ok, i'm sitting here with one hand on the keyboard...and typing very slowly....
the other hand......(um, i'm embarrased to say.....ya know, after the "diet blog", about the "weight watcher") stuff.........is devouring a "girl scout cookie mint ice cream" leftover.
ok, it's the "low fat" version, but still........
quite frankly, i don't know whether to type or go blind.....as the saying goes.........
ok, truth time. i'm enormous.........(for me). i have become my mother.
digress.....
have i mentioned in past blogs that my mother, who did not ACTUALLY eat her young, but somehow ate everything else on earth, was.....how shall i put this delicately....about my mother........a big woman? that was pretty polite i must say. (kinda had to be there). and if i get up the nerve, or the gall, is more proper, i might just throw in a picture. (which will certainly fuck you up, much like it did me......and my unnamed siblings, thus far in this blog).
we (the siblings), have always had weight issues. (well, not so much my athlete brother)........
(oooh......that's another story ......for another time)........and my sister......well, no permission yet, svelte as she is, to tell her story either. so in tonight's performance the role of the siblings will be played by yours truly. (but if you can, kind of picture other tortured souls living this same horror.)
so she was a large woman. oh, you know, you watch sitcoms, from the 50's and donna reed, june cleaver.....gorgeous moms in a house dress, heels, pearls, putting dinner on the table, vacuuming,...........(ok, i know, nobody had that life, but there were actually people who had a mother that didn't look like DIVINE)........and as kids, wrapped up in appearances, which were values slapped on us by our parents, we thought the family should look like other families. so on "parent night" or "student productions", my mom was this large person, and i was embarrassed.
for her. for me. in retrospect, how shallow and selfish of me. but hey, i was just a kid.
and she wrestled her with her demons, unbeknownst to me, at the time. i've only come to realize all this now that i've become her!!! i'm fat!! (for me), just as she was fat....(for her.)
wow, einstein was right. it's all relative. Especially MY RELATIVES..... no, just kidding.
break from mom..........
my dad, i should add at this point was goddam handsome. could have been movie star handsome, with proper handling. looked like a cross between jerry vale, and al martino. (funny, this jewish guy looked like two italian stars). wherever we went....to the diner.....across town to a function, the rodeo in madison square garden, wherever........women would ask for his autograph, (i swear), and my dad, bless his soul, would sign, JERRY freakin’ VALE......and women would scream.........i am NOT making this up. just ask my heretofore unnamed sister. she was there too.
he was a simple guy. good soul. don't know if he ever had big dreams as a kid, (probably did, all kids do), but i'm guessing the war (WWII), dissipated any such dreams. he came home and needed to marry and needed to make a living, (a man without much education), and it never occurred to him, that with his looks, he could have had ava gardner....(truth is, he was more handsome than frank sinatra, who actually married ava gardner)......nope. he opted for my mom, who in those days was a regular gal...(ok, not a thinnie.....but a regular gal........a WAC in the army, before she got busted for being under age......a real supporter of the war effort........(that concept is SO lost on our society now. supporting the war effort. WOW, is THAT the subject for another night?)...
so he came home to love her and marry her and spawn.
she was a depression era baby, clearly not wanted by her russian orthodox mom, who was 40 when she was born.......her female siblings kind of raised her......but she lacked "momma love", and it tormented her until her death. she found a beautiful substitute for" hunger in the depression" and a lack of "mom love", in......ok......psyche 101 class .......say it........FOOD.
so after marrying dad, and pumping out three wee ones.........she returned to her roots....and ate her way to glory. unfortunately for me (playing 3 roles tonight), it manifested as i've described...
shame, emabarrassment and a sense of "where's my regular mom?" i'm not proud of the things i thought, but the truth is, to ask a little kid to carry that "giant mom" thing among peers....just wasn't fair. and so, i went through life, very insecure....my mom wasn't pretty like some, or thin like some.......and that made me feel somehow different...........and the fact that there was a huge "fairy" growing inside me, i'm sure didn't help, and it made for an unsettled adolescence. add to this mix, that my mom, who lost control of her weight, as she ran amok through life, tried to maintain a sense of control about everything else. she became increasingly critical. the bigger she got, the tighter the control on all of us.
I was a bizarre child. (personally, I think these days they’d call it a.d.h.d.) I had issues.
i came home with a report card of 6 A's and a B..........and of course the B was in behavior........a.d.h.d. remember?.........and the question was......why not all A's? when i got into college on a scholarship, and wanted to study liberal arts and music (remember the fairy growing inside of me).........the question was..........why not medicine? pretty much, you couldn't win. every time you took a step forward, she slapped you back a couple. (i guess so we wouldn't realize how big she was and how much out of control she was.). oh, i know, nobody had it easy............this is just my story.
i made it through high school by being the funny one. and mostly......the smart one.
i was still very young by the time i hit high school. i skipped a few grades along the way………told you i was a.d.h.d……they used to call that precocious or brilliant. nowadays we know…..it’s just kids gone wild with adrenaline. so I was younger than the others, and smaller, and dare I say it…..a shit load gayer…. so I used my wits to cultivate funny. i actually didn’t get beat up. i didn’t have a lot of close friends either. i felt so unpopular and so geeky and gay, that i was in total isolation……at least that’s the way i remember it.
Side note.
i’ve re-read my yearbook in recent years, you know, the pictures of the seniors who write something meaningful at the time, that seems so corny, but 40 years later, you fucking weep? i realized that i was very popular, despite what my mother led me to believe. people wrote the nicest, sweetest things, like i meant something to them. always stay the same, never change, or, you always made me laugh, or thanks for being president of the choir……..
stuff like that. and more. and i am now 60 and amazed at how wrong my perceptions were then, based on my home life, and how much more i could have taken with me from high school, had i realized i was actually liked. (but her programming started early, and for a wee one, there is no escape.........until perhaps, much later. there was so much unhappiness in the house, and nobody had any "mommy love" to speak of, that i went through early life kind of broken). there was so much for the taking in childhood, had i not been so……..what………afraid?....of having feelings stomped on, by people.......like by mom did, (wow, getting all therapy now)………sorry…………
anyway, what this all comes down to is i’m fat (for me). and i still am like that kid, a tad paralyzed, knowing that i could do something about it if i chose, but i don’t. i will, but not right now. (what would happen if i did?....the dreaded unknown…….) success is a tough thing to handle, so some of us take it in very small doses, lest we implode. and i finally understand her, that woman, my mother, who could have hit the high notes, and did for a while, but got caught up in her stuff and couldn’t hold on, to be the best she could be. and i think i didn’t fall far from that tree. the difference is, i’m completely aware of it, and i’m not sure she ever was.
over the years my heart has opened and i'm able to love mightily and with gusto and zeal. i've come pretty far, but as the song goes.........the long and winding road............and i truly want to be the best me i can be, with whatever time is left........... a couple of days in the hospital and a couple of procedures will do that to you......sometimes............
this has been very therapeutic for me. certainly not my biggest laugh fest.
so now, back from the doctor ordeal, with my heart ok, perhaps it’s time to emerge as more than before. I have a good jumping off place, anyway……………
i’m gonna think about it for awhile………..
to be continued………………
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