I wonder...

Now I don't expect this post to resonate with anyone in particular - I just need to write it.

My little purple journal is starting to reveal more to me that merely the food that I put into my body. Even though that's all it contains - my daily list of foods eaten with their carb counts and on the back of some page or other the list of the the counts in the recipes I've made for the week - just the very act of writing this is making me aware of things that I never really thought about before.

I come from a very unusual family - father from a well-to-do (maybe - not really sure) German immigrant family. He fought in WWII, was overweight from the time he left the service, was a handsome, charming, selfish man who really didn't want to have kids. He could be fun : dancing around the living room and singing to Mitch Miller; he could be cold: 'you can't have a cookie - you're too fat' - and I never understood why he didn't love me. He said exactly once that he was proud of me - when I lost 160 pounds. Not one other time - ever.

My mother was from a poor Polish immigrant family. Gramma used to take in boarders to make ends meet. Mom was energetic, sometimes frenetic, loving to the point of possessiveness and I still believe bi-polar (never diagnosed). At a time when most women stayed home to take care of house and kids my mother worked 2 jobs. We're talking the 50's and 60's here folks - Boom Time. But there was no keeping my mother home - she had to go out.

My parents divorced - bitterly - when I was 12. 32 years of marriage.

And as I write in my little purple journal my list of foods that I've eaten that day I find myself reflecting on them and my life growing up. How did I get to this point? How did I go from a four-year-old that everyone thought was too skinny and was forced to eat to a 300 lb woman of 53?

Let's think about this a moment: 300 pounds. Actually now 285 - not bad considering that when I started I was 348... How does a baby who weighed 5 lb. 3 oz. at birth get to be such a size? My left leg weighs more than 5 pounds! How did it happen? What was the chain of events? What was the beginning... was there even a discrete beginning? If so how do I find it? How do I fix it?

I wonder....