Free Finished Being Fat: An Accidental Adventure in Losing Weight and Learning How to Finish by Betsy Schow Page A

to the mall was in order. I looked again at my “sticker chart.” Yep, I totally deserved it.
    ***
    My newfound powers of observation didn’t belong solely to my running. Nope, it leaked into my everyday life as well. Let me warn you that I’m altering names and a few key details to protect the not-so-innocent. I was at a friend’s wedding reception, staring longingly at the gourmet cupcakes when I was tapped on the shoulder.
    “Is that you, Betsy? It’s me. Stacey Jones. Well, now it’s Stacey Adams. You look uh-mazing! How the heck are you?” She then accosted me with a hug.
    *inward sigh* Yes, I recognized my former classmate’s voice before she gave her name. With an ear for music and pitch, I had excellent voice recognition. It’s a curse. Cue fake smile.
    “Stacey… so good to see you. I didn’t know you were friends with the bride.”
    “Oh, no. I’m the groom’s cousin.”
    Of course, for all the rotten luck. Remember a couple of chapters ago, when I mentioned that I left the music behind in college because of some of the criticism I received. Well, a large portion of that had come from the woman standing in front of me now.
    She grabbed me with her manicured claws and dragged me off to a table where she could devour me in private.
    “So fill me in. What happened after you left school? Did you ever finish your degree?”
    It was tempting to lie about it or give my omitted Facebook answer. Instead I owned up to the truth, the whole truth.
    “You know what? I managed to get my associate’s in liberal arts and then got busy and never got around to finishing.”
    “Oh, that’s too bad. But if you were too busy to finish, you must have had something great going on. Did you get a big job or a gig playing somewhere?”
    Okay, was somebody giving this lady cue cards or cheat sheets of all my buttons to push for maximum insecurity?
    “Nope, I just got busy with life. Got married, had a few kids. Girls. One of them’s a real handful, and she keeps me pretty occupied.”
    “Oh. Well, I got married too, see?” She blinded me with the oversized gem weighing down her claw. “But no kids yet. There just isn’t time with Jim being a doctor and my master’s program. How did you find time with your career? What did you say you did again?”
    I could have given her the author line or tried to make myself sound more accomplished and important, but for once, I didn’t feel the need. Everything about her was trying to scream “I’m better than you.” From her huge diamond, designer clothes, and casual dropping of her husband’s profession, all of it was too in your face. It was a calculated attempt to make her seem bigger and badder than she was. She reminded me of a blowfish, prickly and full of hot air.
    I had nothing to prove to this woman. After this torturous conversation, we would go our separate ways and, God willing, never meet again. I didn’t need her approval of my life. I only needed my own. With a start, I realized that I had it, at least on some of the most basic levels. Sure, I still looked in the mirror and bemoaned my skinny rolls. (I didn’t have fat rolls any more, just the loose flaps of skin left over from losing sixty-five pounds.) I still kicked myself on occasion if I felt I could’ve done better. But I had come to see that the woman I’d become was an accomplishment in its own right.
    I had the hardest job on the planet. I was a stay-at-home mom. Two little lives depended on me. I was responsible for making sure they ate nutritious foods, stayed clean, got enough sleep, learned right from wrong, used their manners, stayed in bed when they were sick, and most important, felt that they were loved. I was a housekeeper, a short-order cook (drive-thrus count), nurse, teacher, spiritual leader, and entertainer all rolled into one.
    And I didn’t get to clock out at the end of the day either. Being a mother never ends. Who else would wake up in the middle of the night and clean up