chapter 5

Ashleigh O'Hara truly believed that you should have a purpose in life, that you should make goals for yourself and strive as hard as you can to reach those goals. Her parents simply thought that the purpose in life was living it to the fullest extent possible, to milk life for every drop of enjoyment you possibly can.

Ashleigh tried as hard as she could to live her life with a purpose. But suddenly, through no fault of her own, a lot of the meaning of life disappeared. She had worked hard in college, got good grades, got a good job as an accountant, only to have it all taken away from her. What was the point? Why try?

It was with state of mind that Ashleigh moved in with her parents. She had spent her whole life trying to live up to somebody else's dreams. It was true. When she looked back on it, she had spent most of her life trying to conform, to fit it, to be like everyone else. And what had it gotten her? In the end, not very much.

For the most part, Ashleigh's parents just left her alone. Oh they were supportive and tried to give Ashleigh as much encouragement as they could. But they were determined that they wouldn't try to pressure her into anything she didn't want to do.

At first Ashleigh resented this. Weren't parents supposed to push and prod and poke their kids til they got it right? Where were HER mom and dad? But being kind of depressed she just hung around the house all day doing not much of anything. But she couldn't help but observe the way her parents lived their lives. She started to realize that it wasn't that they didn't care, it's that they understood that you had to find your own path in life, wherever that lead. She had always pressured herself to do well because that was how she thought she would EARN her parents love. What she didn't understand was that her parents loved her freely and without conditions. If she wanted to be an accountant that was fine with them. If she wanted to be a circus clown, fine too. She came to realize that she didn't have to do ANYTHING to earn her parents' love.

With this realization came relaxation. The frantic job search of her first two weeks at home slowed down to barely a crawl. She didn't get up at the crack of dawn to jog the requisite five miles a day, she slept in later and later. And instead of starting the day with brisk exercise, she started the day with a big breakfast. Suddenly it dawned on her that her mom was a GREAT cook who made delicious food. More to the point, she now realized that it meant a LOT to her mom that people ate and enjoyed the food she cooked. That was when she stopped measuring her mom's meals in terms of calories and concentrated on just how GOOD those meals tasted.

Amazingly, or perhaps NOT so amazingly, the more she enjoyed her mother's cooking , the more of it she ate. By the end of the first month at home she must have gained something like fifteen pounds. She didn't know exactly how much she had gained because her parents didn't own a scale, but the slightly paunchy belly that started to hang over the waistline of her form-fitting shorts told her that she wasn't the tight, trim, slim girl she used to be. And she LOVED it.

It was about that time one morning that she walked into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She certainly wasn't fat, definitely no match for her 300 pound mother. But she had grown an cute, round belly, her boobs had grown a bit and the extra weight plus a full month without wearing a bra had caused her once perky boobs to sag a bit. In short, she was changing, and she was THRILLED!!