Day 3/100

Age: 51 Weight: 349.2 lbs Mood: satisfied

When I was about 1.5 years old my parents got divorced. From what I’ve heard it wasn’t pleasant but wasn’t brutal, and my mom moved from Colorado to California where she settled in East Palo Alto and met the man that eventually became my step-father.

When I was five, we sat around our tiny wooden dining room table with a hanging brown lamp that lit the table and that’s about it.

“I’d like to marry your mother,” he asked me. “We can be a family.”

“Ok,” I responded. “That’s cool.”

For years, I have told that story as a joyous heart warming occasion that showed how lovely that man is. And trust me, he is a lovely man.

But that’s not true. I did not feel joy then. I felt abandoned, for I was the person who took care of my mom after she and my father got divorced. I was the one that comforted her, and cared for her, and I was being told that I was replaced. That I was unwanted. That I was not good enough.

Was that true? There is no way that my mom at 26 and my dad at 24 had the intention of making me feel unloved.

As children we create beliefs, and then build defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from those beliefs. Our defenses just get stronger as we get older until we finally realize that they no longer serve us, and we let them go.

I was fortunate to be asked by Emily Anhalt to write my five year old self a letter and tell him what I know now.

I was never replaced. I was always wanted. I am good enough. And I let that defense mechanism go and felt the belief dissipate.

That guy in that photo with the sweat on his brow and the bags under his eyes is a pretty good dude. It just took him 50 years to realize it.