onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “peace”

01 Nov 2015
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A Really Scary Halloween Story

Goodbye Halloween. I love Halloween. But it has been a while since I did much to celebrate. This year I didn’t even dress up, since I had to work.

No matter how I look at it, it’s such a beautiful miracle that I don’t care about candy. Halloween exactly 10 years ago was filled with humiliated binging, and a general sense of shame, but in a normal sized body.

Halloween 10 years ago was one of those days when I knew I was hitting bottom, but before I knew what I could do about it. It was the time in my life that I was most terrified about what would become of me. It was the time of my life when I felt the most out of control. I was barely managing to keep myself sane. I was in a regular sized body, but I could not stop eating. And all of my energy went into eating, and then trying to not gain weight from eating. 

Halloween 10 years ago was my first successful bulimic episode, where I stuck a toothbrush down my throat and actually managed to throw up. I had tried before that, but bulimia is not easy. (It turns out it’s not all that effective either.) I remember looking in the mirror and seeing how bloodshot my eyes looked from it. I remember being bloated and taking some gas medicine because of it. Gas medicine because I could not get the water pill some old woman recommend. I remember asking a pharmacist where I could get a water pill, and the pharmacist looking at me funny and asking if I had a prescription. And when I said I did not, telling me that they were dangerous and were not sold over the counter.

I remember being embarrassed and ashamed. I remember wondering if she could tell that I wanted it because I was bulimic. Wondering if it was written across my forehead. This girl is doing shameful things with food. I remember feeling crazy.

I remember that I was terrified that I was going to look fat and ugly for the Halloween birthday party I was going to. And I arrived later than I wanted because I was doing whatever I could think of to look normal. To not look bloodshot and bloated. 

The truth is, maybe I didn’t look as ugly as I thought I looked. But I was so unhappy. And I thought it must be obvious by just looking at me that I was so out of control that I had resorted to making myself throw up.

I thank God for many things about that day. I am grateful that I hit that point of desperation. I don’t think I could have found my solution for my eating disorders if I hadn’t tried something so extreme.

And ultimately, it would make for a very happy ending. Just two months later, I would find the solution to my eating problem. I would never have to worry about how to get rid of the food I wished I hadn’t eaten. 

I would get a life that was more peaceful than I could ever have imagined in my wildest dreams. A life where I can walk by a bowl full of candy, and rest easy knowing it’s not mine.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth and tagged , , , , ,
23 Oct 2015

Not special. Still happy.

I am posting early this week because I have lots to do this weekend.

I am on a plane to New York again. I am going to an annual gathering for people with the same food boundaries as myself.I am already thinking about the farmer’s market and the giant apples. Maybe even Norther Spies, which I have not been able to get since I left. 

It has been nine years and ten months since I quit sugar and stopped eating compulsively. 3581 days.

Life seems to go so slowly while I am living it. But in retrospect, things change in an instant. The new normal doesn’t take very long.

Three years ago, I was single and living in New York. I had just quit smoking. I had just gained 30 pounds because of it. I was a nanny and a receptionist. I had not yet started crocheting again. 

Today I am happily, madly in love. I live in the suburbs of Chicago. I am learning to drive, and I just accepted a freelance writing gig, along with my part time job at a grocery store. Plus I spend my spare time crocheting gifts.

And the intervening years were also diverse. Living and making friends, first in Texas, then in Mississippi. Working for a construction company. Learning to crochet clothes. Teaching myself to knit (although I’m still not great at it.)

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I don’t remember my life being so filled with drastic improvement before I got my eating under control. I don’t recall it shifting so quickly. And, though it comes with dips and drags and false starts, I don’t remember my life getting always happier, calmer, more steady. More serene. 

But even if my memory is faulty, the truth is that my experience of myself before I got my eating under control was of stagnation, anxiety, and dread.

One of the things that happens every year at this gathering for people who don’t eat compulsively is that I meet people who are struggling with food and sugar addiction. I like being an example of what is possible. Because I was a hopeless case too. There is nothing special about me. I don’t have extraordinary willpower – or really much of any willpower. I’m not naturally thin. I am a sick and twisted compulsive eating sugar addict who weighed 300 pounds at 19 years old. And I still managed to find a solution to this problem. And that gave me the clarity to find solutions to my other problems. It allowed me to create a life that keeps getting better.

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06 Sep 2015

A nugget of peace in my peacelessness 

Ah. Moods. They seem so real.When I got sober from sugar, I was told to be grateful. I was told be be grateful for whatever there was to be grateful for. Even if it was just that I was not eating compulsively that day. Even if it was just that I was not dead.

Gratitude may, in fact, be the opposite of addiction. The disease of addiction’s symptoms are about being self-centered, egotistical, and entitled. I got dealt a bad hand. She’s got more than I do. The world is against me. My life sucks. I deserve better. Why does he have what I want? I should have that. That should be mine.

As a food addict in the throes of my disease, I was regularly in a bad mood. And it felt real. I felt that I was being treated unfairly. I was afraid of the future. I was misunderstood. I was abused and neglected. And my body agreed. It produced all the right chemicals and hormones to defend that point of view.

I have been thinking about this because I have been in a particularly good mood, after a few days of being more easily irritated. And I don’t know why. No reason. 

Or perhaps more accurately, the “reasons” are irrelevant. I could have a good reason to be in a bad mood on any day, and still be in a good mood. Someone can be a jerk at work and I could still be perfectly happy.

Another thing I learned when I got my food under control was that while I might not be able to completely reverse a bad mood in a moment, I have the ability to change my mind about it, step away from it, and take its power away. 

Just like I do not romance thoughts about sugar and carbs, I do not romance my bad moods. I do not justify them with how real they are. Perhaps I really am being treated unfairly. Perhaps I truly am being misunderstood. That is no justification for perpetuating bad moods. I do not play them over and over in my head so that they get me all worked up. I can look at them. I can let them be. I can find a kind of peace with my peacelessness.

It’s one of the ways that I gauge my own choices, relationships, and experiences. If I can’t find that nugget of peace in my peacelessness, then I need to make a change. Quickly. 

Moods used to run my life when I was eating compulsively. I am grateful that now I run my life. I may have to accommodate a mood now and then, but ultimately, moods serve me, and not the other way around.

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16 Nov 2014

Novelty helped me survive eating food I didn’t enjoy

Today we spent the day driving home again. It was a nice day.

I liked the town where we stayed in Kentucky. I went walking every day. I enjoyed my time there. It was nice to be away.

But there is something else that I find enjoyable about going out of town. Especially for a short while. I am forced to do different things. To break my routines and branch out. Especially around food.

I don’t know that I have ever thought about the fact that I cook almost everything in the oven. Meat and vegetables alike. I occasionally sauté. I rarely fry. And I never steam. Bacon and eggs get cooked on the range. Basically everything else is baked or roasted.

But there was no oven at the hotel we stayed in. Only burners. So I made chicken the other day. Because it was easy to get and I was going to have to pan cook it. And it had been maybe years since I had it. At least the boneless, skinless breast cutlet. And I kept apologizing to my boyfriend that it wasn’t very good. And he kept saying it was perfectly good.

Right. I don’t like chicken. But I already knew that. I almost never make it, unless it’s bone in, skin on and I deep fry it twice. (It’s called confit. And it’s awesome.) It was nice to have boring old chicken breast. If only to remember that I really don’t want it. And that I don’t have to eat it again any time soon. I didn’t even feel disappointed. It was just a new meal in a new place. There was a kind of freedom in being away from my norm. I made vegetables I hadn’t made in a long time either. Sautéed green beans. Brussels sprouts. Broccoli. It was also nice to eat a bunch of things that I hadn’t made in forever but actually loved!

I thoroughly enjoyed being someplace I didn’t know. And doing things I I don’t usually do. I liked exploring. I liked looking around.

I am not a person who jumps out of bed in the morning hoping the day is filled with excitement and adventure. But even for a girl like me, who likes sameness and contentment, variety is still the spice of life.

And if I learned anything from keeping the boundaries around my eating no matter what happens (or what doesn’t), it’s that peace is not about sameness or contentment. Peace is about trusting that everything is exactly right in the midst of upheaval and discontent.

And yes. I’m happy to have my oven back.

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12 Oct 2014

Easygoing all over the place

I have no idea what to write tonight. And it’s late. I need to post soon. Because it’s what I do.

Yesterday was packing everything in the truck and driving 12 hours.

I packed my meals up the night before. I never had to worry about food. I never had to think about what to eat. I didn’t have to make any major decisions while we were on the road. I didn’t have to bow to the whims of the road. Or my travel companion. I ate when it was time to eat. Because I was prepared.

Having my food taken care of made all of the cramped sitting bearable. It made me peaceful. I don’t dislike long drives. But they come with discomfort.

I can live with discomfort. I can be gracious in the face of it.

That is not my default setting. I have a history of being difficult in the face of difficulty.

Getting my eating under control made me more conscious of my behavior. It made me want to be gracious and easy going. Because it was so hard to live with myself if I was both difficult and sober.

It’s much easier to be obnoxious when you’re high.

But now the long travel is done. Thank God. Eventually we may even unpack the truck. Eventually. But today is not that day. And I’m feeling easygoing about that too.

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05 Oct 2014
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I’m not going to pretend it’s quiche.

A while ago I thought it was time for my boyfriend and I to pack up our stuff, get in the truck, and move on. To a different location and a different chapter. But I jumped the gun.

But now it is really time to move along. And my boyfriend and I are both really happy about it.

But on the way out, we are being met with malice. Mostly from one person. But it’s a lot of malice. And it is forcing me to look at some things about myself.

When I got my eating under control I understood that I had to trust Life. I have written about it before. And I do. I trust that all is working out the way it should. I know that all will be well. But I am very bad at dealing with mean people.

I am not a mean person. Not to say that I have never been mean. When I was eating compulsively I could be quite malicious. I was always angry about being “dealt a bad hand” and I took it out on everyone I thought got a better life than I did. But it never felt good to be mean. I never enjoyed being a jerk. Though I always thought I would when I fantasized about it before hand.

But I don’t know how to be OK with cruelty. And what I am talking about is cruelty.

And I realized something the other day. What is going on is evil. I realized that evil is not some conceptual force in comic books and movies. It’s not metaphysical or otherworldly. It is the things we as humans do to hurt and torment and abuse with our eyes wide open. And my sensitive heart has a hard time with it.

But the agreement I made to trust Life is not just to trust that it will all work out in the end. It is that I will honor what happens every day. And that includes malice and cruelty. I need to learn to honor evil. And frankly, that’s hard for me.

I don’t know how to do that. But there are things that I do know. Eating within my food boundaries means that I cannot pretend or lie. Pretending and lying make me want to eat a chocolate cake. So when faced with malice, I need to acknowledge it. I need to make it clear that I see it. And that it’s not OK with me. Even if there is nothing to do about it. I can’t make nice. I’m not going to eat shit and pretend it’s quiche.

The truth is, evil exists. And it is going to continue to exist. And I need to figure out how to live with that with peace in my heart. Because my own peace is my own responsibility.

I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t have the answer. But I am happy that by this time next week, this particular evil will be behind me.

And besides, I know that as long as I keep my eating under control and work at growing personally, the solution will come. I already know to trust that all will work out in the end. And I’m quite sure that the issue will pop up again. In some form or another.

Posted in Inspiration, Life, Personal Growth, Relationships and tagged , , , , , ,
23 Aug 2014

I might go through hell, but I don’t need to live there

So I wrote a blog yesterday that I was going to post today, but yesterday was so insane that I decided it was better to write a whole new blog. So here goes.

Yesterday my boyfriend and I were set to travel to Florida. We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Tampa, where we were going to connect to a flight to Ft. Lauderdale where we would arrive around 3. Then we would drive two hours down to the Keys. We’d hit the grocery store first to stock up the kitchenette we were renting, then head to a bar we like walking distance from the hotel so we could relax with beer for him and diet coke for me.

But then our flight to Tampa was so delayed that we were not going to make our connecting flight. So the airline did their best and managed to get us redirected. We would get into Ft. Lauderdale at 9:45 at night. By way of Kansas City. And then Nashville. No joke.

Now this is annoying. And while things were not settled, and we didn’t know how or if we would get to Florida, it was very stressful. And for about half an hour, I was really upset. But I kept reminding myself to breathe. I had all the food I needed, because I travel prepared. And my boyfriend called the hotel and told them we would miss check in. They said they would hide our key and we could check in in the morning. Plus, I was with my boyfriend, so it was all fine. We laughed about it a lot. Even as it was going on. We were both able to take it in stride and make the best of it.

So we finally get to Ft. Lauderdale after 8 hours of numb butt cheeks. We rent a really nice car for a good deal. We drive the 2 hours. I buy an apple at a rest stop and I have some protein packed in my bag so I have breakfast for the morning so we don’t have to run to the grocery store first thing in the morning. All is well. We’re exhausted. But the day is done.

Or so we think.

We get in about midnight, find our hidden room key, and go to the room. I open the door and the first thing I see is a mountain of garbage. Pizza boxes. Water bottles. A banana peel. There is a pile of towels on the floor. I turn on the lights (afraid there will be people in there) and the beds are all unmade. And it smells.

We are both clear that we are not going to sleep in the beds. (Duh!!!!) So we take what seem like unused pillows and go sleep on two chez lounges on the screened in balcony attached to our room. No joke.

So there are two things I want to say about this.

1) I didn’t have to eat over this. I didn’t have to drown my feelings with chocolate cake. I didn’t “deserve” something sweet at the end of a hard day. I don’t eat outside of my boundaries no matter what.

Sugar wouldn’t have made anything better. And in the long run, it would have made everything so much worse.

2) I had to learn to live a certain way when I got my eating under control. I had to learn to let life happen the way it happened. I had to learn to let go of anger and resentment. I had to drop self-pity.

It’s true that I was just plain miserable from midnight until I fell asleep on the lounge chair. And I was anxious for the hour that I was awake before the office opened and we got a new, lovely, clean room. And a refund for the night. (Obviously.)

But the trip is not ruined. We were able to be calm and loving and happy through the whole day. And I am perfectly happy right now. I’m laying by the pool watching iguanas eat bugs around me. My boyfriend and I have had a lovely day so far. We have even enjoyed telling our family and friends. We are already laughing about it.

I got that freedom from getting control of my food addiction. When I was eating compulsively, just the trouble with the flight would have been enough to positively ruin the whole time away. The. Whole. Trip! It’s not fair! Life isn’t fair! I hate everyone!!!!

But today it doesn’t matter if life is fair. All is well. Because I can let it be done. I can be happy in the now.

So that’s my story. But now I’m warm. I need to post this and get in the pool.

I hope you have a beautiful day. I am going to.

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12 Jul 2014

Graceful like an elephant

I was thinking today about what I want. And I can’t think of anything. More time in the sun, maybe. But I took a few hours this morning and laid out by the pool. Another trip to Florida. But that will happen. Probably in the next couple of months. But even if it takes longer than that, it’s not some long-term, impossible goal. It’s not a dream.

I used to want things. I used to want to be and do and have.

But I don’t have much to prove anymore. And I like it this way.

I think that what I want most in the world is more grace. To grow ever more graceful at dealing with life.

When I was fat, I was self-conscious about how graceful I was physically. If I tripped, I was humiliated. And often angry at anyone who saw me. Especially if they had the indecency to smile or laugh.

Graceful as an elephant. It was a phrase that was used in my family. And I was fat. Like an elephant. And could imagine how people saw me. Lumbering around. And I was bitter about it.

In retrospect, I was physically graceful my whole life. Even if I didn’t know it. Strong, flexible, with great rhythm. I was not personally, spiritually or emotionally graceful though.

When I lost weight, I wanted to look like a beautiful, confident woman. I wanted to look like I belonged in my body. I didn’t think I did belong in my body and it often felt like I was an “eternal fat girl” conning the world. But I was interested in selling this con, so I started to look around and notice what beautiful, confident women were doing and copying them.

One of the first things I remember taking note of was grace in the face of being ungraceful. I found that beautiful, confident women tripped when they were walking, too. Sometimes they even fell. And do you know what they did? They smiled!!! They laughed! They made some charming remark and moved along! It turned out that grace was not about moving flawlessly through the world, but rather about how one dealt with the flaws.

I started to do this too. I got myself a little shtick. I would curtsy, and say, “You can call me Grace.”

And this was so incredibly freeing. I could let it go. I could have peace. I did not have to feel like a victim. Of an uneven sidewalk. Or my grotesque body. I did not have to feel ashamed for the rest of the day. I didn’t have to lumber around, stomping and snorting. Graceful like an elephant.

This has been a lesson to learn over and over in different ways. Grace is not about perfection, but about my attitude and reactions to imperfection.

And that is the only thing that I can think of that I really want. That is my dearest goal right now. To be ever more graceful. To find the peace that brings the grace. And the grace that brings the peace.

Maybe some idea or intense yearning will come out of the blue and light a fire under my ass one of these days. And perhaps I will have the grace to go fearlessly forward into the unknown with excitement and wonder. I’m not ruling it out.

But it sure is nice to sit here with nothing to wish for.

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22 Jun 2014
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Glamour is pain. Beauty is something else.

I have been thinking about beauty lately. Not just prettiness, though that too. But beauty. And where it comes from. And what it means. And what it is.

When I was a very small child, I was stunning. No, seriously. At 4 years old, I was positively striking. I had unusual coloring. My skin was on the darker side, and my hair on the lighter. Big deep brown eyes. I was a beauty. And I knew it, but not in an obnoxious way. In an innocent, 4-year-old way. It was just the way it was. And it was nice.

And then I started being told that I was fat, or that if I wasn’t careful I would get fat, or even if I was careful, I would get fat. And then I eventually did get fat. Really, truly, and undeniable fat.

I come from a fat family. In my childhood, the people I grew up around either were and had always been fat, had been fat and would be fat again but at any given moment might not be fat, or were fat, but had once been quite thin.

We were all scrutinized from a very young age. There was no accounting for growing and changing. There was no recognition that growing bodies look awkward. That bellies and thighs plump and elongate and shift as little people grow into big people.

And let’s face it, I would get fat. 300 lbs fat. But sometimes I have seen pictures of myself at some time or another and I see that I was not fat yet. And I can think back to that time and know that I believed I was. In truth, I think that 4-year-old beauty was the last me who didn’t think she was fat. I think by 5 I was ashamed. It’s a sad thought, really.

Because it was also never my experience that my fat family believed that you could be big and beautiful at the same time. The attractive ones were the thin ones. And the ones who went up and down were attractive when they were thin and not when they were fat.

I sometimes wonder if starting out so pretty made being fat such a hardship for me. Perhaps if I had been plain, or even just merely “cute enough”, I wouldn’t have devastated me the way it did. I wished so desperately to be beautiful, and at the same time, shunned all things pretty and girly. I wore men’s cologne and men’s clothes. I hated pink. It infuriated me whenever people called me Katie. Because Katie was a pretty girl’s name. (I still don’t love to be called Katie, by the way. But more because I am Kate. It so obviously suits me better than any other name.)

So yesterday, I had a group of ladies come over to my home for lunch. We are all women who work every day at keeping our eating disorders under control. And we are all beautiful. We are different ages, different sizes, different styles. But we all sparkle.

I remember years ago meeting the mother of a man I was seeing. And she loved me. And I loved her. (Frankly, she liked me more than her son did…) I think she liked me because I sparkled the way she did. I certainly liked her because she sparkled the way I did. And that sparkle was her beauty. She was a very pretty woman too. But it was her sparkle that made her beautiful.

And then I think about the women that I have known or met or just encountered who are beautiful, but not pretty. And conversely, the women that are very pretty, but in no way beautiful. I am very clear that prettiness and beauty are not the same.

So I have a theory about what that sparkle is. I believe it is self-care. Not just the physical part, like eating well, and keeping hydrated and getting enough sleep and exercise. Though, of course that’s a good part of it. But also taking care of yourself in other ways. Like taking care of your integrity. Doing what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. And being honest. So you can look God and yourself in the eye. And being confident. Not just in the way you look, but in your thoughts and actions. Doing things whole heartedly. Being bold. Knowing that it’s OK to be wrong, and get it wrong. Knowing that all will still be well if you fail. And feeling free to be yourself. Without regard to people and their judgments.

In other words, I believe beauty is peace.

In retrospect, I can see that I was still pretty when I was fat. In a different way, of course. My face was pretty. Rounder than it is now, but still pretty. And I had an hourglass figure. Just a very big one. But I was not beautiful. Because I hated myself. And because I had no confidence. And because I believed I was ugly.

I was not beautiful because I had no peace.

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12 Apr 2014
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As every parent knows, “There’s nothing wrong with the one you’ve got.”

I’m in a funny place about my body lately. Not terrible. But not great either.

I have not been weighing myself for many months. And I am grateful for that. For some reason, numbers make me irrational. But I can tell I go up and down. In the way my clothes fit. And how big my butt is.

For whatever reason, a few weeks ago, I was up. And I can tell that I am in the process of going back down. And while I don’t know how much in terms of pounds, it is not a lot. I am not growing or shrinking out of my clothes.

But I am disappointed lately. Because I had hoped that I would have lost more weight by now.

If you don’t know, I quit smoking for my 35th Birthday. And I will turn 37 in less than 2 months. In the first 9 months of quitting, I gained 30 pounds. Not because I was eating to compensate. But simply because that was one of my side effects. I had others too. For the first 6 weeks I had open sores in my mouth and for about 10 months I was depressed. But it was the weight gain that was most devastating to me.

As a former fat girl, I have all sorts of eating and body image disorders. Sometimes they are dormant. And sometimes they are active. Though only in my head…When it comes to eating, starving, binging, purging, laxatives, over-exercising, and all other manner of acting out with food, I have the action part under control with strict rules and boundaries. And I have for over 8 years.

So gaining 30 lbs, especially with my eating under control, was triggering for me. It made me crazy. And unhappy. And it was hard to reconcile myself to it. I felt like I was being punished. And it was especially frustrating because I felt like I was being punished for quitting smoking. You know, no good deed goes unpunished, and so on.

But I felt like I could handle it, because I thought it would be temporary. I thought that after some time went by, I would lose that 30 lbs. Or at least the greater portion of it. And here I am almost 2 years later, and a full year since the excessive weight gain stopped, and I have not lost any weight.

There is something that I have told more than one person recently, and I would do well to remember it myself. When I was actively eating compulsively and eating sugar, my eating habits were surely the reason I weighed 300 lbs. (Duh.) But since I got my eating under control and stopped eating sugar, I have noticed that what I eat has generally had the least to do with my weight. The thinnest I ever was in my life was the time that followed the illness of my Dad’s mom, who was the first love of my life. In the months that led to her death, I must have dropped 15 lbs, and I was already thin. Then, and in the years following that time, it did not matter what I ate. Drenched in butter, deep-fried, bacon, full-fat dairy, huge portions. Every day. Just to maintain a tiny little body. And then I quit smoking. And even cutting portions in half, reducing fat content and limiting how often I ate certain foods, I still gained weight. I gained 30 lbs, eating less than half of what I had been eating before I gave up cigarettes.

I’m saying I don’t want to start worrying about what I eat. That I don’t want to start drinking skim milk and eating nonfat yogurt. I don’t want to start steaming my vegetables. I don’t want to stop eating roasted squash and carrots. In the (possibly vain) hope that I will lose 20 lbs. Because for years now, what I eat has not had nearly as great of an impact on my weight as all of the other things going on in my life. My stress, my sadness, my anxiety, my withdrawal, my unwillingness to let things go.

And I’m also saying I want to stop judging my “willpower” and my looks so harshly.

I know that my eyes are broken. And I can see that sometimes I think I look like women who are significantly bigger than I am. But also, the truth is that I am not particularly thin right now. And I don’t like it. And dammit! I don’t like that I don’t like it.

I really want to be comfortable in my own body. Exactly as it is. And I don’t want to feel like I should eat diet food. And I don’t want to judge myself on what I am eating. And I don’t want to feel like my worth is based on how “good” I can be. And I don’t want how “good” I am to be based on how much I can deprive myself, and how much I can suffer for a smaller body. And I don’t want to buy into the notion that a smallest possible body is always healthier, prettier, better.

Because that is the notion in modern Western culture, right? That any body bigger than tiny is fat. That the best body is the smallest one. That as a woman, that’s the one to strive for. And if you are not striving for the smallest possible body then you are somehow lacking. Lazy, or shameful, or ultimately unwomanly.

There is a kind of person that I want to be. And it involves having peace around what is so. And it involves trusting that I have exactly the body that I am supposed to have. And knowing that this body is beautiful. Because it is well cared for. Well fed. Well hydrated. Well maintained. Well used with out being abused.

And I want to be the kind of person who has some perspective about bodies. Specifically my own body, but also in general. Human bodies in the world. To have a realistic and sane outlook on them. To see that they aren’t all created to grow into doe-eyed, pouty, ectomorphs, if only their owners would behave properly. To understand that they all grow into different shapes and sizes. And at different rates. And that I got as good of one as anybody else. And you did too.

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