avoiding mirrors (lyn)

I have always been a thin person.  I have never worried about my weight; I’ve never had to.  Except once.

In 1988,  my mom was visiting me in NYC.  Over lunch, she questioned my choice of a regular coke, and kindly queried, “What about a diet Coke instead?”  That’s all it took.  I started working out, eating less, and within a year, I was a very fit 110 pounds, dating a gorgeous guy 12 years younger (with whom I later had a baby, but that's a whole other story).


Here's me in 1989, visiting my blogging/dieting partner at the hospital, where she has just given birth to her beautiful first son.

As I got older, I still stayed on the thin side.  Truly, I barely ever thought about my weight.  Too many other things consumed me.  I am a single mother, raising a now-spectacular son (he was less so as a middle-schooler).  I also worked in a volatile industry and struggled with the non-relationship I had with my son's father, and the diminishing one my son had with him.  But still, I was thin.  


Here I am in 2005: 

In April 2006, I lost my job. Soon after I developed a horrible toothache that persisted for months, despite a crown, root canal, and visits to many dental experts, all of whom could find no source for my pain.  Then I got a sore throat, again for which there was no source pain.  I visited ETM’s, jaw experts, pain doctors, internists, acupuncturists, and finally, psychiatrists.  I was told to go on lexapro; I did.  And today, three years later,  I am heavy.  So heavy, that my mother, in a less kind way than her characteristically subtle suggestion in 1988 said, “ I bumped into a friend of mine recently who said, ‘I saw Linda (a name I haven’t used in 40 years, despite it being the name I was given at birth) the other day and didn’t even recognize her she’s gotten so heavy.”

While I try to avoid full-body shots in any photos taken of me, one did slip in this past August on a trip to Martha's Vineyard.  As you can see, my hips are nearly the size of the ferry.

I haven’t worked in three years, which is a major source of stress as I must support my almost-17 year old son and myself.  But I used to work as a marketing executive in television and have a closet full of beautiful Jil Sander, Prada, Chanel (well, not too many Chanel), Akris, Agnona, and other designer clothes, none of which fit.  My size 28 and 29 Page jeans which used to look so great now sit in my closet unworn.  I tried unsuccessfully to sell them on Craig’s list, as I even lost hope that they would ever fit again.  Even my T-shirts and jackets and blouses and Bruno Cucinelli cashmere sweaters are too tight.  And recently I tried to buy new boots, thinking I was safe there, and it was impossible to find leather boots that could go over my calves.  Now I can only aspire to buy jewelry and purses.

I recently had to go for a physical, and I turned away from the scale when the doctor weighed me as I didn’t want to know.  Even when I think I look good the photos say otherwise.  My son took this photo last week and I see a double chin.  How did that creep onto my face unannounced?

I do not like the way I feel.  I do not like the way I look.  I do not like that my gorgeous clothes that I used to wear no longer fit.  I do not like that I no longer look good in jeans and that my belly shows even in white T’s, my favorite.  And I especially do not like not being the person I had always been.  I want to be her again.

Weight is something I should be able to control. I can’t blame it all on lexapro, though I do think that is a major contributor, but I don’t want to go off it.  I have many things that are too overwhelming for me to deal with (no job, money running out, son leaving for college in two years and nothing in the bank to help pay for it, etc.etc.).

So, tomorrow begins a new life. Oh, and did I mention I’m old. 58. But I think I can look good again because I really want to. I used to turn heads when I walked into a room; now I’m invisible.

-lyn