Daddy.

I feel the need to openly speak my truths, even though it seems dramatic and juvenile. Call it what you will-I call it necessary.
Over six years ago, things got weird with my father. The man who cheated on my mother, and I forgave countless times over the years-even after being uninvited to my paternal Grandfather’s funeral because I monetarily was flat broke to get there and 8.5 months pregnant.
I forgave him for shunning me out of his life once again. He finally met our daughter when she was almost a year old. After we almost lost her during my pregnancy due to a rapidly growing cyst. I underwent major surgery and went into preterm labor, and we all survived. With the love and support of my father and new in-laws and maternal side all rooting for us. But that didn’t last long with him…
Over the years it became an emotional roller coaster of taking sides and fighting amongst the family. But my father and his wife stood by our sides after we mended fences years before.
This brings us to about six years ago, as I stated earlier. We were so close. In 2008, Our home burned down a few years prior, and my father opened his newly purchased condo to us. I remember pulling my husband aside, in all the confusion and heartache, and saying this would destroy our relationship with them…sure enough, I guess it did.
Fast forward to 2011-I had a feeling I might be pregnant when things were getting weird with my father and step mother. It had been over a year since we moved out of their condo and back home. There was plenty of tension over the course of the year living there, but we put up with it, feeling guilty and grateful for having a place to live while we rebuilt our life and home.
It started with a mild disagreement with my father over the phone about painters he hired(our neighbors who we apprehensively recommended for the job).
My father seemed out of sorts and flipped out at my husband who he generally got along really well with.
They had heated words, and I told my husband to end the call civilly if it escalated.
Well it escalated… for days.
My last actual phone call with my father was bizarre. Very heated on his end, coming from a man who always very mellow and calm.
I had promised myself not to get upset and freak out, because I had a feeling I was pregnant…and almost 40. I was terrified I could jeopardize this gift coming our way so late in our lives.

I listened to his berating and accusations. I tried to calmly challenge him. Not sure how it ended, but I do remember an email telling me with expletives (as he swears we referred to my step mother) that he chose the B@tch over all of us…and soon after sold his home and beach condo and moved to Arizona.
I am coming forward to call my father out, (who I adored), for being a no good nothing.
He didn’t fight for us when we were toddlers, he didn’t fight for us as teens. He tolerated us as adults.
Not sure if it was his own doing, but regardless, any man that can walk away THREE times from his daughter, and now all three daughters and 14 grandchildren (some he doesn’t even know) for the past six years…I hope he can look in that mirror and say it was worth it. Because I know his mother, and father, and sister would not approve of the lies.
Stop sharing our pictures and pretending you care and have this big diverse beautiful family…because you do NOT know this family. Giving the grandkids that you DO still occasionally speak to, an HOUR of your time when it fits your schedule when you live in Arizona? Why bother?
They’d be better off without the offer.
I loved you.
I adored the idea of my daddy loving me back finally. Of wanting to know me and loving my kids…who by the way, have no desire to speak to him again…they adored him…he did the same to them as he did to me and my sisters forty years ago…
All I have left to say, is I loved you, Dad.
But I bid you farewell.
Stay away.
It hurts too much.

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Back to The Plantains.

So I really thought I was fooling myself. I even tried to mentally to lie to myself this morning when I stepped off of the scale. It was thirteen NOT ten or eleven or even twelve…it was a whopping thirteen pounds that I have gained over the past several months.

I have fooled myself into thinking one chip or cracker or treat over the holiday was okay. Which then made it okay for two or three more treats.

It amounted to many little pieces of candy after Halloween. And handfuls of chips and gooey dip over Thanksgiving. AND pie. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. All this cheating I swore I would never do again. But I did.

Until my pants were getting tighter, and my stomach began to bloat like I was six months pregnant. My skin is covered in dry scaly patches and my hair…well it is back to thin scraggly nothingness.

I am disappointed and depressed. In myself. It is all my fault.

I began stress eating over the summer after countless hours and days visiting my ailing Father-in-law in the hospital and helping my mother-in-law at their home. By no means am I blaming them. I blame myself for using the excuse of quick cafeteria bites and on-the-go burgers, and caving in here and there because I just didn’t have the time or mental capacity to care what I was eating. I own the fact that I turned the cheek to a salad bar and chose “protein” by means of crispy crunchy chicken tenders. Or gluten free breads/pastas/pizza crusts.

These foods are not my friends…clean eating is. It is probably for all of us, but my body responded so well to it. I felt great, had more energy, my skin was healing…so the self-sabotage is even more upsetting to me. Especially after I begged my Father-in-law to seek healing through nutrition, and then I shamefully chose to give up on my own journey of healing.

Today I seek my happy place again. I am looking for healing again. A healthy gut and healthy mind. To stay focused and teach my family to eat well. Maybe not to the extreme I need to, but enough for them to be well and feel great.

I enjoyed my gluten free pizza crusts the most…but then the regular cheese and sauces just added to mission of letting go of my health.

My plantain pizzas took some getting used to. And they will again. After indulging, it is time to get real. I owe it to myself and my body and my family to find my wellness again.

Christmas will be challenging, in many ways. It will be our first Christmas without my Father-in-law who loved all things Christmas and we shared it with them every year. I cannot cave into stressful eating. I cannot let parties where treats are served up with loads of sugar and fat and calories, make me cheat. I need to be strong for my husband and children and my family, and especially for my Father-in-law who believed in me…

Back to the plantains.

Cheater.

I know what happens when I cheat. But I still do it. More and more. It is like a drug. I cannot control that impulse.

I hate cheaters.

I grew up hating cheaters. It was embedded in my core that cheaters are no good.

And yet, here I am…cheating.

It may not be as bad as what I was told growing up. I can fix it…I can repair the damage that is done.  But how long will that feeling last and when will the cheating not be enough? Will I give up on everything for the sake of cheating?

I know I have a good thing. I finally have stability and happiness. 

But that obviously meant nothing. I did it knowing that my imaginary Family Bible full of do’s and don’ts says “Thou Shall Not Cheat”…I am a sinner in the eyes of my family, and now that I am realizing it myself…I have sinned against myself most importantly.

I am not a Holy Roller…but I believe (as I may have stated many times before) that everything happens for a reason…even my cheating.

I am guessing that my realization and guilt of cheating more and more is becoming a problem for me…and it has to stop...now.

I am not making light of an actual cheater,(one who has a relationship with someone else while married or committed to another), and the hurt and pain that causes or how it can destroy an entire family in an instant…grew up in that world and take it very seriously.

I am talking about me...my cheating with food. The love of my life…because in that Family Bible there may have been a hefty section regarding food…eat it, smother it on your face, let it make you sick or fat or sad…do whatever you want with it…it’s o.k. 

Food is my cheat.

I have taken the last year of my life to find that peace within myself and to understand my conditional relationship with food and my health and why I let it control me, and done really well. I am not dieting anymore, I am living…better. I eat what I want. I follow a list of restrictions, which was overwhelming at first, but not because I want to lose weight (and I have lost over thirty pounds of which I am very proud of but not focusing on too much), but because I want to learn how to live healthier and happier… not to just be skinny again for a few months, only to slowly add the weight and misery back on again.

And I was.

I made it through the holidays…usually my worst time with cakes and candy and heavy meals.

Soooo, I say to myself today, why have I cheated? I don’t know…I just wanted a cookie…albeit a gluten free one, but still a cookie. Or a few french fries…or a mixed drink…whatever it has been, I have paid the price afterward.

Cheating does not sit well with me, literally. 

I follow a strict and fulfilling diet for several health reasons. I eat as clean as I can and have stuck to it for the most part, for almost six months now.

When I have unknowingly or knowingly cheated, I feel awful. Maybe similar to the guilt one may feel after really cheating, but more a physical feeling versus emotional.

But this is where the emotional part is catching up to me…I don’t want to cheat. I love this new way of life…so why am I doing it? Boredom? Being stuck in the house with kids and treats on yet another snow day? I don’t know…but it has to stop.

I have big plans for when this cold miserable weather takes a vacation and lets Spring come back to work in its place…

The pain is not worth it.

                                                                     The guilt isn’t either.

My brain and my stomach and my heart are fighting each other…and now I am going to be my own mediator and tell them to stop…make peace with one another.

What has happened in the past, stays in the past.  I cannot take back the harm I have done but I need to move forward, just breathe and let it go…

Wish it were that simple for real cheaters…