• Jodi BlaseNeighbor

  • Burlington, MA

Throughout my childhood, I was certain I was going to be a nurse; so certain that at fourteen-years old, I began working in nursing homes.  I graduated high school and entered the nursing program at WestbrookCollege in Portland Maine, but my time was cut short by a car accident that changed the course of my life.    

This didn’t turn out to be a bad thing.

At Westbrook, I wasn’t exactly the picture of happy.  I was homesick, packing on the pounds and paranoid that, with each turn of DSM IV, I would contract the disease of the day. With the mention of tinnitus, I was sure my ears were ringing.  When they talked about skin rashes, I was itching for days.  And on the day I was introduced to unexplainable medical conditions (think spontaneous combustion), I was sure I had, or was going to have, one of those as well.  With a resume of diseases and a moderate list of certain symptoms, I had to admit that my qualifications weren’t exactly matching a career in nursing. I transferred to the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and to my hot new career – - I was going to be a social worker and save the world! 

In 1995, I was one marriage, two kids, and three years into my save-the-world career.  The problem was the career wasn’t saving me.  I was in burn out mode, as was apparent by the generous weight, approximately twenty pounds generous, that I had packed onto my already pudgy frame.  Referred to as “big boned” for the first half of my life, I was determined the same would not be said for the second half of my life. 

Now, to proclaim a New Year’s resolution every four or so months was commonplace for me; following through with it was another story.  Fourteen years and forty four resolutions later, I knew this was do or die.

I put down the food and picked up a pen.  To curtail my cravings, I drew cartoon sketches that focused on women and weight loss.  This distraction, along with multiple packs of chewing gum per day, helped me to stay preoccupied and out of the food.  The sketches inspired me to self-publish My Big Fat Head, an honest and witty appraisal of my lifelong struggle as a food addict. 

So, I didn’t become a nurse or a social worker.  I became a wife and mother, a person who actually ended up liking exercise, a columnist, a transcriptionist, an admin for a real estate company, an occasional PR for businesses and nonprofits, and last, but certainly not least, a writer.  In my case, the pen proved mightier than the first bite.

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