Life celebrations and my story...

Feb 28, 2013

This is WAY off topic and maybe a little sappy, so you are warned... I'm also oversharing a lot. I just feel like I need to get this down. Feel free to skip it. Sorry for the rambling. I don't know why I feel compelled to share this... I need to though.

I'm leaving today to head for a long weekend in San Antonio. My sister flew in to spend fun auntie time with the kids so it's just the husband and I.

Tonight I get to meet up with two fellow OHers (I'll let them out themselves if they want) who we figured out we'd be in the same place this weekend. I'm SO excited.

When I put down a non-scale goal it was to wear a little black dress on my 20th wedding anniversary at a party I was going to throw. I thought about it, but ultimately decided that what I really wanted was some fun. I wanted to do things that I couldn't have done before. So...

Saturday, I turn 38 years old. If you had told me I would be below my original goal weight on my 38th birthday, I would have laughed in your face. But here I sit. I don't think I'll gain back 12 pounds in 24 hours. LOL. I'm almost 38. I love my life and have had the most amazing support both online and in real life.

Sunday, my husband and I celebrate 20 years of marriage. We're spending this weekend on the Riverwalk in San Antonio and then going to Six Flags where I can ride any ride I want. ANY RIDE! ME! Yes, THIS is what we decided to do for our anniversary. *laughing* We're romantic like that I guess, but really... we want to have fun together. I want to do things with him that I couldn't before.

For those of you that can do the math... yes, I got married the day after I turned 18. My husband's name is Tom. He is an amazing person. We met when I was 16. Back before the internet, we had BBSes. Bulletin Board Systems. You would dial into someone's computer with your computer - at a scary slow connection - and you could chat, play games, etc. There were message boards there and we used to chat back and forth, very platonically. He started calling my house, but I really wasn't all that interested. I lived in the Charleston area and he was stationed there in the military (he was 19 when we met).

He kept calling me starting in October 1991. Like for 3 months. And started asking me to go out with him. I wasn't all that interested. He was just some dork from the BBSes and I wasn't into dorks. I was into the trouble makers. LOL! I came up with EVERY excuse in the book to avoid meeting him. I mean EVERY excuse. I would beg my mother to tell him I wasns't there when he called so she started talking to him. Next thing I know, SHE is bugging me to go out with him. "He's just looking for a friend, my goodness Candy".

I finally relented a few days before Christmas. BUT I had a plan. You see. I was 16. He was 19. I was a "kid" so my big bad plan to get rid of this dork was to tell him that the only way I would meet him is if he agreed to take me to see Beauty & The Beast. It was in theaters back then and I figured that he'd realize I was "just a kid" and go away. I was also a HUGE Disney fan (still am). Ha! That backfired because he said "OMG, I'm a huge Disney fan".

REALLY?!?! ARGHHH!!!

So, yeah. That was pretty much it. We dated for six months until we got the news that he was being transferred to Honolulu. I may have been 17 and he 20 at the time, but we weren't stupid. He was moving, literally, to the entire other side of the country. No way would we make it long distance. We were both "in love" - crazily in love, honestly. I think, in some ways, he knew before I did because he would jokingly, from early on, say things about us in the way future. He would say "when we get married one day..." and all this stuff and it got more serious. Like I said, this was only 7 months into our relationship and I was SO young. In June of '92, after 7 months of dating, when we found out he was leaving, I thought about it for a week and told him we were going to get married after I graduated high school the next year if we still liked each other. LOL.

I guess I should back up a little... he was a good hour drive from where I lived (in the boonies). So, he would show up at my house on Saturday at like 1am, let himself in and sleep on the sofa and we'd spend the weekend together. My mom was pretty awesome like that. He was a nuclear electrician on submarines in the Navy so he would have long periods of time where he was on the boat so she was good about letting him stay at the house and stuff. He showed up, exhausted, one Saturday morning at 7am, only to find me fully dressed and in tears. I met him at the door and informed him he was driving us into town for breakfast.

Poor guy. We'd been dating for just a few months and I was a mess that morning. What he didn't know was my family's big secret. My father was extremely emotionally/mentally abusive and, at times, physically abusive. We'd had a huge blow up the night before and I was at a breaking point. I was a teenager. In retrospect, I was very mouthy. No more than your typical teenager, I suppose, but... well, my mother, for her own faults of sticking with him, she was good about making sure we understood that it wasn't normal or acceptable. I was tired of dealing with it. So, yeah, he got to hear the story of what my home life was like. I suspect he knew some of it, but probably not the extent.

Okay... so... in early December of '92, a year after we started dating, Tom got on his submarine for the month-long trip to Honolulu. The plan was for me to join him after I graduated in six months. He left his car and I was taking care of all of his bills while he was gone, we were going to ship it all later on when he was more settled and figured out what he wanted to take and leave.

Yeah, so that didn't happen... LOL. Two weeks after he left, all hell broke loose. I ended up thrown against a wall, knocked out for a few minutes. I LOST it on my father that day. I had had it. He, as always, drove off so he didn't have to face what he was doing to his family. I looked at my mom and she said, "I know, I'm going to help you pack". So, yeah. I packed and stayed with a friend for a week. Sent word to Honolulu on where he could find me. Ultimately ended up living with a family friend for 3 months. It was a hard time. Those of you who grew up in an abusive home understand. I was lucky Tom left his car and his money. It was bad.

When Tom got to Honolulu in January of '93, we talked. He couldn't get leave until September to come back and we needed to get married before I moved there so the military would pay to ship our stuff. He could get leave in March. I REALLY wanted to graduate high school, but I was living with friends and I wasn't sure how long that would be okay. Ultimately, we decided that I would finish high school in Hawaii and just get married in March.

I went to withdraw from school a week before the wedding (the administration knew what was going on and were amazing, making sure everyone in the office knew that if my father showed up, I was NOT to have contact with him and they gave my sister and I a little counseling - the best they could do back then). Did I mention I was a REALLY good student? As & Bs. The principal grabbed when I came in to withdraw and told me he wasn't going to have me get my degree in Hawaii, that I had been a student there and he would make it work. Because all I really needed to graduate was English because I had so many extra credits and things, they let me write three reports and mail them from Hawaii and I was able to graduate with my class in June.

So yeah. On March 3, 1993 - at 18 and 1 day old, I got married. Three days later, I got on a plane and moved to Hawaii. Let's be honest... it shouldn't have worked. By all rights, I should be twice divorced, 500 pounds, living in a trailer with a guy in a wife beater shirt, dying slowly. LOL. Instead, I'm living in Austin, TX in a great house in a great neighborhood with the man of my dreams. We have two amazing children (12 and 10). I weigh 162 pounds. I have a business I love, am good at, and make good money at. That didn't happen by luck. We had it HARD those first few years. I had a lot of emotional baggage but refused therapy so he had a lot to deal with. I didn't fully trust husbands to not hit, I guess. I just assumed, somewhere in the back of my mind, that that is what happened in marriages. But, of course, Tom rarely raises his voice even. LOL!

Anyway... that's my story of where I am today and how I got here. It's taken a lot of therapy over the past couple of years to fully come to terms with my home life and what it was like. There's so much more to that story, but that's the highlight reel.

What I can say is that I broke the cycles. I broke the cycle of abuse because my kids have NEVER been through what I did as a kid. I'm a lot of things, but a damn good parent is the top of the list. Yeah, we're not perfect, but my kids - while they know what my life was like on a surface level - will never be afraid of their parents. I'm proud of that. Abuse "runs in families" and my father's family was no different. It stopped with him. I won't let my kids go through what I did. I also stopped the cycle of obesity. My mother ate her feelings. She loved us with food. I was doing the same thing with my body and my children. We stopped that too. We all changed our lives and our bodies and make better choices. Not one of us is obese anymore.

This isn't about losing weight, folks. This is about changing who you are, on a very deep level. I didn't weigh 375 pounds because I was hungry for food. In some ways, I think I was hungry for self acceptance. I feel like I've reached that in some ways.

Okay, that's WAY oversharing. If you made it this far... love you all. For a bunch of words on the screen, you guys have saved my life.

I'm off to celebrate with the man of my dreams. I'm not afraid to say... I really do love him. He's silly like I am, he doesn't take life too seriously, we can laugh, cry and have a good time together. It's what a marriage should be.

(and, no, I have no relationship with my father - my mother divorced him, finally, a couple of years after I left and I haven't spoken to him in at least 18 years - or the rest of his insane side of the family - they are toxic and I refuse to allow that into my life or the life of my family)

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