Two Sticks or a Lighter

The Inheritance of Loss

Posted by Sherry , Tuesday, November 30, 2010 Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Now, for those of you who haven't met me or read my profile information, that probably leads you to believe that I am a 75 year old South Jersey grandmother who tells dirty jokes and shakes her fist at bad drivers. Or that I'm Joy Behar.

Unfortunately, you'd have assumed incorrectly. I'm just a dorky 33 year old who complains frequently and loudly enough to SEEM like a 75 year old. By the way, my knees are popping like CRAZY today. Must be a storm coming.

But you see, its not my fault that I say “Oh, for cryin' out loud” or “For Pete's sake!” or “You get married so you have someone to kill the bugs”. I INHERITED these phrases. They're family mottoes! Sometimes we cross-stitch them on pillows.

And maybe its the fact that the holidays are upon us or the fact that my 89 year old grandmother recently came to visit, but lately, I've been thinking a lot about habits and rituals and what I've inherited versus what is 'all me.'

For instance, I bite my fingernails. Yes, it is a nasty habit and probably means I'm a nervous person or need constant oral stimulation (tee hee) or maybe it means I like my nails short. Or that I'm a serial killer.

No one else in my family bites their nails. Not my sister, my mother, my grandmother or my father. They all have lustrous, painted (daddy likes Rockette Red), beautiful nails and have no shame showing their hands to even the most judgmental of Vietnamese manicurists.

Also, I HAVE to sing along to every song that comes on the radio. I simply CANNOT carry on a discussion if there is a song playing in the background that I know the words to (which means there isn't much talking in my car. Unless, of course, we're on the Smooth Jazz station, in which case, we're talking about my impending funeral because I'm about to throw myself out of the moving car). Much of my family is like this. We WILL shush you if you choose to interrupt us during our renditions of any Carpenters' song.

Anyway, while my grandmother and mom were here last week, I took notice of their body types and eating habits. Neither one of them has ever been fat nor have they ever really been skinny. They are both average, pear-shaped, white women who complain mostly about their thighs being a tad jiggly and asking if things "make their butts look big" but in reality, they look like just about every other American woman walking the streets. My sister, lucky girl, inherited that particular shape while I, on the other hand, am a different fruit altogether.

Call it apple, call it top heavy, call it Kathy Bates – I'm basically your average Granny Smith sitting on a couple of Popsicle sticks. Pour some caramel on me and you've got a sought-after State Fair treat. I carry all my extra weight right around my middle, the unhealthiest place to carry extra weight. Also pretty terrible in terms of finding jeans that don't make you look like like one of the Tweedle Dee or Dum twins. This, along with my love for cop show dramas and poop humor, I inherited from my father.

With regard to eating habits, well, I can tell you that I've never ever seen mom or grandma 'binge' on anything other than a sale at T.J.Maxx. Mom's usually on a 'diet' and at any given time you can find a chewy, fake-peanutbuttery, 100 calorie treat at the bottom of her purse. I've seen her turn down homemade cookies with a flip of the hand and claim that she just “can't get enough” of something as mouth-watering as celery sticks with fat free ranch dressing.

Grandma on the other hand, usually drinks ½ a can of regular Coca-Cola at lunch and cooks with Crisco regularly. Although she recently started working out so as to 'watch her figure,' on our recent trip to Starbucks, when our frowny faced barrista asked Grandma if she “wanted whip on her white chocolate mocha” Grandma looked genuinely perplexed when she answered “Well, OF COURSE!”

Although, she, and I, looked equally perplexed when the designer velvet track suit clad soccer mom behind us ordered a “grande half-caf, triple shot, half syrup, gingerbread soy latte”.

See, Grandma simply doesn't see a point in ordering a white chocolate mocha and then butchering it with skim milk and denying herself whipped cream. Why? Because Grandma only gets a Starbucks coffee treat TWICE A YEAR.

Bottom line here people, I inherited the worst of both my mom and grandma's worlds. I basically spent the last 27 years of my life binging on diet food and then turning around and treating myself to more of it for choosing 'wisely' and not eating the skin off of ONE piece of fried chicken.

By the by, Snackwell's Devil's Food low-fat cookies are only low-fat if you eat ONE of them. A box of those cookies will NOT make you thinner.

So, to sum it up, I got fat because of what I inherited and I got fat because of the choices I made. There's really no sure way to know which came first, the fatty or the Olestra.

What I do know, now, is that thanks in a HUGE part to my Lap Band, I'm finally able to take the best and healthiest bits from Grandma's eating habits and Mom's eating habits and come out the other end a thinner, happier and healthier person.

I don't know if I inherited this ability to take control of my life and make it better or if it is something I learned, and it really doesn't matter, I guess. I'm just glad I'm finally able to do it.