I had a couple of drinks after what I described below. 🙂

It seems that whenever I see Edgar’s family members, I get a little evaluation of my current physique. There was his birthday, when his cousin made a couple of comments about how fat I wasn’t and how my engagement didn’t count. And then there was Ruby’s bridal shower last month, when Edgar’s mom went on and on about how I am so much smaller now than I used to be. So at their wedding, when I saw Edgar’s cousin (the same one) across the room and waved when we made eye contact, I’d predicted what happened next, despite the fact that we’re social network friends and she sees photos all the time of me online.

Her eyes opened wide in recognition and she opened her mouth in a shocked smile, then came over, her legs barely able to make the strides in the very, very short and very, very fitted, very low-cut white dress she wore. (I had learned since our last meeting that she had some help with the physical enhancements, and I suppose if you paid good money for it, you should show it off.) “Cindy! Oh, my God! You’re so skinny! How’d you get so skinny? I mean, compared to how you were BEFORE. What’s your secret? What have you been doing?”
I chuckled politely, then said, “I haven’t really been doing anything, just breastfeeding and taking care of Allie.”
“Really? Just breastfeeding and baby duty, huh?” She looked at me skeptically, like I was sitting on a Fountain of Trimness and won’t share the treasure map. She complimented Allie, then the conversation ended shortly thereafter with her saying, “Well, you look great! Compared to before,” as she gave my forearm a squeeze and returned to her date.

Eddie’s wife Michelle, whom I’ve known and been good friends with for the past 4 years, who was also at this wedding, and also knows of the prior 2 incidents referred to above, said to me after the cousin left, “Dude. How big WERE you?!” HAHAHAHA!! But in truth, there hasn’t been much of a change in the past years. I think the peak of my obesity, as I refer to it, was a mere 20 lbs or so more than I weigh now, and that was in 2000 or so, when I started running and GAINED weight despite the 3 miles every other day because my crappy-ass physician at the time told me to increase the mileage, frequency, and drop my daily caloric intake from 1000 to 800 calories a day. Talk about hitting starvation mode as my body flew into fat conservation and retention and turned off the metabolism. But Edgar’s family makes it sound like I used to need an assistant to pull up on my fat rolls so that another assistant could sponge wash between the folds as I laid in a collapsed oversized bed demanding Twinkies and gravy fries, pale from not being able to leave the room to go into sunlight as the doorways weren’t wide enough for me to exit the room I’d eaten my way into.