The Guilt ™

A moment to get you up to speed…
Last Wednesday, I got one of those calls you never want to receive. My mother and brother were having dinner when she suddenly lost the ability to communicate, slumped to the side, and couldn’t move. EMS were called and she was transported to the hospital where they discovered, through imaging, that she suffered an acute stroke after having several TIAs and mild strokes that likely happened with no signs or symptoms. She spent five days in the hospital before she was transferred to a subacute care facility where she is currently undergoing rehabilitation with physical, occupational and speech therapists to get stronger. But that’s where everything starts to get hedgy.

Mom has been declining for a while now. It has been a series of small changes – an unsteady gait, forgetting what day it is, loss of fine motor skills, spilling food… Then the changes started to grow in intensity. We started a notebook with everyone’s name in it – family and friends – who is still alive and who died and when, because she couldn’t remember. Then she couldn’t button her nightgowns by herself. Or wash herself. I had to do it for her– taking soiled washcloths away before she forgot we already washed her face and started to do it again.

This once tenacious, fastidious, organized powerhouse of a woman who took care of everyone around her – cleaning her mother-in-law’s house, making sure her father’s kitchen was stocked with food that wasn’t expired 10 years ago, doing hair and make up for my friends at Notre Dame for theater productions when I was overseas for a full year, taking care of her great aunts when they got too old to drive—had changed before our eyes. She started falling and not being able to pick herself back up. She couldn’t sleep in the bed because she was too weak to be able to get into It without help, then would slide out  of it onto the floor. The point where my brother and I were unable to take care of her came fast and mercilessly—seemingly out of nowhere. Although that was just the shock making me forget the pathway that led up to this point. It didn’t come out of nowhere – I just hoped it would never come to this.

And now it has.
And the guilt is permeating every corner of my mind into which it can possibly seep.

Yesterday, I spent the day in the hospital with Mom as they prepped her to go to rehab. The closer we got to go time, the more upset and anxious and angry she got. “Why can’t I just go home with you?” “Why are you sending me somewhere else?” “I can just go back to my room at the house, there’s no need for me to go to rehab.” And then the tearful “Why are you doing this to me?” The transport team took her and Mike tagged in at the rehab where he was waiting with her clothes, toiletries, and things we had prepped for her to have there. And as the day went on, the sundowning began. “Where am I? What am I doing here? You’re not leaving me here” she said, as her roommate, who I have not-so-lovingly dubbed “Poopy Patricia” decided to have a bowel movement in her bed that wafted into the hallway, attracting a nurse, who did everything she could not to lose her mind, because this lady is neither incontinent nor non-ambulatory. This is apparently a behavioral issue that is ongoing. Lucky Mom. When the nurse came to tell Mike he could leave, he said goodbye and that he would see her the next day, but Mom was distraught. She was not staying. As he walked down the hallway towards the front door, her turned around to find her waddling, with no cane or walker, after him. At this point, she had a full-melt down, resulting in a nurse confining her to a chair as my poor brother told her he was just going out to the car to get something so he could leave for the night.

How do you process something like this?
Leaving your much-loved, wonderful mother who changed your diapers
Who pushed you on the swings,
Who kissed your booboos,
Who took to you your first New Kids on the Block concert,
Who let your friends stay overnight and act like lunatics until all hours of the morning,
Who held your hand when your first boyfriend broke up with you,
Who spoke for you when you had no voice,
Who stood up for you when you felt utterly alone,
Who was proud of you even when you felt like a useless loser.
Leaving in her a place she doesn’t know.
Frightened.
Sad.
Surrounded by strangers that she doesn’t understand can give her the care she needs better than you can.

And you feel like a terrible person because you couldn’t provide that care.
You wanted to.
You wanted to be a person who wasn’t going to send her mother to a “facility”—even though you never thought less of others who needed to do that.
You just thought it wouldn’t be your family’s story.
That you’d pay her back for all of the things she has so selflessly done and sacrificed for you.
It feels like a betrayal.
No matter how many people say it’s not.
Or that you can’t beat yourself up.
Or that you have to think of what’s best for her now that she can’t do that for herself.
You have to take it one step at a time, one day at a time.

All those things are true. And appreciated.
I have amazing people on my side, for whom I am intensely grateful.
But the first stage of this process I’m going through is GUILT.
It will eventually change into something else, but for now, my heart is broken.
And it’ll just have to be for a bit.
Sometimes things have to break to make room for what’s coming next.

Late Night Transmission

January 16, 2026
3:25am
Late Night Transmission

My mother is gone.
She’s not dead. We’re still lucky enough to have her.
Her body is here, in the room with me.
She is breathing. She is talking,
Have mercy, she is talking.
Endlessly talking.
But she’s not here. Alzheimer’s is a waging a battle we can’t see. One she’s fighting by herself even though she is surrounded with love and support.
It’s taking over and we can’t do a thing about it.
We sit quietly and listen.
There are ashtrays in the ceiling. And they’re dropping burning cigarettes onto the floor, the TV, the curtain between her room and the hallway.
She just knows everything is on fire, but no one is doing anything.
She keeps talking about the little girl in the green dress who keeps coming in to stare at her. (It’s just the CNA checking to make sure she’s okay)
About the grippy socks that are strangling her feet.
(They’re not)
She wants me to get the scissors and cut them off of her.
(I took them off. They’re not there. She has her leg straight up in the air to show me the strangling socks. I say, “look – no socks. There are your feet.” She frowns. “Fine. Go ahead and lie to me. I know what I know.”)
This happens over and over and over again.
“It’s normal, the sundowning” the night nurse says.
“It’s anything but,” I think, but I smile and nod.

She keeps calling for my brother.
Who is at home.
Hopefully in bed, sleeping soundly, for the first time in weeks – months.
He has spent that time spiraling into a torrent of anxiety while being the primary care giver.
Doing the best he can in an impossible situation.
Changing diapers.
Cleaning up after episodes of incontinence.
Cleaning up spilled food.
Endless laundry.
Putting barrier cream and powder on sores and rashes.
Picking her up off the floor at the cost of his spine and sanity.

Then she calls for my dad.
Who has been dead since 2013, shattering our world as he laid on the dining room floor, twenty-two days after he retired.
They would have been married 58 years this month.
She doesn’t remember he’s gone.
I sit next to her in the chair and hold her hand and look at her.
I explain what happened.
“Did he die today?” she asks, shaken to her core.
But all information is new information to her.
She doesn’t know where she is.
She thinks she wore her nightgown to work.
Her clarity ebbs and flows. Shifts and shakes.
She remembers she used to go with her father when he would fix people’s TV sets in the 1950s.
And that he used to whistle when we came down the steps.
“You remember that, Carolyn, when he would whistle at us when we came down for church?”
I don’t disagree. It just upsets her when I try to correct her.
So I don’t.
“He was a character,’ I say. Because he was.

She falls asleep for a little while.
I should try to sleep, too, but I can’t.
There’s a tension headache poking around the edges of the messy bun that’s falling down.
I know she’ll be awake in an hour.
The same pattern repeated.
If the woman down the hall who is screaming, weeping, and begging to be allowed to leave doesn’t wake her – that is—

How the hell does she not hear that?

She’s having a conversation with someone in her sleep, now.
Something about a wheel and needing a key.
Spinning around to see what you get.
There’s pointing involved.
A giggle.
Then the telltale snore.
She’s out again.

My mother was a formidable woman.
Sharp as a tack.
Smart as a whip.
Curious.
Interested.
Engaged.
A voracious reader.
A proponent of justice.
The best kind of enthusiastic helper.
She did everyone’s hair and sewed everyone’s costumes.
She opened her house to our friends.
She made endless pancakes and bacon and cinnamon rolls for people who stayed over.
She was game to play beer pong with the college kids who were always invading her house, in her basement, in her pool.
She made the ultimate home and was so proud when people she didn’t give birth to called her “Mama Riley”- which happened a lot.
She was no nonsense.
She pulled no punches.
And, amazingly, had a beautiful knack of realizing that she wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea,
Yet gave precisely zero fucks.
God, she was a real one.
Brilliant.
I hope some day I have the courage to be more like her.

Never in a million years would I have thought it would come to this.
That this would happen to her.
To us.
Then again, no one ever does see it coming.
And if you did, how would you prepare?
There’s no way to ready yourself for this—
This conscious loss.
This gut wrenching feeling of helplessness.

But I’m not helpless.

It’s my job to be her historian now.
To remember who she was and remind her of those things, even if she can’t grasp them.
It’s going to hurt.
It already does.
So much that it feels like the wind is knocked out of me.
But that’s just the love.
And that’s not gone.

Whose America is This?

Hello. My Name is Erin, and July 4th, or “Independence Day,” was my favorite holiday when I was growing up in a quiet, blue-collar neighborhood in Northeastern Baltimore county. It was the middle of Summer vacation – which meant pool parties and sleepovers, softball games and cook outs, fireworks and carnivals and games of Kick the Can, which spanned through several streets and lasted for hours before the streetlights came on and it was time to go into the house before I was eaten alive by mosquitos.

But it’s not my favorite holiday. Not anymore. And if you know me even a little bit, you know I have to write about it. So, here goes…

I was born in 1979. (Yes, kids… the 1900s) This makes me right on the cusp between Generation X and Millennial. The unplanned daughter of Baby Boomers and granddaughter to members of the Greatest Generation. I went to the neighborhood Catholic school and church. I drank water straight from garden hoses and rubbed dirt on skinned knees and stubbed toes. And every morning I pledged my allegiance to the flag of a country I believed was founded on principles of liberty and justice. But the truth is far more complicated than I was led to believe.

The American propaganda machine is a cool customer. Subtle and smart – always two steps ahead. My history books taught me about the goodness of the “Founding Fathers” who railed against a tyrant king while spinning tales of fellowship between the “Pilgrims” who befriended the “Indians.” An Indigenous people who took pity on their ill-prepared “conquerors” when they almost died of disease and starvation in their first years on the North American land they stole. “Manifest Destiny” became a catch-phrase for the crusading prowess and power of American ingenuity as we pretended to found a country that existed long before we stuck flags in its soil. And those same books merely brushed the surface of the enslavement of more than ten million people, shaking performative heads at a necessary evil utilized to bring “forth upon this continent, a new nation.”

This country is young in comparison to many of our global neighbors. Two-hundred and fifty years is downright youthful when you truly consider history. And the first hundred of those years were built on a foundation of racism, corruption, violence, and greed—but under the guise of words like progress, innovation, exploration, development, and freedom. The American government advertised its shores as a place where immigrants could come to do better for themselves and their families. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” But that has always come with a price. A dangled carrot of opportunity laced with more poverty, broken promises, discrimination, and fear.

There’s much we don’t learn as the “victors” of our own story. We’re taught that the American revolution was born of people’s frustration over taxation without representation. While there’s truth to that, we don’t learn nearly enough about the part where the rich, white landowners decided to ignore the treaties made after the French and Indian War that limited westward expansion to increase their wealth and enhance a new American aristocracy. We’re encouraged to revere Abraham Lincoln as the liberator of those in bondage, but his primary intention was preservation of the Union—emancipation was a drastic measure to enrage the Confederacy and turn the tide of a lethal and astronomically expensive war. And later, the American role in the Second World War is lauded as a turning point against global fascism and evil, transforming the nation into a global superpower. But lest we forget that power came from a strategic willingness to drop catastrophic weapons that annihilated more than a quarter of a million people.

We have gone to wars around the globe under the pretense of freedom being threatened. We claim to want to bring democracy and free elections to places where it doesn’t exist – full on the fat of the belief that what we have is somehow wiser, kinder, better. But all you have to do is turn the lens onto America, today, to know that it’s false dice. The two-party system – which the Founding White Dudes™ NEVER intended this country to be—is failing us. Our rich become richer and our poor become poorer. The middle class is disappearing under the weight of inflation and discord. Rabid political affiliations are giving birth to a new crop of firebrands who believe they’re crusading in the images of Patrick Henry and John C. Calhoun, only they’re laboring from behind keyboards in the forms of GIFs and memes, endlessly trolling one another and stoking the hate fires that burn brighter as they consume the pursuit of happiness, we thought we’d have achieved by now.

When I pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, it was because I believed in the idea that all people are truly created equal – not just the rich ones or the smart ones or the white ones or the male ones. Because I believed this place was intrinsically good and the sacrifices of the people who have given their lives for this country weren’t in vain. Because my Irish and Polish and Welsh and Slovakian ancestors came here to pave a path to a better life for those who came after them. Because this is a place where you can be queer or brown or fat or disabled or *makes a wildly sweeping gesture* whatever the fuck you are and that’s acceptable. It’s valuable. It makes you a strand in the fabric of this nation. That it makes you part of the great melting pot.

Yesterday, our elected officials passed a bill that will take critical healthcare away from millions of Americans, that takes food out of the mouths of needy children, that increases our debt ceiling by trillions of dollars, that makes us a lot more nationalistic, significantly more violent, ends aid to places where millions will die, and pits us against one another based on whether we’re celebrating this atrocity or staring in horror at what we’ve become.

No, the Fourth of July is no longer my favorite holiday.
I believe in a different dream of America. And it’s going to require its own revolution.

The Easy Way Out? Au Contraire…

Since making my decision to have bariatric surgery, I’ve joined a lot of groups centered around information and support to gather ideas and set myself up for success. Some have been absolute hits and others total misses. WLS specific groups tend to be the “sweet spot” in terms of what I’m looking for, but I also made sure to peruse other, more “traditional” groups. I was hoping to expand my horizons and see what knowledge I could gain from people taking the non-WLS route. It has been… interesting.

First and foremost, let me address the elephant in the room. The United States of America in 2025 is a weird, angry, place. In the spirit of honesty, it has never been as great as our propagandists would like the world to believe. Cruelty, morality policing, and snap judgement have been the status quo for my entire 46 years on the planet, but the past 20 years have been a study in social decline, at least in my opinion. I often say the birth of social media was the death knell of social grace (ironic, I know, considering this blog is social media in, and of, itself) and I stand by that statement. Keyboard warriors walk among us on a daily basis, comfortable behind their aliases and more than willing to step in and tell us how wrong we are with a well-placed meme or a statement beginning with, “Actually…” In my experience, however, one of the worst places to exist in these United States is in a body that is not “the ideal” in the eyes of the Patriarchal Media Machine (what I shall now dub, the PMM).

I have lived in the PMM since 1981, when my height and weight as a three-year old started to exceed the limits of normality as prescribed by that lovely invention of the 1830s, the Body Mass Index. From that moment forward, it was all diets, all monitoring, and all unhealthy relationships with food, all the time. Everyone from my pediatrician to my grandmother to Weight Watchers had advice on how to make my undesirable, just-out-of-toddlerhood body acceptable, even though that body functioned normally. I played, I slept, I ate, I talked, I ran, I jumped, I laughed like any other kid, but *gasp,* I was chubby. The worst thing a human woman could be. Synonymous with ugly. Entirely intolerable. And why? Because somewhere along the way, after society ceased to be matriarchal and threw on the harnesses of the patriarchy, Christianity, and lawfulness, it was decided that the ideal female shape wasn’t healthy, it was slender, yet curvaceous, not too tall, but not too short, long-haired, ample-breasted, and you know… white. And voila, the Myth of Desirable Womanhood was born. Since that time, mainstream media has been pedaling diets, shapewear, exercise routines, skin care and make up routines, and advice on how to be appealing to a romantic partner on magazine racks, on television, and internet ads at a staggering rate. So much so, the average American woman starts worrying about perceptions of her body at the tender age of eleven.

Which leads me to the actual point of this blog.

In my quest to be a well-rounded, well-informed candidate for bariatric surgery, I did a lot of research and prep, which I indicated above. One startling discovery I made, which ultimately led to me becoming very discerning about groups I joined, is the overwhelming need to shame those seeking a surgical or medication-based solution to their health issues. Body shaming and policing are very real things that happen in our world, especially when it comes to women. I cannot tell you how many times I have been subjected to criticism of my body from both people I knew in every day life and perfect strangers. I’ll never forget the little, old lady I helped in a Home Depot parking lot with a forty-pound bag of mulch who thanked me by saying “That was very kind, and you’re welcome for me helping you get some exercise, looks like you need it.” That aside, the traditional weight loss groups you can find online take the proverbial cake when it comes to shaming and policing often hidden under the guises of helpfulness or concern.

A little over a year ago, I joined an online group I won’t name here because, quite honestly, I don’t think criticism of their practices would do anything other than fuel their robust hate fire. It was led by a group of moderators who claimed their mission was to create a safe space for people whose goal was the improvement of health through commitment to weight loss and fitness. Sounds great, right? The sharing of ideas, recipes, and work out routines to work towards a common objective with people who can empathize is a blessing. Sadly, that’s not what this was. It became apparent less than a week into my membership in the group that those seeking surgical remediation or GLP 1 use for their weight problems were targets and the proselytizing in comments, posts, and private messages was  immediate. Weight loss surgery was taboo. The easy way out. Cheating. Not a long-term solution. Those of us seeking that solution were weak and needed to be educated about our folly. Which sounded a lot like this:

“Hard-work in the gym is the only way!”

“You just have to cut all the carbs out of your diet and you’ll see how fast you lose weight!”

“Calorie counting and pescatarianism is key.”

“Drink two gallons of water a day and you won’t even miss food!”

“Walk. Just walk for at least two hours a day and you’ll lose a dress size in a month!”

“You shouldn’t be taking GLP 1s! You’re stealing medicine from people who really need it.”

When these suggestions didn’t work, we moved on to this:

“Go ahead, have gastric bypass. All your hair will fall out and you’ll need dentures by sixty.”

“Sure,  you’ll lose a lot of weight fast, but you’ll look like a melted candle. Slow and steady– the right way–, is the best way!”

“You’re just going to gain everything back as soon as you get tired of following the rules.”

“I personally know three people who died from complications of bariatric surgery.”

“That’s a terrible decision. You’ll never keep the weight off if you cheat and surgically alter your guts.”

“Lets hope you don’t need a whole string of surgeries afterwards. That happens, you know.”

Safe space, my ass.

But sadly, this isn’t the only place where bariatric surgery/weight loss/GLP 1 use discrimination takes place. It also exists in places where you’d think it would be least likely to lurk. And that’s in the realm of body positivity and acceptance groups. Now, I know there are some folks out there saying… “Hang on a second…doesn’t that, you know, defeat the purpose?” Not so many moons ago, I’d have said you were correct. BUT. And this is a very large but. Times have changed. For myself, I am an advocate that all bodies are acceptable, normal, worthy, and beautiful with no exceptions. From the very thin to the super fat and everything in between and beyond, I subscribe to the principle that people fundamentally deserve happiness and human rights, however, there are those who would argue that generalized way of thinking weakens support of specific groups. Furthermore, introducing the idea of a “radical” solution like bariatric surgery demeans fat people and underlines the stigma that fatness = unhealthiness. Which is precisely what I ran into on more than one body pos centered forum.

Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate where these folks come from on a foundational level. And they make many excellent points about the way fat people are treated in America. I’ve spent many a sentence on my experiences as fat kid, teenager, and young adult. I understand the very real feelings of despair that come from being stereotyped based on your physical attributes. But fat-hate and fat-shame are not my reasons for making the decision to have weight loss surgery. Even if they were, and again, they were not, that’s absolutely no one’s business but mine. Yet–I found myself in conversations where I was being scolded or called a fatphobe for my decision to put my overall health and happiness, first. Sadly, these aren’t the kind of people who respond well when you say things like “I don’t hate my fatness, I’m miserable because I can no longer do the things I want to do.” Or “believe it or not, I’ve actually learned to love the way I look, but I can’t walk from the parking lot into Camden Yards anymore because I’m too heavy.” Or even, “my elderly mother needs care, and I can barely make it up her front steps without being in terrible pain, let alone give her a shower and carry her laundry up two steep flights of stairs.” Somehow, in their estimations, my desire to eliminate body weight in order to live my life the way I’d like is somehow ill-intentioned, phobic, and, well, unkind. For a second, it felt like a lose/lose scenario. Until a pretty profound reminder came my way in the form if an Instagram post, of all things.

It was a video of the tide rolling in on a beach somewhere. Crystal clear water. Crispy foam. Calming. Beautiful. You could smell the salt and sun tan lotion. And above it were eleven words, in a bold white script.

“The only opinion that should matter to you is your own.”

There it was.

I’ve said it to myself a hundred thousand times. Through hard moments, both personal and professional. I’m the person living in this body. Not FitMomofFour1977 or FatPhobiaWarrior123 (made-up names, by the way.) Just me. And I WANT to be able to walk into the baseball game from the parking lot. I want to board an airplane without knowing the people around me are praying I’m not next to them on our transatlantic flight. I want to fit on rides at an amusement park. I want to be able to swim in the ocean without fear that a wave would knock me down and I couldn’t get back up! I want to do my mother’s laundry and carry it up two flights of stairs without feeling like I’m about to pass from this mortal realm. And for the love of God, I’d be really excited to sit on patio furniture without having to do the physics involved in calculating my likelihood of breaking it. Do I agree that it would be a much friendlier and generally more awesome world if I could do the physical size related things I just mentioned in my current body? YES! YES I DO. I WANT that for people. And I think we should really work on that. No buts. The world should work on it.

Until we do find a solution, which I am committed to regardless of the size of my body, I’m going to do my very best to live in a way that creates joy for myself and the people I choose to walk with in this life. And you cannot CHEAT in the pursuit of that because the basis of joy is truth. Read that again.

There’s no easy way out, friends. We’re all in this together and treating people’s journeys with a little more compassion and a LOT more “mind ya business” is a very good start.

Love you.

A New Hope

Well, howdy, pals!

Just a short disclaimer… I’ll be talking about some surgical stuff and my bariatric journey. If that’s not for you, no harm, no foul, but this post may not be for you!

It has been a hot second, I know. Lots has happened since my last entry and I’ve held back on writing about it simply because it has taken some time to process, check I’m still whole (physically AND mentally), and get over the post-surgical tiredness hump. But I made it! I did it! It has been twenty-two days since I’ve eaten solid food, and while most people’s initial reaction to that information is something like “ugh,” “oof,” “omg,” or even, “wow,” I assure you, it’s not as bad as it seems. My Roux-en-Y gastric bypass happened on Tuesday, April 1st and went off without a single hitch. In fact, it was kind of amazing, but that’s merely what occurs when your surgical team is top notch!*

*A shout-out to Dr. You, the OR team, and the PACU nursing staff who took care of me on that day. When I tell you my experience was a rockstar treatment, that’s no exaggeration! I was cared for, considered, checked on, and encouraged from the moment I walked into the surgical pavilion until the moment I got wheeled out on Wednesday morning. I knew I was in the right place when I danced my ass into the OR and was immediately told by the team they were a pirate crew on Tuesdays. I fit right in with the vibe, was asleep before I knew it, woke up with moderate pain around 9:30pm, got a nice narc nap, and then was up and walking laps of the PACU by 2am. I cannot say enough good stuff about that group of people and will continue to sing their praises. Healthcare workers have a tough job, and to see it done with joy is a pretty heart-filling experience.

I’ve taken the days since my surgery one at a time. It is literally a full-time job to function as a human after your organs have been surgically altered so they work the way they should. My new stomach is roughly the size of a chicken’s egg and my food now bypasses the part of my intestines that seemingly never operated normally. I can take in about four ounces of food at a time. And yes, I do realize that seems outrageously tiny, but it needs to be in order to put my body into the state of deficit it requires to shed my excess weight and give my comorbid health conditions the old heave-ho. This also means I am sipping water and eating small meals the whole day- although never at the same time, because there’s just not enough room for all of that. I also take six different supplements each day that I will need to take for the rest of my life to ensure I’m getting the vitamins and minerals required. It’s a lot, but I’m finding it easier as the days become weeks.

In a very good chat with my bariatric psychologist, she likened what I’ve gone through to a patient who has had to learn to do something from scratch, much in the way physical or speech therapy helps people regain those skills. My body has been out of touch with itself for decades and I’ve given myself the opportunity to begin again, which is hopeful, but also daunting. In the past year, and most especially the last month , I can finally say I have learned to tell the difference between real, honest hunger and head hunger/food noise. The first four days of the liquid diet were hell. I actually cried real tears over the following things: Cap’n Crunch, Oriole Park at Camden Yards hot dogs, Twizzlers, Sunkist Orange soda, land a Crunchwrap Supreme. There was a point where I actually considered ordering Door Dash, chewing the food, and spitting it out. And that, folks? That’s food noise. My very own form of addiction at its foundation. I have come to realize that those foods aren’t some evil villains. And plenty of people can eat them normally and in moderation. But for me? Food was an obsession. A singular thing I looked forward to, used to self-soothe, to reward, to celebrate. It was my first priority, my main relationship. I don’t want that to be true ever again.

As a young person growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, life was HARD. In the era where plus-sized representation was Minnie Driver in Circle of Friends (dress size – 14) and Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary (dress size – 10/12) I was off the charts of what was considered “acceptably chubby”. And the shame and sorrow I felt were carried into my young adulthood where I found myself lying about my eating habits, about my feelings, my desirability to romantic partners, and, in turn, making myself as small and undetectable as I possibly could within reason. All that did was make me miserable, which led to binging and starving, hiding food, hiding feelings, hiding who I really was because of the fear of being told, again and again, that I was too fat, too tall, too wide, too much. My once robust self-esteem got whittled into a shadow of its former self and subsequently, so did my joy. By the time I hurt my back in the mid-2000s,  it was a downward spiral that would lead to over one hundred pounds of weight gain, a compressed lumbar spine, a destroyed sciatic nerve, and the loss of countless things I enjoyed – acting, sports, travelling, walking on surfaces like sand and grass, etc. Before I knew it, I was forty-five, walking with a cane, and didn’t know who I was when I looked in the mirror – which honestly had much less to do with vanity than one might think. Bear with me, here…

I have always been FAT. Since early childhood, when kids in my class would grow an inch and gain three pounds, I’d grow two inches and gain eight pounds. I was always the slowest runner, winded before other kids, not as flexible. Here’s another confession for you – I have never, not once, in my entire life, between able to cross my legs at the knee. By the time it was a thing I even thought about, my thighs were too big. But I refused to let it stop me because, candidly, no one really understood why it was happening. I ate the same way other kids did. I played soccer and softball and danced and ran track and played a mean drum set and walked up and down the same staircases of the same schools as everyone else my age. The weight just stuck. And for a long time – and I mean a VERY long time – I believed it was something shameful. A short coming that was my own fault. A punishment for something I must’ve done. That I would always be fat, plain, ugly Erin Riley, and I deserved it. I deserved that no one would ever want to be my boyfriend or that I’d never play a romantic lead in a play because, well, just LOOK at me.

Today. In 2025. I look back at that young woman and I want to hug her. I want to sit her down and tell her she’s more beautiful than she realizes. That one day, she’ll find clothes that fit her and learn to wear make-up on her own terms. That she WILL play romantic leads. That she is worthy and deserved to feel so much more confident than she was allowed in the oppressive, small-minded world where she grew into an adult. Somewhere around my 33rd birthday – believe it or not – I figured it out. It was the first time someone told me I was beautiful and I not only trusted them to tell me the truth, I trusted myself to accept it. Something clicked. Something integral and powerful changed in me and I began to own myself regardless of what the world thought of my outer shell. I made decisions based on what I wanted, rather than what I thought would make other people tolerate my existence best. And while that was more than ten years ago, it’s what has forged the path to this moment. You see, the decision to have surgery has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to be perceived as traditionally beautiful or socially acceptable. It has everything to do with realizing I want to live the second half of my life on my own terms.

I have spent way too much time shoved into a box painstakingly crafted by the patriarchy, societal pressures, outdated ideals, and my own inability to push the feelings of self-loathing away. Forty-six years of my life have been filled with anxiety, sadness, pain, fear, and a burning blanket of self-doubt I wrapped around myself until it almost ended me.

I chose to have surgery so I can give myself a chance to live a happier, more present, more intentional life. One free of shame and full of feral, unchecked happiness.

That is the one and only goal.

My Heart Will Go On

On our previous episode of The Life of Riley, I had a minor setback. My pre operative EKG showed an abnormality that really had me worried my RnY Gastric Bypass, scheduled for this coming Tuesday would, once again, be postponed by circumstances beyond my control. I went to a brand-new cardiologist last Thursday (scary!) who looked at my EKG and said, “Okay! Let’s get an echocardiogram” (scarier!) After the echo he said, “You know what? Lets be as safe as we can be about this and do a nuclear stress test” (scariest!) I left that office on Monday, post-test, absolutely convinced I was screwed and would need to wait another six months for surgery….

NOT SO, FRIENDS!

My heart is absolutely, without a doubt, strong and ready to carry me through this next step!

To say I’m elated is putting it mildly.

Bring on the April Fools Day bariatric surgery, y’all! The only joke will be on my self-doubt, co-morbid health conditions, and broken ass body.

Get ready. Your girl’s about to get it together.

Take care of your hearts, now, loved ones!

Groove is in the Heart

For anyone who has ever been on a journey towards a healthier body, we know setbacks, obstacles, and hiccups will always, despite how we wish them away, be a part of the process. My pathway towards surgical intervention, at this point, is now in it’s THIRTEENTH year. (Quick summary – I began the steps towards RnY Gastric Bypass in 2012. Then my dad dropped dead of a heart attack in 2013. I got really depressed and gave up. Seven years later, after having let unresolved PTSD and co-morbidities get the best of me, I restarted. Now, after what seems like a stop, start, stop, start rollercoaster of issues, I’m at the point where surgery is scheduled.) In January, I got the amazing news that April 1st, 2025, would be forever recognized in my head canon as GB Day (gastric bypass.)  It really seemed like everything was on the up and up. And honestly? It still might be.

But.

Yes, there’s a goddamned but.

Yesterday, I went to primary care doctor to take care of all of the preoperative visit stuff – labs, physical, medication recommendations, surgical outcomes discussion, and a routine EKG. Everything was going along swimmingly. Until my doc looked at the print of out my EKG and literally went “Uh oh.”

Y’all.

She said, “Uh Oh.” UH-FUCKING-OH. While looking at a print out of what my heart is doing.

Number One – see the part above where my dad dies of a widow maker heart attack in 2013.

Number Two – I am a big, old, medical scaredy cat. The kind of person who has to have her blood pressure taken at the end of the visit because when I get there the cuff reads something insane like 180/110 (which is an ANXIETY LIE.)

YOU DON’T SAY UH OH!

What she saw on my EKG might be nothing. It might be something. And given the history of heart disease running rampant through the paternal side of my family, it’s best I get it checked out before I lay on a table and let my very talented surgeon cut me open, bypass my old stomach with a new tool he’ll build, and change my life for the better. So, it’s off to the cardiologist I go on Thursday with all crossable appendages intersected hoping this isn’t yet another setback in the long, long line. And if it is? Then it is. I take a deep breath, blow it out, and deal with the next set of steps on the journey. But I’d really, dearly love for this to be nothing…

This surgical intervention is a big step for me, and not one I’ve come to lightly. I’ve spent my entire life, from early childhood to now, being in a body on a path to destruction. It has limited me in the things I’ve wanted to do. It has silenced me when I was too immature and self-loathing to speak up on my own behalf. Though this may be hard for some to understand, there is a very large and significant part of me that will mourn the loss of this body. I was not kind to her. I said and thought terrible things about her. I starved her as much as I gorged her. I pushed her well beyond her physical means and injured her trying to look a way that was acceptable. And now? Now that I’ve put in the time and reflection therapy requires to help me achieve honest self-analysis, I’m going to miss her. I’ll always regret not loving her the way she deserved. As I’m about to breathe and take the leap into unchartered territory, I can only dedicate this new sojourn to her. As I move on to a place where I make the second half of my life count in ways the first half tried, I refuse to call it a failure, but a valiant attempt. It’s all a part of the journey with the final destination being happiness in a life well-lived.

So I breathe.

Leap.

Live.

Be mindful of your hearts, loved ones.

I promise I will be, too.

Allow Myself to Introduce…

Since I’ve decided to pop a re-do on this whole blogging thing, I think it’s only fair to go back to the beginning and roll out an introductory post—or for those of you who have been playing along at home, a re-introductory post. Forgive me, I’m about to show my age here…

Ah jinkies… who knew in less than 30 years Mike Myers’ career would evolve from the now obsolete Man of Mystery, Austin Powers, into the newly minted Man of Zero-Rizz on SNL, Elon Peelon (IYKYK). But I digress.

Hello. My Name is Erin. And I’m a word-aholic.

A Baltimore born-and-bred member of Generation X (a thing I desperately try to deny these days), who is boringly and predictably White™ with no remarkable pedigree whatsoever, I spent my childhood developing my mind, my sense of humor, and my creativity. Because, let’s face it, a fat girl-child in the late 1900s didn’t stand a chance otherwise. Couple that with being the offspring of an alcoholic (apologies to my dad’s family who might be reading this, but it’s true, he had a substance abuse problem) and an enabler (apologies to mom’s family, but no lies detected here, either) and what you get is an anxious, traumatized, people-pleasing, middle-aged woman with chronic tummy problems, an impressive resume, a killer smile! So, you know, FUN!

But it’s not all bad news bears and weird, self-deprecation!

Far from!

It’s taken forty-six years, but I’m more certain today than I’ve ever been that I’m precisely where I’m meant to be. I wake up most mornings with the fundamental understanding that this day, and every other I’m lucky enough to get from here on out is, to borrow a phrase, “…new…with no mistakes in it yet.” What a glorious gift, no?

A few fun factoids about me:

Up until 2011, I held a high school record in the State of Maryland in the women’s weight lifting category of “leg press” maxing out 1300lbs at 5 reps.

I am a kitchen witch and routinely make food with curative properties for sick friends.

I had never lived away from home before 1999 when I packed two suitcases, boarded a British Airways flight, and moved to the UK.

I played drums from the age of nine through college.

I’m a self-professed know-it-all and own that about myself.

I was diagnosed with Dyscalculia as an adult – a learning disability that affects my able to manipulate numbers effectively in math problems, card games, and reading music. So no, Sister Catherine Stephen, you dumb jerk, I wasn’t lazy in the sixth grade.

Instrumental music routinely makes me cry, makes the hairs on my arms stand on end, and associates itself with colors in my mind’s eye as I listen.

I am a doctoral candidate in American History. I cannot walk past a plaque without reading it. And I will argue with you, until the ends of the Earth, that we can—and should—discuss holding our forefathers accountable for their mistakes on the basis of progress and evolving moral compass.

I’m of the opinion that all people should be in some form of therapy. We’re not meant to figure it all out on our own.

I cannot watch TV shows or movies about haunted places. Especially the ones where they spend the night with the infrared goggles and freak themselves out over every little noise. I will have surefire nightmares.

I directed the American premiere of a musical about the six wives of Henry the VIII—WELL before SIX was a thing.

Nothing makes me happier than a July night and Orioles baseball.

I am deathly afraid of doctors, needles, surgical procedures, and am often convinced I’m dying of *insert disease of choice here,* yet I’m having elective bariatric surgery in less than a month in the effort to save my own life and finish stronger than I started. Because I’m determined to make the second half of my life count.

Autumn in New England is superior to Autumn in any other place.

Nothing infuriates me more than Shakespeare’s existence deniers and conspiracy theorists.

I’m never more relaxed than when I’m near the ocean.

Orange Starbursts are the best Starbursts. I am prepared to die on this hill.

Déjà vu is real.

Jonathan Bailey is magnificent being, put on this plane to remind us that beauty has many forms, but begins in our hearts.

I believe, very sincerely, that our lives were mapped in the stars, way before we got here.

To conclude, for I am old and bed is calling my name, I leave you with my favorite quote and reminder to look for the balance we all crave:

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Be well, friends. Take care of your hearts.

What Even Is This…

Well hello, there.

Chances are, you’re new here. If you’re not, you’re probably wondering what happened to the content that used to be here. The truth is—this blog, my blog– had no idea what it was (or even wanted to be) for a lot of years. At times it was a weight-loss journal, at others a theater blog. Occasionally, in the before times, which I will now refer to as BWEAF (Before We Elected A Fool) it was a vehicle for political rants and a catch-all for my feelings and the musings my brain could no longer keep locked up. It garnered a modest following, a handful of subscribers who either found my voice amusing or related to my journey on some level. About a year ago, I stopped updating it, favoring a certain book of visages as my preferred platform for my thoughts. Alas. The time for that being my outlet has now run its course. So, here I am, and here I’ll stay.

When I began Life of Riley back in 2017, it was with the intention of making writing more of a routine activity in my life. Eight years later, writing is a thing I do each and every day, although not in the blogging format! These days, I have more plays, stories, and poems than I know what to do with roaming around the peaks and valleys of my mind. Yet, that hasn’t seemed to quell the very Victorian parts of my brain that remind me incessantly of my need, nay, desire to journal. Which brings me to the crux of this conundrum, dear readers.

This place shall henceforth be, with neither fanfare nor frills, my very own little diary, where I shall pen my feelings and truths, trials, and triumphs, and all the things in between.

It shall be for myself (and perhaps a little for you, since there’s no lock and key on this space, but mostly for me.)

Also, there’ll be cussin.’ Because I deem it so.

But there will also be love.