05-22-09 The fat years

The fat years.

There were a few, just a few men that were interesting, but no one that I cared to invest my life in.  There was no one that I trusted, until Chris came back into my life.  But he is another chapter.  For the first few years after my divorce I was grieving and what I felt and was able to deal with were only the things on the surface.  My pain-burg was a ship wrecking mammoth chilling monster that was just out of sight.  I could always feel it looming and knew it as a constant companion. 

God was very real to me but my relationship with Him was full of ebbs and tides and the closeness that I should have had with Him I also rejected.  I was committed to Him but it was still only going to be on my own terms.  So He stood by waiting patiently for me to know Him and the Love that would heal me completely.  That took me this 30 years to see.

Those years were not wasted at least from His perspective.  I would have said otherwise until very recently.  I allowed my beautiful body - the temple that He had given me to be used for His glory - to become a garbage pit.  My self worth had disappeared and my will all but gone, I found a multitude of ways to be distracted from my heart's cry.  I spent my time when I had time after school and work, watching TV, eating, and with my children.

I loved my children so even though I had at first allowed myself to be used by a few men, I came to realize that this was not good for them.  I really didn't care about myself, but I would not subject them to anything or anyone that could potentially harm them.  They were my priority and protection of them was essential.  I did not want either of them to go through what I had as a child.  So my course was set and the decision made to raise my children by myself, far away from the dysfunctional family I had grown up in and far away from any harm that I could prevent.  This was my purpose in life now.  I had decided on some level that they were more important than me.  So I focused on them and I just let myself go, just stopped caring about how I looked.  My only comfort from loneliness was found in food so I gained weight and eventually I topped out at 286 lbs. 

Part of that weight gain was depression, a chemical imbalance, and part of it was self defense, keeping men at a distance.  A great distance.  The larger I was the further they were going to be and the safer my heart would be.  In my heart I thought that no man will ever want me like this so I will be safe.   How funny this is to me now because I know that all along I still had the desire and yearning to be loved deep in my heart of hearts. 

I worked, went to school, got my LPN license, worked, took care of my children, ate, watched TV.  That was my life.  I had one or two 'close' friends, but I was alone.  I went to church and I had always had people staying with me at my house.  I can't remember too many years that someone was not living with us in our home.  I kind of took in the strays.  I related to the unlovable outcasts, the homeless (my heart had no home), the ugly, different, un-cool people that are rejected by everyone including the church.  I only had two men stay with me, in the trailer not in my house.  The rest were women.  This is kind of strange as I am thinking about it.  Yeah, I collected strays. 

When I was married my husband's mother came to visit at every opportunity.  We never had a honeymoon after we got married.  We never had a vacation without her.  I never was given the opportunity to invite her, she just came.  This irritated me.  I remember a conversation with Scott about it.  He simply told me that she would not always be around.  I remember thinking, well then I won't either.  Stubborn willful woman that I was.  I had no intention of leaving him.  So how does this fit in the fat chapter I wonder?  Maybe because after we divorced I remained close to his mother and I actually did invite her to visit, as often as she wanted to come.  She was one of the strays that I collected.  She was divorced x 3 and lonely also.  And I loved her. 

I found that if I were unattractive in a sexual way to men that my compassion could be seen and I became a very good nurse, a loving and compassionate person who could give without the expectation of anything in return.  God was there.  Even in my fat years, God was there.  He had given me a heart that sought out love, but that also gave it out in abundance. 

I have always had the potential for destruction, cruelty, malevolence, and wrath.  I have committed these sins against others in my life, I admit, to my shame.  But my heart, my heart that God tenderized even while it was in me, became my life's driving force.  Knowing my potential for darkness has kept me humble but knowing the heart of God beats in my breast has driven me to love far beyond my own capacity.  It is a combination of these traits that makes me a good nurse.  I can perform painful but necessary procedures with a steely will that keeps me from crumbling from the hurt that is inflicted.  I can choose the hard road when necessary for the greater good.  But I can weep and console another hurting soul who is in despair knowing deeply the pain they feel.  I have walked roads that most have not.  I have broken all of God's commands and yet I know His tender mercy and grace so well.

Being fat was no big deal to me.  It was a safe place for me to be and it suited my purpose, and maybe Gods as well.  In those years I learned much about other's needs, how to reach out to the unreachable, how to care for those that would be rejected by everyone else.  I learned the value of a soul, every soul, to God.

There was not always a church body in my life.  Somehow I would always find myself outside of the circles that they had of 'important' people.  I was always an outcast for one reason or another, but being a single woman divorced and with children made me one of those who were never allowed the intimacy of knowing and communing with married friends.  I was a pariah of the lowest sort, who might take someone else's man.  That is what it felt like others were thinking from my perspective.  So being fat allowed me the opportunity to have some friends who would have otherwise rejected me.  The church is full of humans.  I do not blame those women, because how they felt would possibly have been true of me had I not been hiding under those pounds.  Fat was good armor.

Fat is also subjective.  When I was in high school I was about 125 lbs.  That was a lot for a 5'4" teenager, but I was and still am very strong and have had a lot more muscle mass than other girls.  I didn't look fat at 125.  I was a gymnast.  I was beautifully and wonderfully made (though I didn't know it then).  When I got married to Scott I was still 125 and I was very beautiful.  I was VERY beautiful.  I can't recall feeling beautiful, but I look at the photos of myself back then and am amazed at myself.  Scott I felt, was the most handsome man I had ever met at the time.  I think that was love, but he was gorgeous.  Looking at photos of the two of us it is no wonder that we got looks everywhere we went.  I was used to it at the time so I didn't give it a second thought.  Amazing!

I gained weight when I was pregnant, 70 lbs with my first.  Well I have to actually say the second.  I lost my first child at 5 months.  I had hemorrhaged and when I got to the hospital there was no heartbeat and they had to remove my baby from my womb.  He would have been named James Allen after our fathers.  I will see him in heaven.  They called it a missed abortion, but when they write it on a medical chart now it is simply put down as an AB, abortion.  It always hurts me to see those letters.  They do not cover that experience by any measure.  I had gained some weight being pregnant that did not go away.  I went through a season of depression and grief.  No one seemed to understand why.  My husband made it clear that he did not like the extra pounds I had gained.

But my daughter was born healthy and so beautiful.  We women love to tell the stories of our birthing experiences.  Like warriors recanting their conquests we go over and over the details of our pain and out joy.  Amanda didn't fit through my pelvic bones.  For some reason they had not opened and spread as they usually do.  I am thankful that I live in a time where medicine could intervene.  Otherwise we would have both not survived her birth.  After 36 hours of labor the doctor decided that she was too big so even though I had 'pushed' for 2 hours they would perform a cesarean section.  [looking back now as a nurse I wonder how come it took 36 hours of labor for the doctor to figure this out???]  anyway out she came with a pop from being stuck between the bones.  She was a cone head for a few hours after birth.

I could not have asked for a more beautiful baby.  I know, all mothers feel that way.

I have never lost all of those 70 lbs.

My husband was really unhappy about that.

Somewhere along this time there was unfaithfulness in our marriage.  I actually don't remember which one of us was first.  I had not physically been unfaithful, but my heart was no longer invested as it once had been.  Scott had found other women to fulfill his desires.  Still I was not willing to give up on our marriage so I fought for it and he stayed.

We went to church together and we both tried.

My son, another cesarean birth, came a year later along with additional poundage. 

My husband did not like that at all.

I remember being told 'sleeping with you is like sleeping with an army buddy'.  A painful word dagger into my heart from the one that held it in his hands.

The toll of having children and caring for them was taking on me was evident in my appearance and the way I cared for myself.  Or should I say the way I didn't care for myself.  Did I mention that having a cesarean was major surgery?  Well together with the hormonal changes from being pregnant and giving birth and nursing a very hungry child I was not only exhausted, but I was ill.  My doctors informed me that I suffered from major depression.  I was started on medication.  That was the beginning of what will be another chapter on 'mental illness'.

I had not had time to recover from all of this when I discovered that my husband had once again become involved with another woman.

Now some might read this and think him a scoundrel.  I did at the time.  But he was the man that I had chosen to live the rest of my life with.  I had given him my heart and I knew him to be an honest caring good person.  He just had this penis problem - it led him around.  Does that sound crazy?  Well think about it.  We lived in that time where all the rules were made to be broken, and love was supposed to be free.  Sex was not assigned only to the marriage bed in our minds back then.  Scott could not have been a better dad to his children (given the opportunity), he was steadfast and dependable, strong and unyieldingly protective of me and of his children.  He would have given his life to protect us.  I knew, and still know this in my heart of hearts.  I am not without blame in our marriage problems.  He is not the only one who made mistakes.  I read people pretty well, always have, given my early years and the family I grew up in.  That necessary talent was a matter of survival.  I did not go into my relationship with Scott out of blind feelings.  Oh I had feelings and I loved him, but I also knew him, good and bad.  Enough said I guess.

So when I weighed about 160-170 lbs. I thought (along with Scott) that I was huge and undesirable.  But there was nothing I could do to get rid of the extra weight.  I was exhausted depressed stressed and pulled in too many directions. 

So when I found out about Sue, I followed Scott and saw him going to her apartment.  I had had enough and decided that he had to make a decision between us so I confronted them together.  He was shocked, she was shocked, I was angry, and he would not chose.  

So I chose for him.  Being as I am a Christian I had searched the Word to see what my options were.  I knew that we had both violated our marriage vows so I was as guilty as he was in the situation, but I felt that I was the lesser responsible of the two of us.  Still I didn't want the responsibility of choosing divorce so I told him that he had to divorce me.  Doesn't that sound silly?  That's what legalism does for ya. 

Fat eventually gave both of us an excuse for divorce.  That was not an outcome that I ever wanted but it is what it is.

I know that fat is not the reason for all of it.  But that was just another nail in the coffin of my feelings of self worth.  One in a long line of nails since my birth, since my conception?  I don't know.