Dear Wendy,

I so much enjoy reading your journal!! I check in on it almost everyday just to check out if you have written anything new. Reading your teenage diaries really made me go back to '86 as well, feeling pretty much the same way as you did back then, although you seem to have had more luck with boys.... It's really strange, we are almost exactly the same age (I will be 29 on March 29), I am 5' 6", and we really have a lot in common, especially regarding the weight issue. I know this is starting to sound a bit pathetic, but we really do. I puked all through high school and my first two years at university, and nobody ever noticed anything. I am really amazed at this, I must be a natural actress! I met my boyfriend in '92, and this helped a little, at least with some of my self esteem, but I was still feeling depressed and sort of a bluff (I still do sometimes). What helped me was actually exercise, I exercised a lot and managed to keep away from puking at least for a day or two in the beginning. After a while it got easier, although I stilled binged a lot, but since I exercised so much it really didn't show that much. I also read a lot of literature on bulimia, causes, treatments etc. but it took a very long time to get "healthy" again. If I am put under extreme stress, I still puke so I won't say I am cured, but I am a lot better.

My mother committed suicide on a beautiful Monday afternoon in May '96, and this was an extreme shock for me (as it would have been for anyone of course!). I think she was depressed after having retired, even if she herself wrote that she had Alzheimer's. The guilt for not having seen this will haunt me forever, but I cannot stop living my life because of this. It may sound really hard and cold, but the truth is that my life continues anyway, either I choose to do something with it or not... In some kind of weird way, I think this gave me the depression that swept away all other depressions, really giving me something I had all the right in the world to be depressed about. Before, I was depressed for no reason at all, but could still get really drunk, start crying and really be a pain in the ass for all of my friends (who of course got fewer and fewer). When I had hit rock bottom in this megadepression (still working full-time of course, I am always a good girl on the surface, strong with no need for nervous breakdowns or anything) I slowly started rising, and I must say that today I don't feel depressed at all (just like a bluff sometimes, especially in meetings with middle-aged men with me as only woman..). In some way, all this pain made me realise what is really important in life, and that when you die, you're really dead, i.e. really disappeared, not there, nothing at all, no trace of you at all. You don't feel the presence of the deceased or any crap like that, it is all emptiness, like you never existed. The only thing left is the memory of you in people's minds, and that is the only thing you can affect when you're alive. It doesn't matter how rich or poor you were, nor how fat or thin you were, the only thing that matters is the impression you made on people, how they want to remember you, and that is by your personality, not your appearance.

What I do feel is that I have thrown away so many years on such trivialities, not taking the chances of getting to know all the interesting people I have met, because I was convinced they laughed at me, or felt I was a burden or something similar (really SILLY crap), when I am quite sure they were no worse than anyone else. I am trying to make up for this now, even if it is much more difficult now when I am working and not studying. I have studied Business & Economics at universities in both England (Brighton) and Spain (Sevilla), and I really wish I could go back and do it all over again. I know I would do it much better this time. I feel the same way about my studies here in Gothenburg (Sweden), I should have got to know more people. I know there is no use going back and regretting things so I don't do it much. Instead I try to feel grateful for having this wonderful life at my disposal, trying to get to know new people, being healthy, with two legs to walk on and living in a peaceful country with a loving boyfriend (yes, the same one from '92) whom I will marry in New York in August. (I didn't want a big wedding without my mother, so it will only be the two of us in the Swedish Church in NYC). Also, I generally try to take one day at a time. I started with this right after my mother's death, thinking that "I will go to work this day, I don't know about tomorrow, maybe I won't go, but today, I will go to work and try to be there for 8 hours, deserving my (extremely low!) salary". However, my present job is a lot stressier than me previous ones, so I am getting back a little in the habit of worrying about tomorrow. But I try not to, doing my best and concentrating on the things at hand (sounds like Oprah Winfrey or someone....I try to live in the present and not wait to do things until I weigh this or that, I could be dead tomorrow basically, and then I won't do much).

I really don't know what I wanted to say to you, I didn't really have a plan but thought that I for once should try to tell you some of the things that I sometimes think when I read your marvellous journal!!! I do wish I had your talent to write, and write in such a humourous way (since English isn't my mother tongue, I find it hard to be really funny, it is much easier in Swedish...). What I sometimes feel is that you should really try to take care of yourself better, not mistreating your beautiful body in such a harsh way, and also putting such terribly high demands on yourself. Try to exercise once or twice a week to start with, or at least don't feel everything is ruined just because you didn't go four times. Once is better, and double of (I think?) than none. Starting to feel really scoutish here, telling you how to live your life etc., but believe me, you have so much talent, intelligence and energy so please don't sacrifice them on the altar of dieting/bulimia/low self esteem!!! Please write a book, I promise I would be the first in Sweden to buy it!!! I love your journals so please keep up with them!!!

I really hope you don't feel I am trying to be your mother or anything, it is really not my intention. I just want you to see what is important in life, and do the best of it. If I was religious I would tell you to thank God for giving you all these talents you have, but since I am not, I won't.

OK, hope you haven't fallen asleep yet.... TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!!!!!!

I enclose a picture of me, so that you know how one of your fans look like (a change to Hank's pictures.....).

Lots of love,

Cecilia Back to Letters Home

Email: thefattraveler@hotmail.com