Adjusting My Grip - INTRODUCTION

During the summer of 2019, I was compelled spiritually to spend the first three open weeks of the summer finishing a book I had started back in 1989. Over the years, I had scribbled a few words in its direction every year. But the impressions to finish it were getting seriously annoying. It felt like a huge weight I could not set aside anymore. I was now carrying it around with me every waking hour.

So I spent 16 hours a day - from June 3 - July 7th 2019, putting it together. I started each day with a prayer that I would say what God wanted me to say, since obviously, He was interested in what I had written and knew that other people needed it too. Maybe it was only going to be one person. I was okay with that.

But on July 7th I submitted it to a real editor at a Latter-day Saint based publishing house and about three months later - they rejected it.

I kind of thought they would.

Some of it is still too controversial for the Mormons. Like me calling myself a Mormon a few times. It happens and I'm okay with it. I'm not an Apostle of the LDS church. I'm just a plain old member who struggles with some of its tenets, but the flame of my faith is strong and for whatever reason - as I wrote, the burden of the book was being lifted from me. There was a constant feeling of approval I had as I wrote. I called it the "DIVINE DUMP." If I prayed to know what to write - it just fell out of me. My heart was enlarged. I was guided to resources. I felt that my commitment to it was being reciprocated by the sustaining of angels. I wrote hours into the mornings until the angels went to bed. Then I did too. It was exhausting and uplifting.

As I sit here, socially distancing myself from the public during the Covid-19 crisis, I feel a familiar surge to get the book out. But, I say to the voice, "it has nothing to do with this crisis!" But I guess it does. It's about waiting.

In fact, the original title of the book was, for 20+ years, "Ladies in Waiting." And then I grew up and it wasn't all about me anymore. So now the book is called "Adjusting Your Grip." It is about 4 groups of people that WAIT and have questions of faith like me.

So - anyway... THAT'S IT.  I don't have a website - so I'm going to just post the book one chapter at a time here on the blog.

Ladies in Waiting; Unfiltered

When 19 Kids and Counting debuted on TLC, people thought they were Mormon. They aren't. They are "Independent Baptists" and have made up a religion of their own that includes allowing God to keep giving you children until your uterus falls out, I guess. I admire their tenacity and courage to stick to their convictions. If I could have 19 kids I would. I've had ten failed pregnancies in all and if it's true what the Mormons say, that those spirits will be given back to me in the next life, we are going to need a clown car! I can't wait!

Mormons believe that the husband and wife nucleus is a celestial (forever) relationship and a family in and of itself. Beyond that, when Andy and I got married, we were counseled from our church leadership to "have as many kids as you feel physically and mentally capable of raising in the light of the gospel. The actual number is between you and God and no one else." (And God was looking over that conversation with one eyebrow cocked and a chuckle saying "Sugar, you are over 40 there is only so much I can do.") My parents had eight children, but as my siblings have married further and further into this nutsy millennium, they have had fewer and fewer children. Its pretty rare to see a baseball team with the same last name these days. Nevertheless, we are encouraged to get married and create families. The end. We Mormons have taken a lot, A LOT of crap over the tradition of our large families. To those people I say - "you're welcome for the Osmonds." To those of you raising a big, awesome, expensive, crazy, needy family I say "remember those of us that would kill for even 1 extra plate to set at dinner. You are amazing! I'm so jealous!!

I've said it a million times, there is nothing I would rather do than stay home, raise my own children, tend a garden and cook for a multitude. I know it's not for everyone, apparently it wasn't even meant for me. But it's what I wanted to be when I grew up. Believe me, when that is all you think about for the first 40 years of your life... and you finally get married and YIKES it still doesn't happen for you, you fill your plate up with work, hobbies, travel, books and bitterness. So when the lesson that Sunday is on "Strengthening Your Relationship with your Children" and you are on miscarriage number 5...or 6....that's the last thing you want to learn about. Please don't tell me to apply the information to my kids at school, or "file it away for the future." There is only so much room in the filing cabinet of Jan's brain and those kinds of things that only fester bitterness...best for everyone that I leave the room. My mom used to warn me not to come. She would say "the lesson this week is on marriage, FYI." Which was code for: "your Sunday nap can start earlier than usual."

My dad used to tell me that I was too defensive. He was so right. That piece of advice haunted me until I fully understood it, could see it, and was able to identify it myself as a character flaw. If I heard criticism of any kind, I immediately went into survival mode. I made excuses, I ran from the people that gave me the advice. I was wracked with personal insecurities. When I heard the truth, I recognized it and beat myself up over it. I spent my whole life trying to overcome stereotypes I believed society had put upon me. I was "put upon!" Oh no! Open the door marked "please offend me" and walk straight through it. I guess I was typical. I never wanted to admit that I was typical? Humpf! Dumb.

Ironic that I became a theatre director because that door is always open. We create something, pick it to death, and then we put it out there for the public to criticize, subjectively. We read the review (that was probably written by someone that has no education in the difference between good and bad theatre) and we rant and rave when they dig at a production that we poured our hearts and hands into. "How dare they!? Art is subjective! They don't understand what we were trying to do! Morons!" It's as if the truth is a weapon, not a tool for improvement."

So I have learned over the years of being childless in a heavily child-ed church, to keep my ears shut sometimes. If I let it affect me every time there was a lesson on family in the LDS church, I would simply never be able to go to my worship services! Heaven forbid I get offended by the cute mom in church that comments "motherhood is fantastic! I love it! It's eeeeeverything!" Those exact words came out of a woman's mouth in one of my Sunday meetings last week. Did I get up and walk out? No. I said in my mind: "Stay in your chair, Hunsaker. You know she doesn't mean to offend you personally. She's saying it because it's true. You feel hurt by it because you want it too. She doesn't know that. She's not thinking about you. She doesn't have to think about you. She gets to say what she wants." And then I said out loud, "SHUUUUUT the fetch up you beast with the perfect ovaries and the precious baby slobber on your shoulder!" And THEN I walked out.

Constipated Donkey


JUST KIDDING!!!! Hehehehe!! I did no such thing. But I sure did think about it. And then I slapped my inner face, did the donkey braying sound effect in my mind and giggled a little. (Years ago one of my technicians found a "constipated donkey" sound effect that made us laugh for hours and I still bring it up sometimes. In my mind. It turns the moment into something I can bear.)

What occurred to me as I matured, is that I didn't have to walk through that door in the first place.

We are a society that is becoming increasingly worried about what we can and cannot say for fear of offending someone. There are laws, policies and procedures we change now to steer clear of discriminating against anyone that might be offended by the current laws, policies and procedures. I used to write theatre reviews, but I just can't anymore. Too many got offended by my honesty and I spend too many hours trying to craft a review that should have taken me ten minutes. But I didn't want to offend anyone that might set my house on fire or stop hiring me.

Honesty is broken. We are seeing it in our highest level of government. It seeps down, or trickles down, if you will, to the generation that is not only seeing and hearing it, but STUDYING it. This group of students is learning that there is no wrong way to define honesty. They don't know who to trust. They don't know what is right to say anymore or wrong...and it's a lot of pressure to live on that tightrope. Tact is a lost art, it's easier to say "I have no filter, sorry! Ha ha!! Not sorry." And move on like having no filter is just part of you, the cute, the trendy, "oh-there-she/he-goes-again, that silly billy with no filter! Isn't that so modern! You go! Exercise those rights, baby!" kind of person.

We will learn soon enough, I fear, that saying the first thing that comes to our heads isn't cute or bold or trendy. Sometimes it might feel heroic but so did lighting an ant hill on fire when I was 9. Heroic to everyone - except the ants. Sometimes it's painful and dangerous. It create narcissism...and hatred, which is exactly what we don't need right now.

Last week I called a kid on the carpet for saying the F-word in class. He said "Sorry, I don't even think about it anymore. I have no filter." To which I replied, "the filter is what makes us different from animals." "I'm an animal then," he replied. (Cue donkey-braying in my head).

I digress, as usual. I had a point, I really did! Oh, yeah...think before you speak....

When I started writing my blog, I expected that there would criticism and offense for the vivid and honest picture of what it's like to have 10 miscarriages. But what I got was a lot of "thank you for posting your true feelings, even if it was hard. I have struggled too...etc..." It has been so good to find a community of people that get it.

There are also those out there that have sent me advice. And as I said earlier, I struggle with "free" advice sometimes. If I want advice, I'll seek it out, or pay for it...even pray for it. But when it comes at you like someones golden epiphany... God bless 'em, they mean well. I know they do. But on behalf of everyone that has ever been a childless Mormon, or even had three kids instead of 13, please read this list and add them to your social graces.

Top Ten Things You Should Never Say to a Childless, Married Mormon Couple: (and what I wish I could say back)


10. "Be grateful. You always get to pee alone."


Why do people say this like its some kind of badge of honor? The dogs used to jump on me too...then I CLOSED THE DOOR. How hard is it?!

9. "Well you get to sit through an entire church meeting without being bugged by our kids. I wouldn't know how that feels. It's been a long time since I felt the Spirit."

Oh no, your kids do bug me. ;-)

8. "Oh you have dogs instead...cute."

Nope. Not cute. A real, live, giving and receiving relationship akin to having children, but less trouble. We rescued our dogs from abuse and they rescued us from a double suicide. I'd say the trade was pretty even.

7. "Think about this positively - you'll never have to take a child to the hospital, or wait for them to come home at night. You won't even have to pay for their college tuition! Lucky!"

Yeah, yeah...give me a bumper sticker "My child is on the honor roll...in HEAVEN." Awkward!

6. (Trying to be so positive!) "You must have so much time on your hands! How would that be?!"

Time? What's that?

5. What's the hold up? 10 years and you still don't have kids?

"We had a bunch of kids but we gave them back. It was too hard. They needed so much all the time. Gah! That's no way to live."

4. (To Andy one day in the temple) "There's no reason you can't get pregnant! I can give you some essential oils that will solve your little fertility problem. I have a pamphlet in my locker downstairs..."

What Andy wishes he could have said: My wife lost the lower half of her body in a freak accident. Have anything for that?

3. "Have faith. It will happen when you least expect it."

Bah! Not with these ovaries it won't. 

2. "Have you thought about foster care? There are so many great kids out there that need awesome people like you in their life! And if it doesn't work out you just get different kids. Plus at the end of the month someone hands you a check for keeping your basement full.

So it's like a library system? Kids with bar-codes and due dates? If you don't like them you can just exchange them out for better ones? And if they don't like me? They just get to choose better parents too? I have a big basement - is there a check out limit or can I get 8 at a time?

1. Have you thought about adoption?

Nope. Didn't cross my mind until you said right then! What were we thinking? Adoption! That's the answer. I'll go get me a whole bunch of them kids they have fer sale.


Don't say I didn't teach you anything today.


I don't mean to be so snarky. Adoption is certainly a blessed answer and that system has created a lot of incredible families...(Heidi and Tim I'm talking to YOU) But when I aged out of LDS Family Services it struck a deep and pitiful chord in me. When I was in 5th grade I saw the mom of one of my classmates and she had gray hair. I asked my friend why her grandma picked her up from school every day. It was like asking a woman post-pregnancy when her baby was due. I was only 10. I still remember her ten year-old horrified face: "that's my MOM!" Sigh. Do I want to be 75 when my child crosses the podium to get her high school diploma? There's a reason adoption agencies have an age limit.

The truth of the matter is this: we have prayed, fasted, gone to adoption conferences, seriously looked into the foster program...and we always promised each other, Andy and I, that if one of us was really struck by the Spirit to adopt or foster, we would in a second.

I've spent so much time on my knees about the ache in my heart and how to fill it! One night I cried out to the Lord for 3-4 hours straight. I plead for him to fill my heart with...with...something! Eventually I slept. When I woke up I wondered why I had a headache. I went all day trying to figure out the trigger for my headache. Then as I was getting ready for bed the next night, I walked by the guest room and there were all these pillows on the floor and I suddenly remembered my night of begging. I realized that that wasn't the first time I'd had a true stupor of thought. That re-direction of thought! How powerful! What a blessing. I had been functioning all day. I had been lifted! My heart was light. I knew everything was going to be okay...no matter what.

So when I get those horrible questions from well-meaning friends and family, I am able to say, with faith, "Father, I need to forget that." It is usually accompanied by a jarring silent scream in my head and a wicked laugh that only I can hear, thank goodness. But then...I forget. I have a testimony that the stupor of thought is REAL! I also testify that my specific trials have thickened my thin skin. They have taught me lessons unique to my weaknesses. They have helped me learn to laugh. They have helped me walk into my classroom full of foster kids each day and think "wow - from what rock did you emerge my worthless little Neanderthals?"

But I don't say it out loud. Some things are better left unsaid.

The moral of today's lesson for those of us not privileged or choosing to walk the beaten path: We can be offended or we can put that donkey sound effect on our phone and play it over and over again in the church bathroom while we wait for the last bell to ring.




There I go, giving away my secrets again.




Shhhhhhh.

Salem Hills High School FEASTE

Happy Mother's Day You Stupid Teenager

This kid....

 I've never thought of myself as a jealous person. I don't begrudge or  wish ill will on anyone because they have more stuff than I do. I  wanted a husband for a long time but I was sincerely happy for all my  siblings when they beat me to the alter. I've wanted my own children  since I was 12, but I don't plot the kidnapping of some baby in  Walmart. Our friends have some amazing babies right now and I stalk  them all on Facebook but that's a close as I go. 

 I'm about to get a brand new niece named Ruby  and I can hardly wait!!! I'm truly happy for  everyone that has been able to add kid stuff to  their home and more chairs around the dinner  table. Our dinner table is the drop off for bags,  keys, mail...We never eat at the table because  there is a pervading feeling that people are  missing. Still, I don't covet as you would think of  traditional coveting I guess. Babies are the  flowers of the human race. I just love their smell,  their little round soft faces and maybe it's because I'm a teacher, I love being able to see their learning curve minute by minute as they process and decode everything, moment to moment. I just love that.

That being said, it doesn't take away my bitterness. Bitterness is a pool in my heart that I sometimes swim around in. Yes - I have considered drowning myself in it a few times, but I have a prescription that just reaches out and rescues me from those moments. Generally speaking I wish everyone on earth a full and happy family. There is nothing more important to the fabric of society than the family.  

Mother's Day however, is one of the days I suit up for the pool. It is, without a doubt, my least favorite holiday. I focus on my own mother, who is a saint, and the good teachers and neighbors that helped raise me. But my bitterness only lasts a few weeks, from the first FTD floral ad on TV to the last. 

Today is the Thursday before Mother's Day 2016 and during my prep period I drove up to our new property and there was a giant back hoe digging the hole for our new home. WHAT A GREAT DAY!!! We've waited since January 30th for this day. I dropped big tears of giddy joy.

As I was walking back in the school building one of my students was coming toward me arm in arm with a friend, I presume, and holding her stomach. As she approached I could see that she had been crying. This is not new for this particular student so I found myself saying "oh no, what now?" as she came toward me.

Student:   Jan, can I talk to you in private?
Jan:          Sure.
Student:   I...um...really screwed up. I was stupid and I...well...I had sex...(the most awkward pause                     ever in my life. I don't know why she is giving me this much information. I'm sure I looked                   dumbfounded and uncomfortable.)
Jan:          Okaaaaay...
Student:   And now I am paying for the consequences (she literally looks down at her stomach) 
                (I cock my head to one side and raise an eyebrow - still confused at why she is telling me                     this.)
Student:   I'm pregnant.  (She said it as if I didn't know what she was talking about.)
Jan:          I get it.
Student:   So that's why I wasn't in class today and that's why I don't have my book report done.
Jan:          How did getting pregnant prevent you from doing your book report exactly?
Student:   (Looks down the hall...she didn't think I would call her on that I guess) I've been having                        some  wicked cramps...I just can't be in school. It makes it really hard to concentrate. My                    counselor will be contacting you to excuse me from my work.
Jan:          I'll let them excuse your absence, but you still need to hand in your missed work.
Student:   (she starts to tear up) Okay, whatever.

Then she turned around and walked off with her friend (who was also crying because that's how girls are), head bowed and hand still on her stomach. I just stood there.

When you are a drama teacher, you find yourself listening through tears to boys that want to come out, but feel like they will be ostracized by their families. This is my world and I'm comfortable in it. But this pregnancy business is a whole new thing for me.

My thoughts came in starts and stops but not immediately. I stood there for a full minute before I processed anything at all, then slowly I put one leg into the pool of bitterness, and then another and finally waded down in up to my chin...the pain was acute and sharp like I had had the wind knocked out of me. I stood there, in the empty hall. I felt a flaming wave of jealously come over me. I felt a wicked anger rising from my belly to my throat and down my arms. I made fists. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to crawl in a hole. I wanted to melt into nothingness.

Finally, coherent thoughts came...

"...Wish I could have stayed home from school every time I felt crappy in a pregnancy."

"...Can I have it?"

"Happy Mother's Day you stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid....lucky teenager. Damn you and your spanking new ovaries."

And then finally...

"Maybe you'll get lucky and have a miscarriage..." 

And that response surprised me because I would never wish a miscarriage on anyone. Even a stupid teenager. But I was heating up like furnace inside. Which also surprised me. I just couldn't blow it off like I do most things teenagers tell me....just kidding...not kidding. It played so vividly in my mind for several hours after it happened like I'd gotten up from a bad nightmare that wouldn't dissipate.

And just like that my day went from HERO to ZERO. The remaining 10 minutes of my prep I spent logging on to my blog and getting it out of my system and onto this magical digital paper. I can't swim in the pool of bitterness for long or I end up eating my way out of it. Blogging is easier on the arteries. I immediately started craving a bread bowl from Kneaders like a typical crack head.

I spent the day reeling from my conversation with the pregnant teenager. I realize that I have at last figured out my kryptonite where jealousy is concerned. Pregnant teenagers. Anyone else in the world can be pregnant and I look at them with fond admiration and I know how exciting a time it is and what sacrifices are being made to bring that child into the world. I am in awe of the entire process.

But apparently...

pregnant teenagers...

... make my blood boil.

I just want to clarify - this isn't their fault. This is my fault. I just didn't know how it would destroy me. In 25 years of teaching I have never had a student tell me that they were pregnant. Gay, addicted to drugs, homeless...but never pregnant. I think it's because I teach kids that do a lot of extracurricular activities and honestly they don't have much time to tempt biology by "screwing up" (if you will).

According to the Department of Adolescent Health, there were 249,786 babies born in 2014 to teenagers. That is 24.2 births for every 1000 adolescents. This is good news actually because in 1991 - there were 61.8 for every thousand. Still, the teen birth rate is one of the highest of all the developed nations - much higher in fact than Canada, Great Britain, France or Japan. It makes me wonder if those countries just perform more abortions. Don't get me started about abortion.

Luckily for me, my pregnant student transferred to a school that will help her graduate. That's good for her and me. I told her friend that if [my student] decides not to keep it that I would gladly take it off her hands, but she said "Yeah, I heard she's going to sell it," which sounds bad but in teenager language probably means put it up for adoption. At least I hope that's what it means.

Ahhhh...it's been a few years now since I've been pregnant myself and my heart has mended itself pretty well. I didn't know there was still that one little oozing wound. This experience lifted me right off my feet and plopped me on my butt with a hard thump. I hope that I can come to terms with that in the future. Maybe the added pressure of Mother's Day made it worse because in the moment I wanted to break things but today I'm rational and I wish my student and her baby a happy life.

If karma has its way, and it usually does, that baby will show up at auditions in 15 years and knock my socks off and I'll come directly to this blog and eat these digital words in front of the world. That would be my luck - see you in 15.

Just Keep Swimming

This story is re-published from part of a blog I wrote four years ago. It seems to go right along with the "Amber" series. I found it this morning and as I read - it seemed to be exactly what I needed to hear today. Maybe somebody out there needs it too. 

Right after graduation from SUU I took a job teaching high school in Japan to pay off my student loans. I didn't speak Japanese, but I had served an LDS mission to Thailand and I was no longer afraid of anything. 

I was assigned to teach in a town called Mori-machi, in Shizuoka-ken. Mori was two train stops from civilization. It was dense with trees and had a small population of 10,000. I was so very alone and the solitude of it all, living by myself, not speaking the language, not having even one friend nearby, or a cell phone...!...magnified my singularity to the point where I was miserable and feeling abandoned by God in my true desire to be married and raising children by then.

Japanese school teachers all have the same big office. My desk, however, faced a big wall of windows with a beautiful view of a pine forest banked in bamboo.

I only taught three hours a day. I was four hours round-trip from another American, from anyone that I could really talk to. (My phone bill in December was $780) So, I spent a good deal of time contemplating the seasons as they changed before me through the windows. I watched the bamboo foreground evolve from bright green to deep golden yellow. I watched it bend with the wind until I thought it would snap in two, but it never did. I watched a house being built, and then a neighborhood was erected around the first house. New children played below the window where I sat and new mothers hung their laundry out every day in the country breeze. You'd have thought I was in Kansas, 1957. Except for the bamboo.

The Japanese are very good at taking care of their elderly. They almost always live as one big extended family. I watched new grandparents shuffle around in the streets, smile, bow to each other politely. The whole subdivision was created in about 3 months, tops.

The summer was hot and humid in Mori. I wished for my dad's big backyard and a hose. It was a relief when the winds started to blow,  but also a happy surprise when families with new baby boys raised a string of giant wind socks, shaped like fish, called "koinoburi" in celebration of the birth. I had also seen extravagant doll displays in the homes of families that were blessed with a baby girl that year. Apparently we aren't the only country with a gender stereotype issue. 

This year  in Japan was especially fun for the new neighborhood and their two new baby boys. On the first really windy day, I watched two sets of grandparents unfold these giant wind socks, some of them 20 feet long, and attach them to a rope which was diagonally strung from a peg in the ground up to the top of a telephone pole.

Almost immediately all of the giant swimming fish inflated with wind and took off. Black, gold, red, bright blue, green and purple... The intricate Oriental designs, the brilliant colors, gold and silver scales...amazing! It was a spectacular sight. I'm pretty sure the two families were having a contest to see who could get more fish on that line. 

After about a week of watching these schools of fish swim around, get tangled in each other, smack each other down, lay dormant without wind, I noticed that one of the smaller ones, added at the bottom,  was very plain. It was a narrow, black, gray and white fish without decoration, Probably the only reason I even noticed it was because it was always "swimming." It had a bigger mouth than the other more ornate ones. It's design was shorter, more streamline, allowing it to swallow up the tiniest bit of wind and take off. But the fancy long heavy ones lay limping in the same small wind as if they were fighting for breath in the bottom of a Coleman cooler. Only the biggest gusts of wind would set them sailing.

I built up quite an empathy for the little gray sock. It had a plain wrapper, like me. It did more with less and constantly proved that more isn't necessarily more.  I marveled at it's optimistic attitude as if to say "Hey! I might be plain, short and stout but if this was a race, I would be winning!" But the bigger fish always waited for more wind to motivate them, handicapped by their decorations and spectacle. They would whip into each other and tie themselves in knots until the little old ladies in the neighborhood would come out with their long bamboo poles and untangle them.

The little gray sock never got tangled or tied. It just swam all the time, and it would instantly change directions with the wind just like the bamboo behind it. It was cooperative, dedicated to its task, creative and optimistic.

I felt pretty sure that a higher power was trying to teach me something about the little gray wind sock. I've always felt bad that my physical self wasn't more ornate, more eye-catching. No amount of gold or silver embellishments will give me a waist or...a neck. ;-) It isn't easy to get the attention of (a man or) if you will only show your legs from the skinny part of your calf down. To add insult to injury, my eye surgeries, though saving my sight, have made me allergic to eye makeup, so I rarely use it and it really affects how I feel about myself. 

So I've worked hard to find and display other talents. To catch people off guard by entertaining them using wit and storytelling. I've learned the art of "magnetizing the details" as my mom would say. It distracts people from my plain gray wrapper. I preempt their perception of me with a portrait of someone that gets things done and can be counted on to bring creativity and optimism to the table when resources are slim (and I never have been)... 

...I am "always swimming." 

Blogging is great because...you can't see me. I'm safe behind the invisible interweb. For all you know, except that some of you do know me, I could be Quasimodo sitting here typing away. I could have some crazy physical defect like gills or a mermaid tail. 

I don't have gills. But I do have a really big mouth. And I'm not afraid to use it, especially in this blog. I have used it to advocate for myself, for drama teachers, for my students and, on occasion, when I feel a great responsibility to stand up for the Mormons, I have tried to have a modern sensibility and be the voice of reason. Blogging has become a sanctuary for me. I'm very grateful to all who read, but it doesn't matter if you do. I will keep swimming.

To anyone that ever sees themselves as a little gray fish in a big pond, keep swimming. Open your mouth and go where the wind points you. For me, it has provided "blessing beyond my comprehension to receive."


Joshua 1:9 - Be strong of of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou [swimmeth] goest." 

Ladies in Waiting: Giving Up Amber, Part 3

I stole the text from a meme I loved on Facebook. It fits. 

 You may wonder why I am writing this thing about fat in the Ladies in Waiting section of my blog. Well, I will make that point today. It wasn't until after I got my mental "house in order" that I was ready to be loved. It wasn't until I gave up Amber that I had the courage to shed my insecurities about my body. My body didn't change but my mind sure did.

  

When Andy’s weight reached 630 pounds I was tying his shoes for him. It was heart breaking and it scared me to death. I started praying every single day that I would find a way to help him. But I needed to remove the mote in my own eye first before I could help him. I finally got the guts to do the new-fangled HCG diet and lost 60 pounds so Andy decided to do it too.

Let me digress a little here…

On HCG you can only eat 500 calories a day. You are given a magic potion each morning or a shot, and it cuts your hunger down. It didn’t work for Andy. The second time through the regiment, I was fantasizing about caramel sticky buns. There must be a one shot limit on this diet because the second time I did it I was licking salt off French fries and throwing away the fries. I couldn’t move. Walking up the stairs to our bedroom was like climbing Everest. I wanted to cry just at the thought that I had to get up and walk somewhere. I could not function. But because I wanted Andy to be successful I hung in there as long as I could. He was also suffering but desperate. One day about 2 weeks into this magic snake oil, we had come home from school and plopped ourselves down in our chairs and DIED. I was praying to know what to do. The Word of Wisdom, the Mormon churches health code came to my mind: “all things in moderation.” Was this not a severe violation of moderation only in the guise of trying to get healthy? I started to cry, I could not stop. I was exhausted! It was an ugly cry! But even the crying was using up calories! I told Andy that I had been dreaming about a caramel sticky bun that I would pass every time we would go and weigh ourselves (we had to weigh at the GNC in the mall because our scale was too small).  I let it all hang out! I told him that I had licked the salt off a bunch of French fries…that I had taken a salt shaker to work, that I chewed up an apple and S.P.I.T. I.T. B.A.C.K. O.U.T…I came clean. We both cried. I told him that I felt crash dieting like this was definitely against the Word of Wisdom. We drove immediately to the closest caramel sticky bun. I guess we should have driven to the nearest salad bar but I thought the sticky bun might get me to stop crying.

It did.

It seems like in the media, when someone loses a lot of weight - they always ask "What made you finally decide to do it?" And they always have a specific moment when they hit rock bottom and they got the BIG motivation to start and finish a diet. There have been lots of those days.

It was the day we could not ride on several of the rides in Disneyland that truly broke my heart.

The day that we broke the car seat.

The day that I got put on blood pressure mediation...and then high cholesterol meds.

The day that I had to start tying Andy shoes for him.

The day that we no longer fit in a restaurant booth.

The day that I had a stroke.

The day our primary class said "you almost don't fit through the door!"

The day that we lost Noah.

The day we were told that Andy was "too specific" to be cast as Thenardier at Tuacahn.

It was the day...

The day...
that one day....

Each time one of those things happened, we would be on fire to start something new. We would do it for a month...and then life would hit us, a show, a big deadline...we'd go off the diet...feel crappy about ourselves and then start something new. The list of diets that we both have tried is like looking at a list of people that have bullied you on the playground.

·       We’ve eaten all meat and cheese (and been constipated for months)

·       We’ve taken all traces of fat out of our diet...bring on the bagels and jolly ranchers...

·       We’ve eaten 500, 900, 1200 and 1500 calories a day – (not all on the same day…usually)

·       We’ve paid large sums of money for pre-packaged food (you know you can eat two or three    of those at a time and still not feel full…interesting ;-0)

·       We’ve taken Phen-Phen (that was a good one – dang the people that abused it and got it          taken off the market)

·       We’ve been to weight doctors that gave us B-12 shots and made us listen to mind-altering    tapes

·       We’ve tried Anorexia and Bulimia but it hurt my throat too much…when I was a kid I was    so jealous of the girls that made that work.

·       We’ve made spinach shakes with flax and other “sure fire snake oils” that just create a tempest in your belly all day and make you wonder “do I need to go to the bathroom right now or can I wait until... *~*!#@! Nope! Can’t wait! AH...too late.

·       We’ve gotten up at five in the morning to bask in the sunrise and run with the dogs – who let’s face it – have three inch legs and get distracted by interesting looking rocks, other dogs, butterflies…and have to “mark” their territory every 15 feet.  

·       We’ve drunk our pay-checks in weight loss shakes of ever kind only to eventually throw them up or run out of money

·       We ordered funky video systems, amazing blenders (we have three) and most recently we ordered a video that promises you will literally “dance your butt off.”

·       We’ve counted points, calories, steps (that’s what we’re currently doing), ounces, carbs, glasses…you name it, we have a half empty notebook full of all kinds of tracking systems (emphasis on the half empty).

Then there is a list of magic pills that promise you model-like bodies in 21, 45 or 90 days but in the end the consequences are a long as the possible side-effects for Viagra and include:

·       Heart racing uncontrollably

·       Heart failure

·       Leaking heart

·       Leaking bum (you that have been there know what I’m talking about)

·       Stroke

·       Birth defects in your children (this one will haunt you for years to come)

·       Constipation for months

·       Pooping in your sleep in the middle of the night

·       Vomiting

·       Crazy dreams

·       Insomnia

·       Inability to focus

·       Inability to move

·       Scary bright green pee that glows in the dark

·       Bikes, exercise equipment (or as we like to call it at our house “the towel rack”)

·       And the list goes on and on…

The stuff from which you cannot turn back:

Pre- Bypass

Three years ago Andy underwent gastric bypass surgery which is one of the hardest ways to lose weight but it is very effective. He was miserable for months, just like any diet, but once he stabilized he had lost 300 pounds and is no longer on any medications for anything. It changed our lives. It saved his life. I will forever be grateful to the incredible team at the University of Utah who took such good care of him, and never judged him and worked their whole skinny lives to learn how to help us save his.

1 year post-bypass

Gastric Bypass isn’t the answer for everyone. It’s expensive for some of us that don’t have fancy insurance ($25,000) and it changes what you can and can’t eat for the rest of your life. But for Andy, it was exactly right. I have seen my husband go from sitting in a chair to running a 5K every day. If gastric bypass is something you are thinking about, we are proponents of this life-saving surgery. I suspect, after we get into our new house (we are building a house right now) that I will also do the surgery at some point and we will both need additional surgeries to remove skin...it's a never ending battle.

Things we haven’t tried:

·       LIPOSUCTION. I watched a documentary on that once and I just don’t think I want to be skinny in one area of my body and fat everywhere else. I recently was told by one of my students that she babysits for a lady that has “Sonobello” appointments every week which are like Lipo I guess but with a laser. I wonder how much that costs? I’d also like to try the “cool-sculpting” which is an FDA approved procedure where they freeze your fat by dropping the temperature of the skin down to where the fat cells die. You then eliminate those cells in “natural ways.” What does that look like? Why can’t I just fill a tub with ice and do it myself all at once? There’s a thought. Can I eat caramel popcorn during the procedure?

The problem is, even with surgery, the diet is NEVER "finished." Skinny or fat, we will always be working on our health because after we reach the ripe old age of whatever we are not growing a body anymore, we are losing it. The only way to keep yourself from going crazy over it is to know what makes you feel like you are progressing. I truly feel that as long as I am working on something, I am okay in my head. I’m writing like weight is the only thing Jandy thinks about – HA! I wish that was our only problem. But the much bigger journey in our house is whether or not we are actually moving forward…in life, in love, in spirit. Sadly, how we feel about the shell that houses our spirit often casts a shadow over all of those things.

Let us not forget to wear out the journey doing other things and helping each other through it…I want to talk about that next…but I gotta go teach a class.

Ladies in Waiting: GIVING UP AMBER; Part 2

FORWARD 8 YEARS…STILL FAT.


When I was in Thailand in 1988, we missionaries shared a film strip projector. There were very few televisions and VCR's in the homes of the people we taught. Occasionally we would get to teach a family past the initial Joseph Smith filmstrip so we could talk about our relationship to God. I loved to show the filmstrip of Johnny Lingo. Most of you know what I'm talking about. But for those that don't - here's the 50 cent version in a nutshell:

In the story, Johnny Lingo is a well-like Polynesian trader. He comes to an island to bargain for a wife. Mahana is the girl he loves but everyone on the island considers her withdrawn and ugly. Her own father calls her "Mahana, you ugly!" (Which is what we used to call each other when we were kids.) As the bargaining begins the women of the island brag about how many cows they "sold for" and they are sure that Mahana's father probably ought to give Johnny Lingo cows just to get rid of her. But when Johnny comes the next day he brings eight cows! Unheard of! He gets his wife and they go off on their honeymoon. When they return, Mahana is beautiful, confident and happy. Johnny only had to prove to her that she had incredible worth and it had nothing to do with what other people thought and everything about what she thought of herself. In the end, it was Johnny Lingo that got the bargain.

Makes me cry every time.

Isn't there a little Mahana attitude in everyone? For so many years of my life I wondered, when I was asked out on a date, WHY this guy asked me out. I knew for sure that there was something wrong with him - and that was my marker. I gave them no credibility in their choice, because not even I would choose to go out with me. No matter how hard I worked, or how much education I got, I wasn't taken seriously because I didn't take myself seriously. I never let my eight-cow self out from under Amber...who wasn't real. I considered myself a no-cow wife.

Having recently written the blog about my mission and seeing all those pictures of the 22 year-old self, I can see the fake over-achiever in those pictures. Since it was, at the time, a stereotype that sister missionaries were only serving because they weren't/couldn't get married, I wanted to be taken seriously. I studied like a fiend; I made goals and lists. We took referrals that were all the way out in Laos. I never told anybody about those....since Laos was, well...Communist and not in our prescribed proselyting area. But we were working, and in Thailand at the time it was just us little girls and 50 million Buddhists. It was hard to stay busy teaching in Thailand. Just as I imagine it's hard to be a proselyting Jehovah's Witness in Provo, Utah. I wanted everyone to see the worker bee beyond the fat. In every picture I can see the slight distortion in my face as I "suck in," lift my double chins into one and open my puffy eyes. I look the same in every picture - like Amber is trying to grab my face from behind and pull herself to the surface.

Mistakenly, I have created this linear argument all my life: "WHEN I GET SKINNY...(all good things will happen...) WHEN I CAN GAIN CONTROL OVER BREAD...OR SUGAR...I WILL BE SKINNY AND SKINNY EQUALS BEAUTY EQUALS OPPORTUNITIES FOR LOVE WHICH EQUALS HAPPINESS.

Humpf!

I want to be able to kick my carb addiction. It's bad. Easily as bad as any hard drug or alcohol. My favorite thing is any bread with a crusty outside and a chewy inside and there must be butter. Not margarine. S.a.l.t.e.d. b.u.t.t.e.r. I have been known to buy a loaf of bread, sit in my car and pull it apart while sucking on a stick of butter crying over loneliness. Kneaders, why ya gotta be so good? Why ya gotta give out that free bread sample? Why ya gotta have real butter on ice free for the taking?

I blame Kneaders.

T.O.R.T.U.R.E.

Depression makes you punish or reward yourself for everything! And since we have no children, it's very easy to say "We made it through first term! Let's go to Outback tonight!" Or "you passed your Praxis test! Let's go to Brick Oven tonight!" "We worked 15 hours yesterday, we deserve The Pasta Factory..." "It's my birthday," "It's so and so's birthday!, It's the ward party!, it's Christmas, It's the Fourth of July, "It's Thursday, we're almost to Friday - let's go eat...


Then's there's the: We don't live next to a (Wich-Wich, Texas Roadhouse, Brick Oven, Lehi Bakery...etc.) so we'd better take the opportunity while we're in town. What kind of sick rationalization is that?

I have tried giving up carbs as often as my friends try to quit smoking. But you have to eat to keep yourself alive so the temptation is always there. Right now I can tell you that there is a See's Candy caramel sucker in my purse that I am saving for the next movie night. I think about it often. The sucker... not the movie. I think about carbs more than I think about retirement. That's saying a lot.

SO in an effort to gain self-confidence again, Andy and I completely cut out flour and sugar for nearly 4 months this summer! I felt so great! I lost about 25 pounds, my joints didn't ache, I even slept better just to name a few of the benefits.

Then Oscar season arrived.

In the fall when all the great movies come out, I am in a movie theatre at least once a week and the temptation...the smell that meets you in the parking lot... the racks of Raisinettes, Jordan Almonds a warm hot pretzel with cheese... you see the problem.

I blame Larry H. Miller...I blame loneliness...I blame unfulfilled dreams...I blame miscarriages...I blame the Petroff boys...I blame my old boyfriends....ya seeing a trend here?

So here it is post Oscar season - in fact, TONIGHT the Oscars are on television. I'm kicking off a new resolve to give up sugar and flour again...after tonight.

I used to say to myself that it surprised me how much I weighed because I took such care not to eat. I never ate breakfast because I didn’t have time and why make breakfast for only one person? I ate a fast food lunch…every day. Then 12 hours would pass between lunch and dinner which always happened at midnight on the way home from school. To keep myself awake I drank Diet Coke. I considered getting a pic line and a backpack for Diet Coke. I drank maybe a gallon a day. Or more. I justified it because I felt the Diet Coke was keeping my migraines at bay. Ha! I credit my addiction to caffeine as the impetus for a lifetime of migraines. I kicked the caffeine out of my life and I have to admit, I have fewer migraines and they are easier to manage...still, when Andy gets a Diet Coke, after years of being without it - I always have to smell it. A good whiff over the popping ice and bubbles still sends me to heaven and back.

I digress.

I was so hurt after that failed engagement that I thought I would die. I had laid so much of my own happiness at the feet of a man that I, emotionally, crumbled into little pieces and it took me ten years to reassemble myself.


And I did it with food. The feeling of eating a grilled cheese sandwich felt exactly like the post make-out, sleepy, warm, wrap-its-arms-around-you-last-kiss...LOVE!

Food created happy times. Food created a diversion. I decided that I could create my own family using my friends to fill those roles. I tried to create a family around a dinner table by buying food for, and inviting, an army. I wanted to prove that I could provide…for everyone…and we would sit around and eat and talk, laugh and dream and plan the next play. I still do that. Food is interesting, fun and comforting. It gives us a reason to come together. So since I needed a fake family, I would just invite people over and feed them. I became everyone's favorite "aunt," "sister," "the grandmas they never had", but no one's wife. Amber pulled on her fat suit again and animated it with fake smiles and all those tools I had learned in acting school.

So to pick up where Part 1 left off...I was engaged and I was on Phen-phen...but I feared that I wasn’t getting skinny enough. I was desperately trying to hold onto him because… because I loved him and he asked me to marry him and no one else had. I was so happy to be getting married. I was so baby hungry and that goal eclipsed sanity. I feared he’d find out that I was really Jan. And at the time, Amber was lookin’ pretty good. She was fit and her eyes were as blue as the sky in June in his reflection. But then he found someone younger and I threw the ring in his face, and the weight came back on. I called that weight “anger weight,” food the consolation prize.

Forward TEN YEARS. It took me ten years to get up the courage to give myself to someone again.

Then one of those boys that was hanging around decided to try out for a play I was directing and I cast him in the lead and we carpooled to rehearsal all summer. This precious time in the car, and after rehearsal at Denny's or wherever, solidified our respect, our mutual empathy for each other and an enduring trust. Because we were able to look past each other's fat (I'll talk about that in Part 3), we found the hidden prize inside and eventually, because of him, but for me...I let go of Amber.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why did it take me 40 years to get rid of Amber? And can you see that it was the death of Amber that marked my engagement to someone that didn’t acknowledge her existence? Because she was gone. Jan didn’t give a damn anymore.

How do we come to that? Did the fat go away?

Ha! No.

I finally found someone that didn’t like Amber. He’s the only person that doesn’t ask me if I’m okay when I just want to be me: unfunny Jan sitting in her chair watching The Walking Dead and drinking…water.

At 41 years old I married a man that was 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed more than two of me. I was ecstatic! And he had the bluest eyes. I just got lost in his eyes. Because when he looked at me, he looked at Jan, not Amber. And he would hold his gaze like I was the only person on earth. And he would say things like, I can’t believe I’m marrying THE Jan Shelton.” And it should have flattered me but I genuinely didn't understand his adoration, because I disliked myself so much. I guess I had worked up quite a persona out there in our theatre world trying to hard to be someone I wasn't and giving my life away to worry, insecurity, bitterness and w.o.r.k., w.o.r.k., w.o.r.k. I didn't know that he was watching so closely. To tell you the truth, I thought he was pulling the old Mahana trick - and it was scary at first, there were risks to take and attention to be paid. I surely wasn't worth eight cows at the time.

I was running and reaching every day to the bottom of my soul to be brilliant all the time. There was no down time. But when I was around Andy, I was able to be myself and relax. Because we were around each other through community theatre for so long, we became friends first. He taught me that it’s okay to be yourself. He is never anything but himself. If you’ve heard Andy fart in public consider it a compliment. You are part of his world and he loves you…followed by a long face and “sorry, don’t want to bruise my colon.” This is the real guy. And one day he asked me to "go with him," the real guy, forever. And I took a giant risk, something I was never comfortable doing because Amber had...left the building.


If there is anything in my life that I am proud of, it isn't the teaching awards that are gathering dust, my blog or even my immaculate pantry organization...hehehe....it's the fact that I still deal with the self-doubt and the worry and the guilt, especially the guilt, when I sit down to my Kneaders Bread Bowl ($5.99 - can't beat that price) BUT now I am now able to see that food is not love. I am to blame for my weight but I am human. My reaction to my circumstances, good or bad, is about me. Not Amber. That bread bowl might kill me, but eventually, I will test my self-control again and go without for a while and then I will crack and eat one in the car...and start all over again. But I WILL start over. Jan starts over all the time now. And it's o.k.a.y. It's not the end of the world. The important thing is that I tried and every time I try, I get better at it.

Life.

I'm going to stop at this intersection for today because the story isn't over but I have to go to work. Part III of Giving Up Amber is about Jandy's journey through the Fat-lands of prejudice and what we can do to help each other give up the Ambers that rob us of our ability to love ourselves enough that other people will want to love us too.

Ladies in Waiting: GIVING UP AMBER, Part 1

When the "waist" on a pair of jeans went to the hips we all stopped caring about how thin our actual waist was. Waist bands went from a 28 inch average to a 34. We created the “muffin top” by wearing those kinds of jeans over the years. The further we wore them down on our hips, the less fabric was there to help us hold it all in. We lost our true waist. We've let it all hang out. The kids these days don’t even know what I’m talking about when we do a period drama and I find myself yelling “pull that skirt up around your waist” They look at me like I’ve gone nuts. So over the years my zipper got shorter and shorter but my waist got thicker and thicker (like everybody else). But I didn’t see everybody else get fat. I blame it on fashion. I just saw my middle “tire” expanding. Eventually, if I sit down, my tire now sticks out beyond my boobs. Which is good in a way, it’s a kind of shelf holding my bust up now.

Glass half full.  

I was never a thin girl. When I was a kid my relatives told me that my baby fat would go away. It never did. I still have it. I come from stocky German blood. Solid as a rock, big-boned and muscle-y. All I lack is a couple of braids, a milk bucket and a soundtrack filled with “World’s Greatest Polkas," to complete the picture. Even as I type this, I can see the evidence of my weight and age sagging around my thick, short neck in the reflection of the monitor. It’s someone I don’t know very well because sometime in the 90’s I quit really looking at myself in the mirror if I could help it.

I was first taken to a diet doctor when I was 10, then again at 12 and when they couldn’t find a band uniform to fit me, I was given boiled eggs and dry tuna fish. I know everyone around me was just trying to fix my misery but as a child, I never felt completely worthy of anyone’s love. If everyone is telling you that you need to be fixed...I was too tall, too fat, too much boobage, too much hair…then you never feel whole or right. You feel broken.

I’ve looked pretty much the same since 1969. Despite the diets, the exercise equipment that fills my basement and the prescriptions that riddle a certain drawer in my bathroom, my waist has never been anything but a tree trunk and my squatty neck still sprouts a head full of denial.

Delusion is nothing more than living the dream. Right?

I always had in my mind that my fat was the real reason I wasn’t taken seriously by… anybody. When you are a fat kid, it feels like people see the fat first. Nobody looks beyond your fat. It’s as if the fat is a wall between you and anyone that might actually want to get to know the real you. The real me was a skinny girl down deep inside named Amber that lived, happily, in my delusion.

Amber wore the newest jeans and she had hair scrunchies in every color. She had big blue eyes and blonde hair that hung straight down her back. My real eyes were the color of “shit-brindle” my grandma said, which I guess was supposed to be funny. I still don't know what shit-brindle is, though it must be nearly black in color. My hair was unruly, half straight, half curly with two cow licks, one above each eye, making the bangs of the 70’s impossible. Amber had perfect bangs.

BOYS ARE DUMB

In elementary school I had an elaborate daydream that I was wearing something like football pads and that some nutty professor was paying me to do a social experiment about being fat. I would wake up each morning and dutifully put on all my padding because I was earning money for my family by being a lab rat for a study on bullying. It was my job. One day, when the experiment was over, I would finally get to go to school without all my padding, and my friends would say, “…you look amaaaaaazing! You wanna eat lunch with us?” And I would get a boyfriend two minutes later.

In the fourth grade a new concept was catching on to all us 10 year-olds. My classmates were probably getting it from all their older siblings, but since I was the oldest in my family I really never had clue about the current social policies and procedures. I had to learn it from my friends that had older siblings. So even as young as 10 years old, the class of 1983 had picked up on “going with” another person. The rules went like this: You would send a note to the person you liked (never talk to them person to person!) and sometimes you would send a note through a third party and the notes said “Will you go with me?” with two squares below YES □ NO □ The note was usually folded in a some tricky origami 101 and the name of the recipient was written on the outside. If you sent the note back marked “yes” that meant that you would eventually get to hold his hand behind the school…that was about as far as it went in my crowd…that I know of…hehehe.  BLOG: "THE SPAZ" 

I had only one crush in fourth grade and I’ll save his family from the embarrassment of mentioning his name but he never sent me “the note.” I was disappointed, but when I did get my first note I was shocked that another boy secretly liked me. How could it be? There must be something wrong with him! My friends were all “going with” someone. It was what I wanted more than anything and I didn’t really care who it was. Let the hand holding commence!

I guess I expected that he would want to be around me. He avoided me. I expected that he would talk to me in class. He didn’t say a word. In fact, the more I tried to be near him or talk to him, the more he would push me away. I was confused. Then one day my best friend asked me why I was badgering this kid and I showed her the note. She laughed right out loud. She said it was just a joke. Someone had written the note and it wasn’t this kid. I was mortified. I’m sure I faked sick so that I could stay home the next day (I was a convincing actor from a very early age.) I remember very distinctly saying to myself, “it’s because I’m fat. It’s because I’m fat.”

There was a bright spot in my junior high years that I very distinctly remember. Robbie Zimmerman asked me to dance at an eighth grade dance. It was the one and only time I ever got asked by a boy to dance in junior high. He was considerably shorter than me then. But he ran around with the cool kids. He was a mischief maker and comedian, the kind that are sent the principal’s office more than they should but Robbie went willingly, looking back at the class with a wink. I'll always love him for that may he rest in peace.

BECOMING AMBER
If tears give birth to personal evolution I believe it was a relationship I fought for in high school that spawned the capable, cool and aloof apparition Amber. She buried me in the shelter of my shame.

My first real boyfriend took me to the movies but wouldn’t be seen holding my hand. He would kiss me, but only if we were by ourselves. I would see him look around first before he went in for the kiss, as if kissing me would rid him of his reputation. I knew what it was…but I was desperate to have a relationship like regular girls did. We had just graduated from high school and he was headed out to work in another state for the summer. I had loved him for four years and we were finally dating. I was so sad that he was leaving but I knew he had to go. He had been a runner in high school. He told me that if I would start running I would lose weight. He told me that for every five pounds I lost he would write me a letter. No email back then. I would hear from him, on the condition that I would lose weight. I tried not to show how disappointed I was when I found out he was like every other boy I had ever known. Now granted, he was in high school and we were just kids. I was so desperate for his attention, that I bought weight loss shakes with my college money and nearly killed myself trying to lose weight so that he would write to me.

Let me say that again. I spent my college money on a snake oil shake program that eventually made me vomit after I drank them. That was the added bonus to that diet I guess.  

But when my one and only boyfriend got home from his summer job he didn’t want anything to do with me. I was still fat. He ignored me completely. I guess I didn’t love him enough to get skinny for him. I didn’t know who I was at a time. I was only 17. I didn’t love myself enough to give up Amber. What I suspected all along, was true...boys didn't want Jan they wanted Amber. 

Every day I still dreamt about the padding coming off to reveal Amber, but I was more interested in adding a revenge element through high school. I dreamt I had the power to make other people fat. I would walk down the hall and with my laser-vision I would instantly implode them – ala Violet Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Anyone that ever did a double take when they looked at me or any fat kid, I would just implode their butt or their head.  I didn't want to hurt anyone - I just wanted them to have a little empathy for what it felt like to be different. I knew that if other people could feel what it was like to be fat for just a few minutes, they would be kinder. Ironically, it was because I was fat, that I learned empathy.

In college it was all about getting the roles I wanted in the theatre. I dreamt that I was cast as anything BUT the mother, the ugly stepsister or the drunk. It was while I was in college that a beloved mentor said, “…you’ll never play Juliet and you have to be okay with that. YOU are the nurse.” It wasn’t what I wanted to hear at the time, but it was true. He was brave. He taught me what it’s like to be a true mentor. He later gave me an opportunity to direct my first play and it was magic. So the irony there is that because of those roles I learned how to act, how to teach acting and how to direct.

DISPELLING THE STEREOTYPES - JOLLY IS NOT A COMPLIMENT

The thing about delusional fat is that you are constantly trying to overachieve proving that you are someone you’re not. I assumed the stereotypes were being projected on me. So I tried to dispel every stereotype about fat that I could. If fat people are thought of as lazy, I worked my fingers to the bone. If fat people are thought to be slow, I would run. If fat people sit around and eat all the time I would never let people see me eat or if I could avoid it, I would stand…eat on the run like eating was an afterthought and I really didn’t need to do it. I was too busy to sit. My car became a junkyard for fast food wrappers. It was my formal dining room. If fat people were seen as tired all the time…well I was tired all the time…from trying to dispel the stereotype…from working and accomplishing far more than a normal person should. LINK TO THE SEVEN DOLLAR NAP Still to this day I have the hardest time accepting help from anyone because I think it makes me look like I can’t help myself…because... I’m fat.

When you are a fat person trying to fit in, you also overcompensate by being funny all the time.  The term jolly was invented for funny fat people and Santa. What else do we use it for? Have you ever known a jolly skinny person? Eventually you get tired of trying to be the funny person. If you are quiet at all someone will instantly ask “Are you okay? On NO! Her funny stopped! She’s broken! Someone put another quarter in her quick! We don’t want to hang around her if she’s not going to fulfill her duties as the comic relief.” That was my fear: That I was only useful if I made people laugh, and on my "off" days...well, I tried hard not to have an off day. That was a pressure I put on myself. Eventually I felt more comfortable wallowing in depression because jolly is hard to pull off all the time. It would be much easier to be appreciated for your blue eyes and rockin' body like Amber. Amber didn't have to be funny to draw attention to herself. Funny is such hard work.

When you are single, you would think that it would be easy to take care of yourself. You only have you to worry about. But I thought of myself as a single mom all those years with 200 children at a time and because I had delusional fat syndrome I had to be the best at what I did. The very best. I had to be the teacher that people talked about. NOT because she was fat, but because she was brilliant.

Can you name any brilliant fat people? Brilliant people are skinny.

I wanted people to think I was capable, cool and courageous. If I didn’t know how to do something I would fake it til I made it. I got addicted to the praise because that was my gauge. If people were saying “wow, that was a great play Jan," or “I don’t know how you do it all!” That meant that people were looking beyond the fat. But I knew the fat was still there. Amber was actually the capable, cool and courageous one. I was fat.

I was finally engaged in 1997. I was taking Phen-Phen at the time which had helped me take off 70+ pounds and I was running, feeling confident and looking good…for him. When we were dating I was constantly buying clothes that would make me look skinny, I was never in his presence without makeup on. I had big fake nails and I went to the tanning bed because I had heard that tanning makes you look skinnier. I wore his ring around like it was a trophy. And then one day he called me and said “we need to talk” and so I donned my exercise clothes and went running on the road where he usually came to my house. I wanted him to catch me on the road, glistening in my sweat and ready for a tumble. But he never showed up...

And Jan ran home, ceremoniously burned the box of wedding invitations over a dozen Krispy-Kremes and a six-pack of Diet Coke while Amber looked on and laughed.

There's my bell...gotta go back to work.