Ghost

"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." --Kate Moss

I call bullshit. This morning, I realized I need to do laundry because I have nothing to wear. Yes, the closets are full and the bureau is full, but most of those clothes are items I can't really wear anymore. As Death Cab for Cutie sings, "My old clothes don't fit like they once did/So they hang like ghosts of the people I have been."

On a whim, I pulled on a T-shirt from many years back. It's a boob shirt--not the cleavage kind but the clingy kind. I'm wearing it now. I don't envision myself leaving the house with it on, but I'm certainly happy with a little bit of fat shaved off my sides right now. And, I was psyched when I put it on and saw that it wasn't entirely offensive.

But, am I as happy as I am when I have a glass of wine with Groom at  Trattoria Athena and dive into my first bite of delicious Spezzatino di Vitello in Umido coi? And am I as happy as I am when I tear a hunk of baguette from Standard Bakery and smear it with stinky stinky stinky rind cheese from Hahn's End as I sit with friends and watch the boats sail by Bug Light? Hell no.

Many of my favorite memories and stories revolve around food or the dinner table--or at a bar, if I'm going to be honest. Most of my childhood was spent under the dining room table hiding from the cacophony of a large extroverted family and most of my 20s were spent under a table as well, primarily from sipping too much tequila to hide from the person I was so I could eventually become the person I am.

One of the ghosts of the people I have been came back to haunt me recently. I have this someone from before Boyfriend who became Groom Extraordinaire. I was in a terrible relationship. It started frenzied and obsessively; it continued frantically and desperately; and it ended violently. I was lucky, in that I didn't need him to love me as much as he wanted me to love him. I have spent the better part of 25 years successfully avoiding this man because I've had zero desire to see him and I don't want to be reminded of who I was. Much of the tequila in my 20s was dedicated to this memory, or at the very least obliterating those memories from my brain. I was never so lucky.

I saw him walking down the street about two weeks ago. And, just the other day, I very nearly walked directly into him. I still don't want to see him and I definitely don't want him to see me.

My reason has always been that I don't want another episode with him; I don't want any of that drama; I don't want to be that little 20-year-old girl curled up in the bedroom hiding from this weird, image-conscious, insecure man who fully subscribed to Groucho Marx's "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept people like me as a member"  and who berated and belittled anyone who would try to accept him.

The other day, the truth came out. When I saw him, my first thought wasn't, "Oh, look. There's someone I vaguely remember from my past." And, although objectionable since it's been over two decades, my first thought wasn't an angry, "Forget you."

My first sad little thought was, "I don't want him to see me so fat."