My husband and I ran the same routes.
Ate at the same stops. Sat the same hours.
He never gained a pound.
I gained over 130 pounds in 5 years on the road.
No matter how many times he looked at me and said "you're beautiful" — no matter how many times my children wrapped their arms around me and said "Mom, as long as I can wrap my arms around you, you will never be too big" —
I smiled. I said "I love you more."
And then I went somewhere inside myself that nobody could reach.
I eventually had bariatric surgery. And what a disaster that started. I had to figure out how to maintain on the road in a world not built for how I had to eat. Nobody had a plan for any of it — the weight gain, the depression, the recovery.
So I built one. Because I didn't want one more woman on the road to spend 30 days in a cab quietly becoming someone she doesn't recognize. Because I didn't want one more mother to smile and say "I love you more" while a voice in her head called her children liars.