The next few years are a bit hazy in my memory. It’s probably because of sheer exhaustion. My husband was gone from early 1999 until early 2000. At the end of 1999 his mother died suddenly and we had to make an emergency trip to the east coast to make arrangements and attend the funeral. Then there was the Y2K hysteria to contend with. When he arrived home in early 2000 I breathed a little sigh of relief. My brother had moved out and I’d found a new nanny just prior to his leaving. But she didn’t even last two weeks. She was one of the two horrible nannies I had, both unfortunately when my husband was living out of state. My parents came in to save the day when I initially let the new nanny go, but there was a stretch of time while I didn’t have a nanny and had to figure out what to do. My daughter went to daycare during the day shifts, but it was the evening shifts I had to worry about. I eventually stole one of the day care workers from the day care center to be my new nanny. She was living with me before my husband got home.
I figured that things would relax a little when he got home, but they didn’t really get better. I don’t know if he’d gotten used to just having to fare for himself while he was away, but I felt like he never took back on any of the tasks he’d done before he left. I just kept doing them as if he was still gone. I’m sure that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but to my mind it was not different having him home than when he’d been gone. I still felt as if I had responsibility for everything. I think this is when my marriage started to fail although it would be a few years before I accepted it.
I know that I went on another liquid diet at some point during this time period because I remember being at a weight loss meeting on the night of the Bush-Gore election. And I remember my daughter telling me that I wasn’t as comfy to sit on because I wasn’t soft and squishy anymore, but bony. I also remember that I got into running for the first time in my life and I was so proud of myself because I’d always hated running. But I got to the point where I was running three or four ten minute miles every day. I’m pretty sure that I was getting in shape and thin because I wanted to try for another child before I got too old and I was already past forty. I tried a couple of times to get pregnant and it didn’t work. I started going to a fertility specialist and she sent me to a counselor to deal with some of the issues in my childhood that I’d never dealt with. I eventually stopped seeing that counselor because she was pushing me to deal with issues that I wasn’t ready to deal with.
I remember in 2002 when I knew I was ovulating and yet I couldn’t bring myself to tell my husband. I remember lying in the dark crying because I was just beginning to realize that I would probably never have another child, but a part of me knew that my marriage was on the rocks and I couldn’t picture bringing a child into that. Or maybe I was afraid that if I got pregnant again I would be stuck. During this time I actually stayed thin for a while because I was exercising a lot…probably to give me an excuse to be away from home. I was always angry at my husband, but I couldn’t actually point to the reason why. Oh, I had lots of little things that bothered me, but none that added up to the great anger I was feeling.
Eventually, when I realized that I was not going to get pregnant again, I kind of gave up. I slowly stopped exercising; the act that always preceded weight gain. I started seeing another counselor because I knew that I finally had to deal with all of the issues that I hadn’t wanted to deal with. I was feeling out of control and exhausted and angry most of the time. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up with that kind of atmosphere in the house. And for once I stopped worrying so much about weight because I was focused on finally resolving issues, and I hoped that once they were resolved I would be able to lose weight and keep it off forever. The weight started coming back on, but I wasn’t as worried about it. I was much more worried about putting some demons to rest and I think a part of me just gave up again and decided I was destined to be fat.