PS update after sending out yesterday’s blog: I’m doing great!
Take my word for it or read the tweet here.
And now let’s go back in time: .

diary 1996
MAGIC PANTS
Wednesday June 2, 1996

I m writing here, on Wednesday night, with a large cup of coffee without cookies. Without Dutch biscuits with butter and chocolate sprinkles. Even without two white toast with butter and salt:
A non-sugary treat I allow myself to have, if I have cravings for something that comforts me.

I ll tell you the whole story in a moment, but talking about cravings: I have never been so aware of how often I need food to calm me down.
To deal with the anxiety, a feeling that something is not right. Or that I am not right. Or that I did something wrong or offended someone.
Deal with the feeling I am failing.

Ever since I know I want to lose the weight, the habitual eating has disappeared. That was the easy part, of course.
Except now you really notice it when the sugar served a purpose!

For the first weeks when I found myself in the cabinet to make something with sugar and chocolate, and preferably with a crisp bite, (I don’t drink my calories, I munch them) I would still go on and have it.
But now I resist.
Often successfully, like tonight when I write this with just a cup of coffee even though I would love to have something that numbs.

And I attribute this ability to say No to a pair of pants that I have here, hanging next to my desk.
They’re Marlene Dietrich pants, from 1989.

I know because I wore them on my first date with Bear. They were my first pair of adult pants, and not jeans.
And I wore them on the date where I asked him if he wanted to become my lover.
At least for one time, to lose my virginity.

I didn’t say for how long, and also didn’t promise anything. It was clear I was just explaining what had happened, as a single.
And that it just didn’t work, to be single and lose your virginity.
And that I was now trying something new:
Him.

But he got that he needed to do more than just put it in, so to speak.
And ultimately we’ve basically been together ever since. Or not together-together. But lovers.

The adult date (asking him to become my lover) and the adult pants, went hand in hand.

A while ago I “summoned” my young 16 year old self, mostly to adopt her productive rhythm.
But also because I gained a lot of weight since then. And 16 year old me, was very thin yet ate everything she wanted.
It has not brought an overnight fix of my life, unfortunately, but small changes and shifts. Different food choices, that sort of thing.
I try not to drink or go out during the week or Sunday night, because my 16 year old self wouldn’t either.

But last Sunday I did go out.
And I had the best evening ever at the hard rock cafe.
It was as if everybody was feeling sexy and funny and the energy was just amazing.
There were two men with whom I think I ll one day have sex with. Two! The one with whom I have been flirting for months now, and there was a new guy and that was also really great.

But I drank a few beers, and had many many bitterballen (a Dutch snack) and was home around midnight.
It was a very, very slow Monday….

To not let it go to waste I started sorting through two boxes of clothing I had not even bothered unpacking.
I ve been living here for almost two years now.
But they were clothes I had not fit in for years, so why bother.

Last Monday I unpacked them, assessed the weight I had when I wore them, and then sorted them accordingly.
I ended up with five different stacks.

The final one was the weight I had when I was 16, 17.
So the time I met Bear.
And it had the Marlene Dietrich pants.

Instead of folding it, and leaving it on that inspirational final pile of clothes for when I was petite, I put it on a hanger and hung it next to my desk.

And I look at it every time I want to go for biscuits with chocolate, because I feel lousy and need something to comfort me.
To take the edge off….

The bad news is: Looking at the size 6 pants you wore 6,5 years ago to a date with the man who would turn out to be the love of your life, and who would never be yours, does not take the edge off.

But they remind me why I want this.

Losing weight until I am the same as in December 1989,
symbolizes that I get to start over again.

.

diary 1996
SAD
Thursday June 3, 1996

It went so quickly, but I think I hit rock bottom tonight.
My anxiety is eating me alive, I m so scared.

I m paranoid people will find out about me and Bear. And even more if I think it will happen because I am not careful enough with whom I tell.
I feel like scratching my own skin with my nails, to externalize the horror I feel inside.

One thing it did do, is explain to me why I gained so much weight over the years.
Now that i m careful with what I eat, the reason I was eating in the first place has surfaced.

The reason I fit into size 6 pants when I asked Bear to be my lover, and to be the one to lose my virginity with, and I only gained weight year after year since, is because I am not cut out for this.
To be a secret girlfriend all those years.
First because I didn’t want people to know, then because we had gotten used to not telling anyone and he didn’t want girls to know because he had other girlfriends too.
Keeping our affair between the two of us, gave it something extra special.

Secrecy started long before Bear had a real girlfriend and long before he moved in with her.

As did the eating.

It was no accident I fit in size 6 Marlene Dietrich pants, and the only thing I was scared of was to get AIDS.
Which was already a lot to deal with, when you re a virgin.

But as long as I used condoms I managed to get it under control.
The anxiety attacks disappeared.
Under layers of fat and kilos extra body weight.

I still have the weight. Nothing changed. But this Thursday night it is clear what purpose it served.
I craved for food so very much. I have resisted it, and decided to let the pain of anxiety just come.
Maybe I knew it held a lesson, and I wanted to know what was going on. Why I was feeling so rotten.

This is the first time I see that hiding my sexuality, and what I had with Bear, was my default. That I have always been ashamed of it.

I wish I was more like him. I wish I owned it, like he has all those years.

And he has not gained even an ounce.

What a mess.

.

diary 1996
HAPPY
Saturday June 5, 1996

For weeks now I m watching what I eat.
For months I m cycling.
Before that for half a year I walked.
And yet the weight stuck to me, defying every rule in the book that your weight had something to do with what you ate.

I was not on a diet, I still ate more than most.
But I ate significantly less than I used to, and I moved around way more.
So just when I started wondering if this was just my new body, I got this insight into why I had gained all the kilos.

Being ashamed of my sexuality, and of being with a man I m not in a relationship with.
Being ashamed he’s now living with his girlfriend.
And I still don’t know how to respond or deal with that. It’s not like I m okay with all that overnight, but it did help to know what the reason was.

And today I suddenly connected with my old body, with my old self, and I knew I would lose all the weight.
No problem.
Even when the past half year nothing had changed, I suddenly knew (and I know) it will drop off easily.
My old body will come back in no time.

I was so surprised by this sudden insight, that I even thought:
“Oh! I have to make bikini photos of my current body quickly! Before it’s too late!”

Suddenly it became very urgent to document this beautiful bigger body because it would soon be gone, and not be back ever again.

I don’t know how the shame stuff will pan out. I can’t believe it’s gone or anything, but I feel pounds lighter already.
I still don’t know what caused it either, but I just know they will drop off.

First the kilos drop, then the shame?
Or the other way around?
I don’t know how it will go but they will go. Just like that.

.

diary 1996
A HARD WORKER
Tuesday June 8, 1996

Bear came by! 
It was the first time since we had the long and intense session that basically left me so speechless, confused and a bit heartbroken to be honest, that I had to write it all down to Nikki.
I couldn’t find the words to write in my diary.

So this was the first time Bear and me saw each other, but it really wasn’t that big a deal to me anymore.
Writing Nikki has helped me to clarify what happened and appreciate the good, and Bear had picked up calling me every now and then.
So things had already normalized when he asked if he could come over this afternoon.

Just that I had been stalling getting to my (paid) work the entire morning, and had been tooling around with my own manuscripts and stuff.
His call was like a wake-up call that I should shift gears and get to work!
But I would be with Bear of course.

“Well I m still in my bathing robe,” I said.
“Give me half an hour, and you can come by.”
I had time to shower and shave my armpits and the rest would just have to be whatever it was. I wasn’t in the mood for sex, anyway.
But he was!

It was so funny because I told him I had written Nikki about us, and he wanted to read the letter immediately. I knew that he was excited and not angry that I had told someone else about us. 
So I got the letter and let him read it.
He already knew I wasn’t horny and wanted to get to my work. So things were very relaxed. I got him a coffee, and we were hanging on the couch.

So Bear started reading the letter and I threw my legs over his legs, and moved until I was horizontally with my hips on his lap and he automatically started rubbing my thigh and making his way to my pussy through my jeans.
Meanwhile reading my letter, and there were a few words which he apparently found exciting, and he said those out loud. With a big smile, and an extra strong push or deliberate rub against my pussy (behind jeans).
They were:
“Our way”
“It was absolutely magical.”
and
“Exposed.”

Of course I agreed with him that they were exciting, because I had written it myself. So I knew which parts of the letter they were.
He was touching me but it wasn’t on my clit, it was next to it. “More to the left,” I said.
And he was irritated but jokingly. Because I was the one who had just stated that she didn’t want sex:
“Then take your pants off!” he said.
So I did, and his fingering got serious as he still took the time to finish up on the letter as well, and then we started kissing and I sat up so that I could take his penis out of his pants and give him a blowjob.

As fancy and meaningful our last sex has been, that’s how easy and normal it was this time. It was bread and butter sex, with the exception that I was still not that horny so that I was not very consistent with what I wanted.
If I gave him a blowjob, I had cooled off myself by the time we were doing something else.
There were a lot of moments like that, when my horniness was just a whimper and you had to move fast or it would all dry up and cool off.

That’s when I started noticing something which I had not noticed before. Which is saying something because we’ve been doing this for over 6 years now:
How hard he works.
That every time I cool off, he tries something new. Something unexpected, that is exactly tailored to the moment. So today it were slightly goofy things. Whereas he can also be kinky, or even romantic. 
We did 69 and I sat on top!
Oh, I almost forgot to tell, but man, talking about “exposed”. That was exposed! And he was exposed too of course. I wasn’t really sure how far he wanted me to take that…. If he wanted something anal too.
We have never talked about that sort of thing, I should ask him some time.

We rarely do or have done 69, so that already made this afternoon’s bread and butter sex worthy of remembrance. But during fucking, oh man, it was just like that first time again a few months ago.
My pussy and my body were craving him. Clinging. Coming. I wanted to entirely melt together.

But I do owe it to him, because I was not that into it and he had to work for it.
And it was the first time I noticed this, how comfortable he is when he has to work in bed. He’s not angry or irritated at all.
And I wanted to be like him.
I want to be able to do that too.

I want to be that sexual, but also really versatile and be able to make it nice for the both of us.
Return the favor! That I have ideas about things we can do. Even when I m not aroused enough for fucking or don’t want to come or have real sex myself.
That I can be as much fun, and just have a good time together you know….
Sex with him is always different, because he makes it so. But I want to be in it too.

When we were done, he took the condom off and we snuggled up in a full body hug.
“I learned this is good after sex,” I said about us lying together in each others arms.
“We always do this,” he answered savoring it, with his eyes closed.
As if it didn’t matter why it was good.

And it didn’t. 

.
~Lauren96
An unexamined life is not worth living