The last extension

Seven more days. In a week I will either be undergoing the surgery or about to do the surgery. Tomorrow I am flying out to Curacao to start on this new journey but I have a confession. Right now I am not thinking about that journey and all the changes, I am thinking about it being the last time I hope and prey that I get a new airplane where I don't have to ask for an extension belt. Silly isn't it? I've grown a thick skin by now but even then you still feel the mosquito bite. Seven more days before I start to become outwardly "normal". Seven more days before I start to forget and forgive being labeled as fat from the age of 9. Seven more days before I can think about starting to look in displays and think that maybe I could wear something like that. I was nine when my mother looked at me one day and told me that I was on a diet because my stomach was sticking out too much. That day we were getting ready to go to a birthday party. My tantia's birthday party. I was allowed to go but I was not allowed to eat anything. No snacks, no sweets. I still remember looking at the trays with envy and self-pity. I remember looking at my sisters enjoying themselves and I couldn't. Thinking back on that I know that I wasn't fat. I just had a protruding stomach that probably would have gone away but my mother was scared. She was scared of having fat children. She was scared of what people would think and say about her and her children if they were fat. Not perfect children but fat children. What would that say about her as a mother when her children looked ugly and fat. I understand now that children always bear their parents issues. All those things that you are dealing with now as an adult; things that you swear you would do different or not do at all, all those things will become your children issues. I will hug my child more; I will not let them become fat; I will give them all they want .... they become issues. I completely understand that those words said to someone else can have a different reaction. Somebody else would have made sure the belly was gone or learn to eat healthy and never become fat. Not me. I took those words and they hurt. the more it hurt, the more I wanted sweet. I would lie, cheat and deceive my behaviour. Ants loved to live in my room because somewhere there was always crumbs or food to enjoy. I used to eat double; one when I go out with my friends and once when I got home just so my mother would not think that I cheated by eating McD. And the bigger I got, the more strenuous our relationship; the more disapproving looks; the more hurt; the more I eat. Seven more days before I can start earning my unconditional love.