It’s June, 2017. As the sun beats down on a lake in Western Massachusetts, my boyfriend’s sitting outside with his parents by the water. I’m not. I’m inside, covered in a film of sweat from hill sprints, weighing out porridge oats on a scale. Eating them, dry, with egg whites and three strips of chicken. That’s when I got the call telling me my grandpa was dead.
Gone. Two months before his 100th birthday.
Two weeks later, my family gathered to celebrate the life of this gentle World War II veteran. I think his funeral was beautiful. But I can’t tell you for sure because I didn’t go. Not because I didn’t love him. I wasn’t there because I had to be 53kg by July to make sure my months of dieting paid
