 the week before, and my parents are having their 40th anniversary this year, so I felt like they needed gifts, and lots of them.

One of the gifts I brought with me was the Calphalon One Frittata Pan.  My parents make frittatas at least once a week.  With Egg-Beaters instead of eggs.  They’d never compromise on fat and heart health.  But anyway, this is one of their favorite foods, and flipping it is always a nightmare.  I thought I could help.

The pan is essentially two pans in one.  One says “top” and the other says “bottom”, so there’s no confusion.  You are supposed to cook the frittata fully on one side, and then flip it to let it brown on the other.  This should not be hard.  This should, in fact, not require instructions of any kind.  The two-sided pan kinda speaks for itself.  After we left on Sunday, my parents used it to make dinner.  I’m supposing the mistake was that the egg beaters had not cooked through enough when my father flipped the pan.  That’s all I can think of as an explanation for why the majority of the yellow not-quite-egg substance wound up coating every surface in the kitchen.  When the egginess hit the hot stove it cooked to a thin yellow layer impenetrable to most household cleaners.  Fortunately by the time my parents called me they were already laughing.

Next year I’m getting them a toaster.  I wonder what they’ll do with that.

Last Friday at a company picnic one of my co-workers expressed concern for today’s high school youth.  Not the usual babble about growing up too fast or dressing like Britney Spears, his concern was that they are all guzzling Red Bull, and other similar beverages, that taste like juice but are actually - well - kind of drugs.  Sure, most of the “drugs” are natural, but as I always point out, so is arsenic.  That doesn’t mean you drink it.

I immediately said what I should probably have kept to myself.  Most of my energy in high school came from my “diet” of black coffee and Marlboro “reds”.  At age 14 I was so proud that I drank and smoked the high octane stuff.  That I never used the word “light” when asking for coffee or cigarettes.  I wanted the real thing.  The one time that one of my friends got a pack of Marlboro Lights, we cut the filters down to half the length so we’d get more of the nicotine.

I think such idiocy made me feel tough and mature.  Now I just feel silly.  I wish I had been hooked on Red Bull instead.

I am, temporarily, the driver of a very spiffy Nissan Sentra.  My usual ride, a 4 1/2 year old Honda Accord with 68,000 miles on it, is getting a new front bumper.  The insurance company approved up to 3 days for a rental car at up to $30 a day.  This seemed reasonable, as it covered the cost of a compact vehicle.  As I will be using this car just to get around town for a bit, a compact seemed more than adequate.  Really, even an “economy” would have done the trick.  I told Enterprise that was what I needed - an economy or compact vehicle - whichever was readily available.  They tried to upgrade me to an Altima.  They told me about the features, the luxury, the size and the style.  All I heard was that it was more expensive, and that because it’s bigger it will require more gas to cover the same distance.  They had even pulled the bigger car next to the smaller one to show me how much “better” it was.  With gas at $3.60 a gallon on a good day it’s just not going to work on me.

The key to selling is to read your audience.  It’s not what the target wants, but what makes the target tick.  Is it glamour?  Luxury?  That the car will make her look thinner?  I’m guessing someone at Enterprise told the salespeople that middle-class women in Montgomery County, Maryland see larger cars as status symbols.  I’m immune to such selling.  Not only have I never chosen a car for its luxury, but you’d have a hard time convincing me that luxury comes packaged in a Nissan wrapper.

I’m happy with my Honda and I’ve never wanted anything else.  Am I immune to some universal impulse, content or oblivious?