The Daily Write: On the table (July 20, 2012. 15 minutes)

On the table

I'll be going soon. To Queer family camp. It's an annual voyage. A gay pilgrimage. A time to feel totally and completely safe, whole, home. Except last year I had lost some weight when I went and was given all sorts of unasked for kudos (secretly enjoying them, I'm ashamed to admit). This year I have gained some weight so I will go through that awkward terrible time when people are saying hello for the first time in a year, and this time they won't tell me how good I look.

It's a mind fuck being fat, losing a little, gaining it back. It was a mind fuck when I was 17 and lost 100 pounds in eight months, only then I milked it for all it was worth and actually, far more. Turns out it wasn't worth that much, all those months of self-induced, society sanctioned torture. The desperation for food, the dreams of chewing, the smell of the blender engine burning oil five times a day as I stuffed it full of doctor-prescribed protein powder, water, ice and natural flavorings from tiny brown bottles kept in a tall cupboard to the left of the gas stove.

I remember the fake wood grain of the Formica counter top under the blender, the nearly construction orange of the paint on the wooden cabinet door next to my head. We didn't have an automatic ice maker; I kept plastic trays of water well stocked in the freezer behind me, twisting the tray over the sink, five times a day.

Five times a day I poured the frothy concoction with a chocolate powder base into a tall glass and savored it like it was gooey pizza or popcorn. I wished it to be savory, a mouth sensation I completely missed out on during those hungry months of starvation. 550 calories a day, plus 10 packs of sugar free chewing gum, 1.5 calories per slice.

I banished myself in the hot hills of Northern California, in the house of my dad, with my teenage brother. In Oregon they waited. I never told them how much I weighed. Not since the beginning. Not since the last meal of Chicken Kiev and rice. Not since 233. Every week I was weighed by Dr. Kamarath's nurse, counseled by the bearded and smarmy Dr. Diner, and spoken with by the mousy nutritionist whose name and face I can barely remember. She was training us how to eat. As if you can tell a starving girl such things.

It's easy to agree to fist sized portions of steamed vegetables and skinless chicken when all you are putting into your mouth every day is liquefied powder and ice. This teaches you nothing about how to eat. And for that matter, you never had a problem knowing how to eat in the first place.

I held back my progress, pouring over cooking magazines and books, working at a Burger King, a Danish Bakery. I kept it a secret for the coming out, my 18th birthday party and my mom's 40th. It would be the first time I was seen as "the new me." Of course, I didn't realize that I would feel practically invisible in those days to come, when the only thing I could think about or focus on was what they thought of my new body.

It's been like this for years, only the changes are far more subtle now. I ebb and flow between 270 and 245 pounds. Except on those occasions when I have been pregnant and given birth. I always weigh less then, on accounting of the complications, the diabetes, the need for extreme and tortured self-control, and last time, the 9 day fever and abdominal infection.

Each time I was complimented on how great I looked after - younger, vibrant, healthy. I tried not to listen. I tried to take it with a grain of salt. And here's why. It feels too good. And the good feeling never lasts. With all my work to accept that being fat is my gift to the world, it's the way I am uniquely me, it is also a truly guilty pleasure, the kind that is tempered by the knowledge that I will become fat again, and that the compliments will stop. Just like that.