Read Online Obsessed: America's Food Addiction--And My Own by Mika Brzezinski - Free Book Online Page A

THINK???
    I ran out to the mailbox to get the books so I could skim through the chapters on labor and delivery while I stayed on the phone with her .
    “Yep, it’s starting,” she said. “You two should get some sleep and I’ll call you later.”
    SLEEP? ARE YOU KIDDING?
    Tom and I lay on our bed, suddenly and completely sober, fully dressed and ready to go. When the phone rang again, we phoned the doctor and headed for the hospital. Mika’s mom stayed behind to watch her daughter, little Emilie .
    We couldn’t reach Jim, so all that night and the next day it was Mika and me in the shadowy labor room. The nurse came in a few times to check on her and told us to get some rest, but like kids at a sleepover, we kept right on talking .
    There were a few times I had to step up, like when the anesthesiologist asked Mika whether she wanted an epidural. “Did you have one last time?” I asked her. “No,” she said. “But maybe that was a mistake.”
    “You’re on my watch now, and you’re having the drugs,” I told her and ordered the epidural .
    After hours and hours of chatting about everything except how to deliver a baby, Mika decided it was time. I was afraid to tell her the doctor had just gone out for lunch, but luckily the nurse had been delivering babies for years. She told me to “get ready to catch,” and three pushes later there was Carlie, absolutely the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on .
    As Carlie started to cry, Mika asked me to phone her dad, the astonishingly imposing Zbigniew Brzezinski. I blubbered a bit to him, then handed Mika the phone. In the most composed voice, she said, “Dad, you have another granddaughter.”
    Mika showed me a lot about her character during the hours she was in labor, and vice versa. She came to see me as a big sister, the “adult” in our relationship. I recognized her strength. In the years to come, no matter what happened in her work or her personal life, she could count on me to have her back .

    Now, fourteen years later, Mika and I have had a role reversal. It began with that punch-in-the face moment on my boat. The words still echo in my mind. Mika said, “Diane, you’re not just overweight, you’re fat. You’re obese.” I couldn’t believe the word she had used to describe me: obese. Who says that to a friend? Who says that to anyone? I was angry and defensive .
    My first thoughts were , Oh, Mika, come on. I know I’m huge. My metabolism is shot. I try to diet but nothing works anymore. How could you know what it’s like? You and your tiny body in size 2 dresses. Please! You have been picture-perfect ever since I have known you, and when something is just a little off, like your imaginary double chin, you run to a plastic surgeon to fix it. You don’t get it. You naturally skinny women thinkwomen like me are a bunch of slobs sitting around eating bonbons all day. That is such garbage.
    But then Mika told me something that changed everything .
    “Naturally skinny? No way,” she shot back at me. “I do get it, I get it a lot more than you think. I’m not kidding, Diane—food takes up way too much of my time and my psychic space. Here’s my truth: I am an addict. I think about food all day long. I am always wondering if I can sneak away and grab some fast food or something sweet. But I don’t. I don’t because my career depends on winning my fight to stay rail-thin. But I know it’s unhealthy, and I hate every second of it!”
    As she launched into the tale of her fight with food, my anger dissolved. I couldn’t believe it, but she began to tell a story that was just like mine; a story of rarely feeling in control around food. Of going to parties and eyeing the buffet first, then trying to hurry through a conversation with her mouth watering. Of wondering what people would say, or think, if they saw her go back for more .
    You naturally skinny women think women like me are a bunch of slobs sitting around eating bonbons all day. That