So, you guys don't know me because I seem to just pop in every few months for a couple days, before losing steam and going MIA! But it's always great that I have a place to come for support with my weight struggles!!!
Anyway, for years, since Oprah and all the other talk show people started talking about emotional reasons for overeating, I have been trying to figure out WHY I am the way I am! I can't trace it to abuse or other serious child tragedy. I never could figure out what my emotional issues might be!
Lately I have been able to make a few connections. My younger sister and I were latchkey kids, starting from 2nd grade (sis in 1st), we were home alone till my single mom got home from work ~7pm. We had a neighbor we could call in case of emergency, but for the most part we were on our own after school till Mom got home. My own daughter is in 3rd grade this year, and I can't imagine her having been home alone for the past 2 years with only a younger sibling! I don't mean to disparage my mom, because I know she did the best she could at the time. But I think those years were key in my (and my obese sis') learning to use food for comfort, company, boredom, happiness. (BTW, my sis and me are the only ones on either side of our family who are over 200lbs - much less 300, so obviously it's something about US).
Today, on a beautiful sunny day, I was driving in the car, and out of nowhere started thinking about my dear gramma, who passed away about 15 years ago. I remembered how my mom once told her how she "shows her love with food", using a half stick of butter to make scrambled eggs.
All of a sudden, I started BAWLING in the car, realizing that my gramma was my LIFE when I was a kid, and that NEVER in all my life then or since have I felt more loved, comfortable, and happy than when I was staying with my gramma for holiday breaks and summers. She lived 2 1/2 hours away, and so we would only see her usually during those times, or every once in awhile for a weekend -- and I would cry my little heart out every time we would come home. Then the first couple nights of being back home, I would wake up in the middle of the night with a heavy-hearted grief to be away from her. I think my attachment came from my mom being a very young mother and my gramma practically raising me till my parents decided to move us where I live now when I was in 1st grade. Shortly thereafter, my parents divorced, my dad moved back up where my gramma was, and my mom kept us here and started leaving us alone after school. Somehow, I missed my gram more than my dad even, though I have always maintained a relationship with him.
My gramma was the best hillbilly cook around, and she spent SO much time cooking up all her specialties that were my favorites growing up. I'm starting to realize that her food and my most happy, comforting times as a child are SO interconnected. I really am starting to believe that very subconciously, I have been eating all my life trying to get that feeling back!
It seems pretty obvious to me all of a sudden, and it blows my mind that I JUST realized this TODAY, driving in my car. I have a great family, a wonderful husband, a beautiful daughter, and lots of supportive, loving people in my life. But there's something about that feeling I used to have with my gram that I guess I have never been able to duplicate. Feeling totally safe, cared for, special, and loved/cherished all with a big scoop of chicken and dumplin's on top.
Whether this means ANYTHING to my weight loss journey or not remains to be seen. But these thoughts are making me weep, and I'm a pretty happy person. I think I have struck a nerve.
Sorry this is so long, but just writing it is pretty therapeutic for me! I'm almost 40 years old and I'm sitting here crying about my memories of my gram when I was a kid.
Epiphany!
)!
