Despite the fact that almost everything I’ve touched or tried to accomplish during the last seven days has fallen apart, I’m fine. Fat, but fine. That’s how I described myself to a friend today. And that’s pretty much how I’m feeling.

Being fat has taken over an extremely large part of my brain recently, as well as taken over an extremely large portion of my jeans. Absolutely nothing fits anymore. Not even my pregnancy clothes. I’ve outgrown my pregnancy clothes! How did THAT happen? God knows I’ve always been a bit of a fat snob. I can remember a time in my life that was like less than 5 years ago when I would look at fat people, and think, “My God, how could that person let themselves get that fat?” And now, I know exactly how they did it. Here’s how I did it.

When I was pregnant, I took complete liberty to eat whenever and whatever I wanted. I consumed tons of food. Fattening foods. Delicious foods. Glorious foods. And I ballooned up from 175 pounds to 250 pounds in 9 months. I’m lucky enough to be 5 foot 10, so 250 didn’t look especially huge at 9 months pregnant, and the nurse on the delivery ward actually made me switch scales because she coudn’t believe I actually weighed 250 pounds. In the two weeks after delivery, I had lost down to about 210 pounds, and I was thrilled. I thought that the weight would just keep falling off. Cough It didn’t.

When we moved back to the Mainland, I went on South Beach right after we moved, and I lost about 20 pounds. Down to 190, according the bathroom scale at Kris and Grant’s house. I was thrilled. And I was looking and feeling better. But I kept kind of slipping up on South Beach, and by two months later, I was just back to eating whatever and whenever I wanted. I seemed to have forgotten that I wasn’t pregnant anymore. I just kept wearing my maternity clothes, and eating. I haven’t bought one non-maternity item since August of 2003. But now I’m not radiant. I’m not glowing.

I’m just fat.

I’m back up to a whopping 220 pounds. And I can’t actually hide the fact that I’m hugely fat now. I have a hard time reaching over my fat stomach to tie my shoes. My “fat jeans” are busting at the seams. I don’t have any clothing that fits me. I’ve been in denial about shopping for new clothes, and have been telling myself for 14 months now that I wasn’t going to go shopping until I was back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. Denial. That is a word I’m becoming intimately familiar with.

For the first time in my life, I’m actually embarassed by my body. It doesn’t feel like mine anymore. I stopped looking at it in the mirror a long time ago. I don’t even recognize my face, and don’t even bother putting on makeup or trying to make myself look nice. I never look nice. I just look….fat.

Becoming fat has effected every part of my life. Especially the picture that I have of myself. I no longer see the confident, smart, funny, ambitious, and sexy woman that I have lived with all of these years. All I can see in my mind’s eye is a self conscious, lethargic, bulging, triple chinned loser.

I don’t want to be fat anymore. But I feel almost suffocated by the work I have ahead of me to lose the weight. I want to hide in a pint of ice cream, and a hide under big thick quilt on the couch. But I have to change my mind. I have to retrain my brain, and make better choices. I have to be strong and move forward.

Basil and I have made a deal. If I’m down to my pre-pregnancy weight and he has quit smoking one year from now, we’re taking a romantic trip to Paris for our 5th wedding anniversary. Whoever meets their goal is going to Paris, with or without the other.

I have to make it to Paris in June. I just have to.

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Beckett, pumpkin, you are 14 months old now. I don’t know how much you weigh or how many inches long you are anymore. Those things seem to stop being important once you start walking and trying to talk. You’re no longer a play thing to be weighed and measured as a guage of your thriving. No, now you are a little boy, who is measured by how many teeth you have and how many animal sounds you can make.

And Beckett, you can make LOTS of animal sounds. You can tell us what a sheep, a cow, a snake, a bee, a chicken, a monkey, a lion, and a horse say. You even imitate an apathetic cat. We will ask, “Beckett, what does a cat say?” and you flippantly look at us and say “Mow.” Short and sweet, just like you!

Your favorite book is Goodnight Gorilla, and when you kiss all of the zoo animals in the book goodnight, I just want to keep you in my lap, reading the book over and over again for you for the next one hundred years. You laugh when the gorilla sneaks under the covers and snuggles in between the zoo keeper and his wife. A gorilla in bed is funny, indeed. Your sense of humor is quite keen.

This weekend we left you with Nanny and Aunt Cathy and Bella while we went to Atlanta for our fourth wedding anniversary. I can’t count the number of times your name came up. I can’t tell you how often we bragged about how wonderful you are to every person we talked to. We told them about how you love to play outside in the backyard, and how you pooch out your stomach and run down the hallway in the house naked after escaping the bathroom after your nightly bath. We brag that you can say almost 20 words in sign language, and that you walk up and ask for a snack by name using sign.

You are still the happiest little person. I hope you’ll always be smiling or laughing like you are at this stage in your life. I hope nothing ever takes that sparkle out of your eyes. I hope you always love strawberries, and squint when I turn off the light so that you can bring me back into focus as I’m standing over your bed saying goodnight. I hope you will always spin around in circles when you’re feeling silly, and pull your hat down over your eyes, walking forward with your hands out front to keep you from bumping into things because it makes us laugh until we cry.

I hope you’ll always be happy. We’ll do everything we can to make that happen for you. Consider it paybacks for all of the fun you’ve brought into our lives. We love you, your daddy and I do.

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Today Basil and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. Basil woke me up at midnight last night, and led me into the dining room to open boxes of goodies and to see the 4 dozen beautiful roses and the bottle of champagne he had ready for us to toast our way into our 5th year of marriage.

Being married has been one of the hardest and most rewarding things we’ve ever done. And I’m glad that we got to do it together. I feel incredibly lucky to have found a man to share my life with that I’m still in love with and who still makes me laugh my ass off every day of my life.

Basil, you are my best friend. You are my sweetheart. You are my favorite person. You are my number one. We’ve traveled all over the world together, and spent quiet nights watching TV in our pajamas. We’ve created art together, and made messes too. We’ve made each other madder than hell, and we’ve made an amazing son to share our love with.

We’ve made it. And I love you more than all of the words on all of the websites on the World Wide Web. Stay with me, Basil. Forever.

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