Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 182(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
This was maybe the cause of my hiding myself away from a very young age. Children aren’t as dense as some may think, and they tend to pick up on certain things easier than you may notice.
It was especially hard for a young girl who’d lost her mother before she was old enough to walk. A mom who everyone told her was just like her in every way.
A woman who’d loved her even before she was born. I’d missed out on that love my whole life, but can’t say for sure that that played any part in my eating habits. I just like to eat.
My love affair with food had started early and had yet to betray me. Unless of course you count the pounds I pack on when I go on a binge brought on by depression. Or the fact that can gain five pounds by just looking at a picture of food. Other than that, food has been my constant companion.
That love affair had led me to the best culinary schools in the world to perfect my craft. And in case there’s still some question, I’m happiest in the kitchen. I can spend hours concocting, and more enjoyable than the making of the food, is watching other people’s enjoyment of it.
I’d already gained some notoriety for my cooking and baking and was even in the process of putting together a cookbook, which for someone my age was a great compliment.
So, I had a full plate and a lot going for me and certainly no time for the hottie next door. But that didn’t stop my mind from wandering over there every so often.
He’s the first guy whose ever caught and held my interest for this long, but I put that down to proximity. I learned early on when I overheard my teenage crush laughing with his friends at my expense that love and happily ever after was not for me.
Ever since then I’ve kept myself from falling into that trap and outside of a TV show where the male lead is bed worthy, I have no interest in men. Well, what interest I do have is kept well under heavy wraps for my perusal only.
I make no excuses for myself, and am well aware of my attributes or lack thereof. If I had a dime for each time I heard the phrase, ‘you have a really pretty face, but your body…’ I’d be rich.
Maybe my stepmom is right and the problem isn’t so much food but the fact that I’m too comfortable with my weight and refuse to do anything about it.
According to her in one of her many unwanted lectures, if I could only get it into my head that being fat was unhealthy, then I would be more serious about losing weight.
I guess she wasn’t there when I tried starving myself to death to fit her ideal of what health and beauty is. More fool me!
Or when one of her friends’ daughter died because she was so hung up on looking like the perfect little debutant, that she got into the habit of sticking her fingers down her throat each time she ate. Everyone was so busy admiring her weight loss that no one realized the poor girl was dying right before their eyes. Poor thing!
It seems not a day went by that she wasn’t harping on my weight. Whether I was away at school or on Facetime halfway around the world, it was always the same theme. She was more stuck on my weight than I was.
I’d made peace with myself a long time ago. As long as my health was not at risk, I refuse to deny myself something as simple as a slice of cake. I mean what the hell?
But of course my stepmom wouldn’t allow even a crumb in the house when I was at home. I knew to stock up ahead of time, but she’d found my stash once and after that there was no getting anything past her.
It was times like those that I’d missed Aunt Nell over the years. I knew if she was there she would’ve told my stepmom where to go.
On that note, one other sobering thought intruded on my early morning reverie, my family. The fact that my family was still mad at me and promised to be for some time to come.
They hadn’t been too pleased with my move here and I still can’t understand why. It’s not like they wanted me around when I was there. Well, maybe dad, and my stepbrother Wayne, who’s always been kind.
3
Joyann
Dad had married Sophie when I was about six or seven. She was the widow of a family friend, so not a complete stranger, but not very welcomed either. It had been just dad and I for so long that the inclusion of the new woman and her ten year old son into our little family felt like an invasion.