The trees whipped by with an alarming alacrity. The growing morning embers hung in the shadows waiting for their chance of prominence. Dawn was approaching and the wind smelled of fall; leaves of yellow, red, and green lay strewn across the ground carrying with them a trace of dew and a hint of mischievousness. Come hither, they called. Step on us and feel the slight sliding underfoot. This was neither a merry frolic in an enchanted meadow, nor a chance to run about with some wood-lawn creatures. This was Highland Park, in Cypress hills Brooklyn, in September of 2006. The foot pounding against asphalt continued and the beaded sweat running down my forehead was already lacing the collar of my shirt. The pace was slow, but the determination was high. I had finally started to “rog”, my beloved word for my attempt at running but a more slowly paced jog. If you’re just starting out on your journeys and the idea of running is scary and petrifying, rog my friends! ROG!
It had been a seven months since I started journaling, and moving, and starting to finally come to grips with the weight demons that clung fettered to me. I was dare I say, happy. I had yet to even cross the threshold of the gym and I was sitting on 305 lbs. 75 pounds down! There had been a lapse in the program, mainly because I was firmly convinced that to lose anymore would mean to lose everything that I loved. I had always thought of this process as solitary, as coming to terms with myself to stop those self-destructive behaviors. I never thought of the familial consequences. There was indeed a war in my family. A battle of the bulge, and I was teetering on the brink of not being the “big one.” I’m not sure how everyone’s family operates but in mine, there is no middle ground. We are individuals on the extreme, in all facets of life. It doesn’t mean there is any less love, but knowing that simple unspoken truth was horrifying. I always felt that you’re either big or you’re not, and to not be categorized under those subtexts means to not belong. You are an interloper in a supposed safe place. Simply grappling to try and find your place. Don’t get me wrong, there were encouraging words but there were accompanied whispers and glances of, “Did you see how small she is getting?”, “Don’t worry it’s just a phase.” Just a phase! OK! This is the way that my life had to become. How much longer before those scales started to reflect 4’s and 5’s? How much longer could I let my emotional eating best me, and those nights of feeling emotionally stifled finally consume me? I wish I could have given everyone, family included, a pass into my head; to give the entire world a glimpse into the true reasons why I started losing. To show everyone this just wasn’t a phase, but an all out assault of my body. I didn’t want to be the outcast, but I knew this was the proverbial tipping point. I love my family, but please understand that I had to love me more. Maybe if the true story surfaced, if everyone could have understood the two year inner turmoil, it would have made that transition easier. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost friends and confidants, and IT wouldn’t have pushed so hard when I did start to morph.
The second loop of the park passed me by and I was still rogging. I projected the true beginning of this journey; hoping that everyone on that loop with me could see the play out of events, embracing the thought that my family and loved ones could hear me. The sun rose.
While the doctor’s words were jarring, off course, the beginning began in place that resembled nothing of my Highland Park, and nothing of my Brooklyn. It began on a plane, in 2004. It was South African air to be exact, and there was no family, no friends. It was just me, a middle seat, no seatbelt extension, and eighteen hours of flight time minus my two hour Senegal lay over. To my larger friends the mere utterance of the previous statement is enough to run the blood cold. To my smaller friends, let me take the time to map out the extreme nightmare of this scenario. Before that flight, I had not been on a plane in several years and if I did have the opportunity to fly, I was doing so on the aisle seat with enough room to lean over and artfully dodge the service cart, bathroom goers and flight attendants. The plane was packed, and it seemed my fate was to reenact the life of a sardine. This was no rush hour traffic on the A train at 6am, nor the graceful squish of a packed bus. This was hell! I never thought I was so big that I could not fit into a seat. My internal view of myself never matched my external. In my mind, I was maybe 200 lbs and lithe and gazelle-like. But what the outward was telling me was that I had reached my capacity. Damn you body for finally shaking up my psyche at the worst possible moment.
I walked down the aisle, looked at my flight ticket and realized where I was sitting. I hoped for someone, anyone to be sick and off course the sick fates did not have it in mind that day to grant me a reprieve. I continued to walk down the center aisle glancing up at the letters; mine was B in row 26. Seats A and C were already occupied and there was a trove of people behind me. Pushing against my back and urging me to not avoid the unavoidable. I flung my carryon bag into the holster above my row and began the gracious comments to justify my squeezing into a seat were I was clearly not welcome. The man in seat C was possibly 50 lbs smaller than my 360 frame at the time. The woman in Seat A was giving our row a possible 700 lbs between three of us. Great. They had the same look in their eyes and the pleading for me to find someplace, any place else to squeeze myself. I glanced sideways to Seats D and E on my left. Their patrons were both small and smiling and happy, and they weren’t moving. But they looked over at us, and just frowned. I stood above the seat, only to realize that my broadness compared with Seat C’s broadness was going to be hard. I squeezed my arms inward and slid down into that sit as if I had just come off a playground slide: quickly and with a slight shame for the speed. However, there was no childhood joy here. No expectant smiles that come from the knowledge of a loved one waiting at the bottom to catch me. I reached for the seatbelt and it didn’t close. Not even with the belt pulled taut and to the max. I looked for the flight attendant to get an extension, only to be told by the man next to me that they didn’t have any, he had tried. He was told if the seat could not close then he would have to get off the flight. He had just squeezed into his. This was clearly not an option for me. I did the only thing I could do. I pulled the seatbelt closer to me, made it look as if it were closed and flung my hands into my lap to cover the buckle/closer distance. Seat C and I had some momentary solidarity over our seat belt dilemmas, but I knew we were doomed to be enemies once the flight took off. Who would get the arm rest? What is Seat A needed to go to the bathroom? How were we going to be comfortable?! The flight attendant walked by, looked at both our seatbelts, nodded and progressed down the aisle. I was safe, if only for now…
I never told anyone but I cried: 30,000 feet in the air, ten hours into the flight when lights in the cabin were out. A and C were asleep and I couldn’t help it. I was overwhelmed, ashamed, embarrassed, and more importantly angry at myself for letting it get this far. I made the action plan that I have set forth for the past three years then. I would never get on a plane and not have it close. I would never have to apologize to anyone again for my body width. I would not be ashamed of my person ever again! I pulled out my notepad that I had been using for South African thoughts and reflections, and I wrote a note to myself. I scribbled that when I returned, I would at least take a realistic look at what I could do when I was in college. I thought about how I could mentally prepare myself for this process, and even if I gained along the way [which I did, another 20 before college was out] I would make major changes at graduation. I would not tell anyone about it, I would just be about it.
By the time the flight finally landed, I was prepared. The tears had long dried, yet my psyche still remained bruised. I had other things to worry about it. I had an action plan, a secret one, but an action plan nonetheless. I didn’t know if it was going to work, but for the moment I was content with it. That plan would later be reinforced when traveling across the country with a friend; all of our belongings were stolen. To put it simply there is no plus size in South Africa. I was told to shop at Big Mama’s in order to replace simple garments. Never again! Never will I let someone’s decisions affect me so radically that I cannot even maintain my lifestyle without much difficulty. I ended up spending almost five hundred dollars on five pieces of clothing: two shirts, two pants, a sweat shirt. I still had more than a month to go in my South African journey, and I wore those clothes bare. “Larger” clothes are a 100 a piece in South Africa, but the quality was much cheaper. The smaller clothes were tailored and beautiful, and colorful. My larger pieces that I found at Woolworth were drab, and dark and dull. I missed my colors.
The plan was slightly revised to include fitness after that, but I never forgot. It’s a longer story for another time, but the point is that it made my scribbled resolution more clear. I had to do something. I spent two years before this journey even started laying out my foundation. I would not be that strong house crumbling from the weaker foundations; no rotting beams here. It was only 2004, which from now was almost five years ago. I still have that note. I ask everyone to write themselves a secret resolution. Hold it close and dear to your heart, for only you know what you are capable of in the beginning. For me not to be forthcoming would be wrong. But in the very beginning, I couldn’t pull myself to tell this story. It still pains me, and off course my friends, we needed to build some rapport. But the rapport has now been built, and you needed to know. I am not perfect nor am I the prime example of weight loss and management. But I am honest. And I do care. And honestly, the journey is hard all around. But it’s worth it, regardless of how long it takes to really kick it into gear. I learned to love myself for the first time in forever, and I am appreciative to those quiet moments of reflections that only come, for me, on the edge of Dawn.
This is the story that I wish my family could have heard; the story that I was silently projecting that day three years ago. I did not have the courage to tell it then, but maybe to read it now would mean to understand, and to forgive my change. I stepped away from the park, and looked back at the loop. I had rogged it four times: one mile for Highland. I walked home with the sun on my face and dreamed of a day when the scales would tell be 2 something. It was only five more pounds! I could say one thing after that rog: I was learning to let go. And it felt wonderful.
