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By August 18, 2001, weighing in at 255 pounds (down from 380), I was to meet The Captain for the first time, and I was a wreck. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I knew I hadn’t lost enough weight to make a good impression on him. And I was sick to my stomach because it wasn’t enough. I knew in my heart that it would never be enough, and I would not acknowledge that fact.
So on August 18, 2001, I went to Utah to meet this man who had evolved (despite my resolutions) into the sole motivation for my successful weight loss.
It began to occur to me that this was Not A Good Thing the minute I stepped off the plane and got my Hollywood Hug that made it quite clear he did not want to touch me. It went downhill from there, with body language and subtle clues that made me understand he had had a bad attitude before he even saw me.
Lunch brought the news that he had been “seeing someone” for the last couple of months and that last week, “it had gone to the next level” and “had potential.” I poker-faced it all the way through. About five minutes after we left the restaurant, we had an argument about a long-standing issue (like, 2 years’ worth of long-standing), and that was pretty much it. If he spoke ten words to me the rest of the day, I think I would be overestimating.
I was shell-shocked. I knew I couldn’t continue this way and that something had to be said or done, but I just didn’t know what.
The epiphany came when we got to Provo (a 40-mile drive from Salt Lake City), and to the motel where I was going to stay. I was dealing with one of the desk clerks when an obviously foreign woman came in to the lobby to talk to the other desk clerk. She said, in a heavy German accent, “I have a problem, and I hope you can help me. My husband is in the hospital and I have to go to the pharmacy to get him some medicines, but I don’t want to drive there alone.”
So I said, “I’ll take you,” just because I could (after all, I’d lived there for almost five years) and I knew the Captain was going to ditch me, and because that’s the kind of example my dad set for me. It was just one of those moments when God taps you on the shoulder and says, “You wanna take this lady where she needs to go?”
She was so grateful, and it meant nothing to me, so we arranged to meet later. She left. I got my business done. I turned around and the woman behind me, who had tears in her eyes, laid her hand on my arm and said, “That was so nice of you.” And I smiled my most charming smile (that has really never failed to charm anyone, man or woman – except, of course, The Captain) and said it was nothing, but thank you kindly.
I walked out of the motel room lobby without giving The Captain the right time of day, which of course made him follow me where he wouldn’t have before. He, having missed the whole exchange, said, “So what’s the scoop?” I told him what happened, to which he replied, with complete ennui and not a little contempt, “That was neighborly of you.”
And THAT was the defining moment for me. In a rush of warmth, I understood: He wasn’t worthy of me. The Rolex on his wrist did not give him enough class to be my man.
It wasn’t about weight anymore. It was about the fact that he neither recognized nor valued the generosity of spirit that made me do things like offer to help someone I don’t know, even if it meant going out of my way. I understood, in that split second, that I am A Good Woman. I understood that I was the most brilliant, honorable, generous, and courageous woman he would ever meet and he didn’t deserve the right time of day from me.
In that rush of a moment when he “didn’t get it,” I knew my own worth, which was a gift I had needed for a long time.
So, without batting an eyelash, I made semi-evening plans with him I knew wouldn’t happen, because I was packing up and going home on the next flight I could get. And while his callous treatment hurt, I understood also that it wasn’t I who had the problem.
Lack of character is one problem Atkins can’t fix.
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