On the Weigh to Love

A while back, my boyfriend said to me, "I've gained seven pounds since we met." Hmmm.....  Inside my brain all kinds of synapses immediately fired off.  Is he saying I'm making him fat?  Should I tell him I've gained four pounds since we met?  Is it safe to discuss food, body image, the hundred diets I've been on in my life?  Should I tell him I now adhere to the Roseanne Barr weight management program which is simply to "move more, eat less"?  Don't most people think Roseanne Barr is still fat?  Is it safe to admit I enjoyed watching Joy Behar interview Roseanne a few weeks ago?  How about the interview with Michael Moore I watched on Piers Morgan?  Is it safe to admit Roseanne Barr and Michael Moore are two of my favorite people right now, the people I find the most sane in the world?  Both of them fat and thought to be insane by many, many people?  Then I realized something, my mind is in serious need of a leash.  

Here's my real question.  Is love fattening?  Love for the most part makes me happy, and being happy makes me want to eat (and drink).  Love also makes me anxious, and being anxious makes me want to eat (and drink).  Love brings me into contact with lots of opportunities to imbibe in all my favorite foods (and drink), and makes me want to lie around all day and... read sonnets to one another.  And that always makes me very hungry.  For me the road to love does seem to be leading me down the dangerous road toward the land of "eat, drink, and be merry".  Perhaps what I need are a few road signs on the road to love.  You know, signs like, "Curves Ahead".  Or "Danger, Chocolate Crossing!"  Or "Slow Down! Your Speed is 2 Pizzas a Week."  Or perhaps more appropriately, a simple "STOP!"  For me anyway, love does appear to be, in fact, fattening.  

Is all this emotional and opportunistic eating nature or nurture, one might ask.  In my family, one grandmother was quite plump, the other quite small.  My dad loved to eat and enjoyed life, except perhaps for the times my mom put him on a diet, which happened every ten years or so.  My mother was trim most of her life, just like her own mother, but she had to work at it all the time.  I remember her being in her sixties and saying, "I can only eat 1000 calories a day or I gain weight."  Ee gods.  For being a woman who claimed to despise all things shallow, my own mother was quite vain, especially about her weight.  And the weights of her daughters, too.  After all, she wanted us to be happy, and isn't part of being happy weighing less?  For my mom, it was, although I can't say as a person she was all that happy.  (In her defense, she had her moments.  But that's another story.)  Having a mother who says things like "you're too heavy to wear a skirt that short" as you're exiting the car, already at some family destination that wasn't your first choice anyway, does not contribute to a healthy, happy outlook on one's appearance and one's relationship to food.  So anyway, it is all my mother's fault.  Well not all her fault, I also blame society.  

It's impossible for me to think about society, food, weight, and love without also thinking of Kate Middleton and how rail thin she was in that Alexander McQueen dress on her wedding day at the end of April.  Watching hour after hour of coverage of the fairy tale wedding, I kept thinking, "I wonder which diet she went on, no one is naturally that thin".  Kate beamed through the whole thing, mouthing to William as they sat in the carriage after the ceremony, "I'm so happy".  Let's hope it was that she's so happy to be married to such a wonderful guy, or perhaps she's so happy about the part where he said, "share all my worldly possessions", but I'm pretty sure, and I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure at least a little bit of that "I'm so happy" was, "thank God, now I can finally eat".  

Now any sane woman, or insane for that matter, knows exactly what I'm talking about. The topics of women and food and weight and body image and especially love are on display everywhere in our society, particularly on TV, and unless you never watch TV, it's bound to be in your face a good part of the time.  Last month, Oprah Winfrey finally got what she's always wanted, a whole hour of just her talking.  Seriously, this was the final Oprah show, a whole hour of Oprah talking, I mean nobody else, not even one word.  And yes, I watched the whole thing.  I've been with Oprah from the time she started her show twenty five years ago, with a lot of time off, it's true, but it just seemed right to watch the final show.  One thing I have to say though is, during that very long hour there was a lot of mind wandering happening on my part, and with all the images flashing across the screen behind the talking Oprah, and occasional cuts to Stedman sitting smiling at her from the audience, one couldn't help but think at least a little about Oprah and food and weight and body image and yes, love.  Oprah seems pretty happy these days, her relationship solid as ever, as is she.  It was a lot like watching Kirstie Alley on Dancing with the stars, who also seems to be doing very well, despite the extra poundage.  More power to them!

So what am I really afraid of?  A few extra pounds on our aging bodies?  I think the real operative word here is "aging" not pounds.  Not being loved for who I am?  Well, too late for that, I already am loved for who I am.  Not being as attractive to the opposite sex?  Also too late.  I'm taken.  What then?  Perhaps that old message from my mom that happiness requires  a certain number on the scale?  Also proven wrong by too many people I know to count as a serious question.  Maybe the real thing I am afraid of is love itself, not the pounds it brings with it.  Perhaps the pounds are a diversion from all the other scary questions that go along with newfound love.  Will it last?  How can I do it better this time than I've done it before?  Will we be happy together?  How will we navigate our way down this road, now we qualify for the HOV lane?  What I'm looking for is the sign that tells me how many miles it is to "Happily Ever After".  Well, there is no sign, not yet anyway.  But as long as we don't drive one another crazy, I think there's a very good chance we'll get there.


© M.E. Rollins