What the heck’s up with that? Why am I being haunted by a past I thought I reconciled with? I bet it’s because of the stupid book. Writing eleven pages has drained me more than a round of weight training with Biff. You’d think talking about how I changed my life would be uplifting and reaffirming, yes? Ahhhhh, yeah, well, I haven’t gotten to that whole “life changes for the better” bit yet.

I thought I’d start at the beginning and work my way forward. Then I realized, well, that’s taxing, and figured, why don’t I write about the teen years? The teen years, turns out, were just as taxing as the toddler years. Huh. I don’t know why I can’t just write about the past three years and work from there.

The past three years were the life changing years, but my mind has its own agenda. I think my head needs to work out some prior junk in order to face the good stuff. I don’t want to examine the nitty gritty of my life and dissect it all over again; I already did that. However, I didn’t apply what I learned to my weight gain.

We’re all the sum of parts and everything we experience, negative or positive, affects us in some way; negative or positive. The ghosts haunting me are the new perspectives I have on old experiences. It’s like looking back in time and finally having the tools to understand what’s going on. A good example for this comes to mind, in how people in earlier times believed dinosaur bones were the remains of dragons or horrible monsters from hell. Fast forward to the golden age of archeology and everyone has a good laugh over how naive we were. While I never believed my childhood memories were the bones of demons, I can now look back with an appreciation and insight I didn’t have before. But I still have to look back, and look back hard.

I got a chance to talk with my mom face to face yesterday about some of the things I remember so vividly. Talking with her, like an equal, with no animosity, no hurt and no anger made me realize how hard it was for everyone to raise me and my sister with the problems we had as family. I’m so grateful for the chance to talk with her like that, and to finally laugh at some of the stuff which would have previously made me all weepy.

Not all the ghosts lingering around are the kind I want exorcised, some are from some very good times. Some of my ghosts are the memories I wish would haunt me more often, like the memory of my mom feeding me some of her homemade zucchini bread with her lopsided smile. I love that smile. But the weird cigarette ghost, he’s gotta go.

Some people gain weight because they don’t care what they eat; as long as it tastes good, screw health. Some people don’t know any better and/or have learned bad eating habits from themselves or other people. Then there’re those folks who use food as a substitute for something else, usually psychological or emotional. My weight gain was because I fell into all three categories, like I’m sure many people do.

My problems started at an early age when I was told to eat everything on my plate or else. OK, I need to make this food disappear to go out and play? Is that all? Presto! The food is gone and I gained another pound, but playtime is good to go! That wasn’t even a fraction of the experiences which ultimately made me as heavy as I was, but the incident is still crystal clear in my head, down to the smells, temperature, and clothes I was wearing. It’s a start.

The chapter I started yesterday actually goes back to my childhood, when bad habits were learned or a price was paid; a steep price. I had a decent childhood, in my opinion. I traveled the globe thanks to my father’s career as an Air Force officer, and I was indulged in my interests. However, it was tempered with some really, really dark times. If I balanced out the good and the bad, the bad far outweighs the good. By far.

The good times were great, though. I was introduced to Nature by my father which in turn helped me become the person I am now. That’s the one thing I always carried with me from that time; my love of nature and the earth. Everything else was burned on the bonfire of the past. Seriously, one day I gathered all the deadwood in my head and heaped it together:

Oh, this is a huge piece of “Hey fat ass!“, and whew, I ‘ll need to cut this “You better get good grades!” into smaller kindling. Then, Whoosh! I torched my experiences. I haven’t forgotten them; the ashes are still there, and they still evoke some modicum of emotion, but only if I really focus on some particular. Otherwise, I can look back and gloss over those bad bits, and even condense the good bits into one happy big experience. This book is a big homage to “Lest we forget.” Even if this thing never gets published, it’ll do me more good than years spent talking to therapists about my youth.

Even after I give people this info, they still want to know more: “Is that it? Isn’t there anything else?” Uh, yeah, it involved me taking responsibility for my actions and owning my habits. It was a re-education. It was me starting to walk 15, 20, 30, 60 minutes a day. It was tossing out the ho-ho’s and baloney.

Is that it? No, no noooooo. Then I tell people, OK, let’s get esoteric: I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe I became fat in order to develop into who I am today. My lard was my cocoon, and my present self is a reflection of the hard work I had to do in my head in terms of acceptance and growth.

This is the point people’s eyes gloss over and I know I’ve lost them. Any time I mention “self-work” or “acceptance” or “it starts in your head and your soul”, the people so desperate to know my “secret” have tuned out. All they heard was: “Japanese food=me get skinny“.

This makes me frustrated, angry and sad. So sad. There’s a saying: “When the student is ready, the master will appear.” The master in this case is a person’s desire and determination to truly change, no matter how painful the process. When the master finally makes his/ her appearance, you know you’re ready for change. The book I plan on writing is about the arrival of my master and how I’m still following him to this day.

Anyone still waiting for their Sensei to make an appearance?