SHE’S FAT & MANY DAYS HOPELESS

I am hungry but I can’t eat.

“Trim that ass down,” my dad said. “You trim that ass down and you’ll find a good guy.”

If I quit eating, I will be more valuable. If I make myself small enough, I will be worth keeping.

My stomach has been growling all day, but I’m far from starving. People can live thirty days without food. I had a latte this morning.

I can’t keep living like this, but I don’t know how to live differently. I am almost fifty years old. Old enough to know better. Wise enough to see the sickness. I’ve tried every cure.

“You’re fat,” my dad said. “Your ass is four and a half feet wide.”

He said those things because he was trying to hurt me. He was trying to hurt me because he believed I hurt him.

“I can’t wait for you to die,” I said to the dying man.

I said those things because I meant them, and I sobbed because I would give anything to have more time with my dad.

My dad tells me the ugly truth because he loves me. He believes it will help me to hear how fat I am. He wants me to face it.

“Don’t get me wrong. There are guys out there who like a big ass. I just think you will be happier.”

He’s right.

I am happier when I have a thin, athletic build. That version of me eats mostly whole foods and is incredibly active. She runs for pleasure with a rubber chicken in her hand. She believes she will make ten million dollars with it.

This version of me is lumpy and grumpy. This version of me is tired. This version of me binges on toasted coconut ice cream and bags of tortilla chips after weeks of living on hamburger patties and sweet potatoes. This version of me would prefer a good steak, but she can’t afford it. This version of me is poor and many days hopeless. This version of me has been watching her dad die slowly for a bit over a year. This version of me is watching season 2,047 of Love is Blind when she could be writing a best-selling novel. This version of me believes she can have romantic love now, as she is, but fears this energy will attract like energy and copulate doom and heartache.

I had a thin, athletic body before I came to Michigan to help my father die, and I didn’t need to starve for it.

I lived clean.

I quit eating sugar, I quit caffeine, I quit cannabis. I stopped taking my ADHD medicine (Adderall). I stopped my asthma medicine.

I wrote daily. I actively worked on building Rubber Rooster Media. I stopped watching Netflix completely. I believed I was living God’s purpose.

And now…

I am fat…

and many days hopeless.

On the other hand—I am choices away from being the woman who makes ten million dollars with a rubber chicken.

#THELIFEYOULIVEISACHOICE