An Open Letter to Food

Dear Food,

All of this time I thought you were my friend. You comforted me in the scary times, and celebrated my victories.

When I was 11 years old, and I used to spend Saturdays alone while my parents were out at a standing appointment, you were there with me, in the form of creamy Skippy peanut butter. At the time, my family was dealing with a lot. We sat on the floor in the kitchen, just you and me and the spoon. I'd try to put you away, get you back in the fridge where you belonged. But moments later, I'd come back, for another moment of unbridled bliss where there was no one there but you and me. No one had to know.

When I was 14 years old, my dance teacher tried to get me to pick between you and dance. In hindsight, I shouldn't have had to. But that's a whole separate open letter. Ultimately, I chose you. I chose you over and over again. I chose you over myself.

When I was 18 years old, I was fresh off a probably unhealthy attempt to distance myself from you. Jenny Craig had come between us for a bit. And then I went away to college. I was given an unlimited meal plan and permission from my parents to just worry about getting acclimated to college, even if you had to help me do so. I'm not sure if you helped, but you made your presence known. We were free to be you and me, 24/7, for the first time probably ever.

When I was 22 years old, I became the most decorated college graduate in my class. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve throughout my college experience. But you were there as my reward with every accolade, in the moments when reaching those goals felt daunting. You were in the corner of the cafeteria where we studied. You were in the drive-thru at 2am after a long meeting or rehearsal. You were in the campus coffee shop between classes while my real friends and I stressed about exams. And you were there at every celebration during my senior year, from honor society celebration cakes to thesis presentation refreshments to the big graduation brunch hosted by my parents, where no one could get enough of you.

When I was 26 years old, I experienced one of the most harrowing ordeals of my life -- I broke both bones in my left leg. But I didn't just break them... I shattered my tibia and fibula. Want to know why? I tripped over a curb and all of the excess weight I was carrying dropped on my left leg. Crash. I spent three weeks in the hospital and had two major surgeries. I spent two and a half months in a wheelchair because crutches were too dangerous at my weight. Eventually I moved to a walker, and then a cane, but only when both of my feet could start to hold some weight. I underwent six months of physical therapy all to learn how to walk again.

Since I broke my left leg, I was driving again once I was off opioid painkillers, before I even resumed walking. My doctors were shocked that I didn't have high blood pressure or that I wasn't pre-diabetic at that time. I did, however, have sleep apnea that rang alarm bells in the hospital and required me to wear an oxygen tube even during the day. In spite of those facts, all I wanted in the hospital was you. My family and friends dutifully made sure that you came to visit along with them, sometimes at my insistence. Since I couldn't walk or drive for some time, I had to depend on others to bring you to me, even after I was home from the hospital. And my parents tried to put a wedge between us, thinking they were seizing some kind of opportunity. But... once I was driving again, I sought you out with even more desire than I had before. We binged together from August to December of 2015.

When I was 32 years old, you and I were in the midst of one of our on-again, off-again periods. My now-husband and I were dating for a few years, and we both relished spending time with you -- talking about our favorite foods was one of the very first conversations we'd had. Sharing you was (and still is) one of our best ways of connecting with each other. At the beginning of the global pandemic which up-ended the life of every single living person, I leaned on you for support. Everyone was stressed, but Anthony and I were forced to FaceTime and text contact only for about two months -- we both lived with our parents at the time and needed to keep them and our respective grandmothers safe. So, without him, I needed you more than ever. But it was in the months after that period of time that my doctors discovered I now was a member of the High Cholesterol Club. Not high enough to need a statin, but high enough that changing my diet was essential. I listened for a while. I lost 15 pounds. I made a fresh attempt to quit you. And then, in 2021, my grandmother died right after Anthony and I got engaged.

I free-fell through an emotional mixmaster from September through December that consisted of the highest highs and the lowest lows. Wedding plans during the day, excruciating sobs of grief at night. At the beginning I tried to promise myself that I wouldn't use any of it as an excuse to run back to you, but my efforts were for naught. No matter how many times I tried the logic of, "Grandma wouldn't want you to overeat," it didn't help. I hadn't learned about food noise yet, and emotions of grief triggered food noise that was just powerful for me to fight on my own. I cried in the middle of David's Bridal for all to see, on the day I "said yes to the dress," because I'd always imagined my grandmother with me in that moment. You couldn't help me that day. There was a chink in the armor. I wasn't fine.

When I was 34 years old, I was afraid I wouldn't fit in the aforementioned wedding dress. My mother and I showed up for my final fitting at David's Bridal and my heart was in my throat. I absolutely hate the idea of a bride forcing herself to lose weight "for the wedding," but the stress of planning a wedding while dealing with an intense work schedule while figuring out where Anthony and I were going to live while being involved in community activities and theatre and church while STILL missing my grandmother and also feeling the loss of a coworker who passed in 2022 (which meant additional grief AND a bigger workload)... brought out the food noise like never before. It told me that I deserved all of the time that I was spending with you. You helped me keep my public face. Once again, you were my reward for putting on a good show. And my dress fit, with some room to spare. No need to panic, everything would be okay. We didn't have to stop meeting like this.

At 35 years old, everything changed. But before everything changed, I was more obsessed with you than I have ever been. My knees, and my leg that I'd broken in 2015, hurt daily. I woke up with leg cramps ("Charlie horses") that caused me to scream so loudly that I woke my husband up. My cholesterol was back up over 200 and I'd become pre-diabetic.

Not long after our wedding, I'd become a central figure in a local-to- Glen Cove movement to save my friend's restaurant from closure by the city government (more on that here). In addition to living separately from my parents for the first time since 2012, managing our household and paying bills, my obligations to church and work and theatre, I was in the local paper every other week. From August to November, hours of my life were consumed with planning and social media and phone calls and protests and city council meetings. And then, after all of that work, my friend's restaurant wasn't saved. While I was consumed with the movement, my family was blindsided by our second devastating loss in two years -- my uncle passed away in September of 2023 after a serious illness. Again, I promised myself I wouldn't use grief as an excuse to eat, but the promises couldn't fight food noise. I stress-ate my way through the obligations of leading the movement, through the agony of losing the fight, and once again, through grief.

By February 2024, I couldn't stand for more than five to ten minutes at a time. Around that time I stood on an airport security line at JFK for its normal 45 minutes, drenched in sweat and wincing in pain. Weeks later, my dad and I attended an Islanders game. While we were trekking through the UBS Arena parking lot to find our car after the game, my dad caught me trying to hide my lower back pain. Those were some of the first moments during which I knew that something had to change. Two happy occasions, a trip to visit family and an Islanders game, were marked with less than ideal quality of life for me.

And then my parents watched the Oprah special.... and we all learned about food noise and realized that I wasn't hurting myself because I wanted to. I wasn't hurting myself because I "loved to eat." The disease of obesity, and binge eating disorder, were hurting me. There was help available that never received Oprah-level press before. I am privileged enough to have access to that help. I could take my power back. It was going to be okay.

Food, you could no longer help me hide the problems that YOU caused, because of food noise. But because you're actually essential to human survival, we can't go no-contact. Alcohol and I broke up more than nine years ago, and we never had to interact again. But I can't quit you, I have to create a "healthy relationship" with you. And our relationship, up until not so long ago, has been mind-blowingly toxic.

That said, I am always going to love you. My healthy relationship with you can't only involve eating to live -- part of me is always going to live to eat. But, you can no longer be the most important part of my life. You can't be my reward for every single solitary hard-earned victory; I have to start opening up to real-life people who can help me fight when I can't fight on my own (we're working on that). You can help me celebrate accolades, but you can't be the focal point of the celebration anymore. I can be a foodie, but as far as identifying as a food addict, I'm in active recovery. These two facts can be true at the same time.

So, Food, for once and for all, I'm healing my toxic relationship with you. Wegovy is helping me to do that when I couldn't do it on my own. I couldn't ever hate you, because you were there for me in some of my darkest hours, and because a true foodie can't ever hate you. But I can hate the fact that food noise caused me to believe that only you, and you alone, would be able to heal parts of my heart and fill certain voids. Facing those voids without you has felt scary in certain moments. But I know it's what I have to do now. I'm finally ready.

Sincerely,

Gracie