Campfyre Stories

Still in the midst of readying the apartment for the party.  Still in the midst of getting things from Mom’s.  What this really means right now is a lot of sorting and a lot of throwing things away…  but there’s a lot of *not* throwing things away, too.  Decisions that need to me made in terms of what to do with assorted stuff.

Part of this whole sorting process is remembering.  There have been a lot of cool treasures in these boxes of STUFF, but there have been some disturbing things as well…  things I’ve tried to forget.  When the Spawn was very young, I was incredibly depressed.  Not because of him - he was light and joy for me - but because of everything else.  The marriage, the in-laws, not knowing who I was, being far removed from my family, baggage I hadn’t dealt with, a million different things.  And the thing is that while I was so depressed, I was incredibly obese.

I have a lot of issues around my body and what I look like today.  I’ve maintained a size 16 for about 3-4 years with the occasional flux up to 18 or down to 12 or 14…  but I keep finding pictures from when I was just plain FAT.  I don’t mean fat, like I look in the mirror and see something that’s not necessarily there - that’s where I am today.  I mean fat as in, I could barely fit into a normal-sized seat on an airplane or bus or even in the bucket seat of a car comfortably.

I weighed probably a little over 300lbs.  I wore a size 26.

These days, 7+ years later, I look in the mirror and I still see that image.  I still see what I used to be, but looking at the pictures I find myself reliving the horrors from my psyche at that time.  I remember all those negative emotions and I remember why I had them.

I didn’t realize that there were still resentments in me over some of that.  I didn’t realize that there are people that I need to forgive…  people who will never ask for it and probably don’t even know.  I have always realized, and this just serves as an ugly reminder to me, that someday I will need to apologize to my son for not being a better mother when he was little…  and I’ll have to try to do that without skewing the perspective and giving him a not-so-nice opinion of certain people dear to him.

There are a lot of things I simply do not miss.  There are a lot of people that, I am now realizing, are better OUT of my life.  I need to acknowledge that much before I can think about it any more.  There are things I want to say to people who would benefit from it, but they would never hear it from me and I would never make the attempt.

I realize, in this moment, that I missed out on a good 5 or 6 years of my life, almost entirely.  I was immersed in this pit of despair and despondency to the point where I don’t even really remember what was going on at that time.

And then I see the pictures…  and I do remember…  and I remember, now, looking back, why.  And who.  And what.  And, you know, there was a reason that I didn’t think about this stuff.  There was a reason that I blocked it all out.  I don’t want to remember being that non-person.  I don’t want to remember all the things that made me that way and brought me to that space.  I don’t want to see that fat, miserable, desperate woman…  at least when I see her in the mirror I know she’s not real.  When I see the photos I remember that she was.

~FG };^>