But even in France I eat my chocolate bar stealthily, knowing that while my intention is to savor some now and save some for later, the reality is that the Milka bar will be long gone by the time the train pulls into Perpignan. I keep it in the bag under my legs, thus forcing myself to bend over each time I want to break off a piece, hoping that no one notices how many times I bend over and pop back up again. My fellow riders are mostly engaged on their phones, the young ones with headphones on and the older ones holding the devices to their ears while they chat. One young man is sitting with a book, his girlfriend practically curled up in his lap, both looking content with their pastimes. No one is watching me slowly demolish my Milka. Grateful, I read a few pages of my own book and do my deep abdomen bends to retrieve another piece of Milka, and another, and another. When the bar is gone, I, too, settle more fully into my reading.

When I was 12 years old, my mother took me to the dermatologist. My skin had been breaking out for several years, and it was getting worse. As I remember the visit, the doctor brought me into an examination room where he told me to take off all my clothes and stand, naked, on the table in the middle of the room. I do not remember if my mother accompanied me to this part of the visit. I do remember my pre-teen agony as I dutifully stripped and clambered up on the table. The doctor then made me turn around as he observed my shivering body from all angles. I don’t remember him looking closely at my face, which was, in fact, the only part of my body afflicted with acne. Then he told me to climb down and get dressed. In his office, he made a few notes on a pad, turned to my mother, and said, “No chocolate and no soda until she’s 19.” And that was it. I waited until we were home before I melted into tears. The soda ban meant nothing to me; I didn’t drink it. But chocolate had always been a major food group in my life. The prospect of seven years of deprivation hit hard.

As the oldest and an obedient child, I was determined to do what the doctor said. I imagine he could have made that pronouncement without looking at my burgeoning adolescent body in the round – something that would be unthinkable today. But I believed that if the doctor said that by avoiding chocolate my skin would clear up (and by extension, maybe boys would like me), he had to be right. So I talked with my mother about keeping chocolate treats away from me and hoped that I had the willpower to make it to 19.

I tried. So hard. For a few weeks I did everything in my power to avoid chocolate. I ignored the Oreos that remained in our breadbox. I didn’t get ice cream when my family went out for a treat. But soon enough I was overcome by the cravings. Since my mother was a late riser whose idea of breakfast was Sanka and a cigarette, I had plenty of time in the morning to covertly add some cookies as a side dish to my cereal before leaving for school, as well as plopping a few more into my lunch bag. I knew that by doing this I was going against the wisdom of the doctor, that my skin would continue to break out, and that I couldn’t ever be attractive with zits popping up around my mouth and nose, on my forehead and chin. But at least I could eat chocolate. While my T-zone was a war zone, my mother—who clearly knew what was happening—never mentioned the chocolate ban again.

When I was 19 and still broken out, I traveled to France for a four-month college term abroad.  While traveling was, in many ways, a transformative experience, it did not change the fact that,  back home, my parents had recently separated. Anger and fear about that lay in me like a gurgling volcano, ready to erupt at any moment. I also missed my boyfriend, who sent passionate airmail letters telling me all the sexy things he wanted to do to me when I returned. And I didn’t speak French very well, so living with a French family who spoke no English made for lonely dinnertime conversation. Aware that I’d passed the age when chocolate was forbidden, I took solace in Milka bars. I bought them in packs of three and downed them, ravenously, like a lost animal that hasn’t eaten in days.

I was learning to eat my feelings. to sate my needs for whatever was missing – love, support, tenderness – with the soft, swirly bar that practically melted on my tongue, assuring me things were going to be okay. No one else was paying attention to what I was eating. Chocolate became my emotional crutch.

For decades, I have tried to keep my reliance on chocolate to myself. I generally gorge on chocolate in private, the first signal that there actually is a problem. My husband caught on when, packing for our family’s vacations, I made sure that I had some chocolate for the trip; but he never insisted that I address this compulsion. My weight yo-yoed over many years and four pregnancies. Even when I was dieting, I found ways to include chocolate in my daily regimen. While being a chocoholic in our society is usually considered a charming quirk, complete with cute memes, my chocolate compulsion was actually an addiction.

My lifelong dependence on chocolate makes it a far more dangerous drug as I get older and wrestle with a sugar count that is perennially too high and with being overweight.  I am apparently also insulin resistant, just a step away from Type 2 diabetes. And losing weight, always a challenge, has become harder still in a post-menopausal body, especially one that doesn’t know how to let go of its chocolate obsession.

As I write this confessional, I am in France again, this time with four months of a weight-losing/health-gaining drug infusing my body. These new medications are supposed to create a vacuum where the “food noise” used to reside, thereby enabling the user to live more normally, putting their food fixations to rest.

It has worked for me, a bit. I have lost some weight. I can more easily say no to almost all food. I am filled up very quickly, and literally can’t eat another bite at times. But when I went to the CarreFour to stock up on water and breakfast nibbles for my week here, the Milka three-pack magically leapt into my shopping bag as well. Happily, I have only finished one bar in five days, so the food noise silencer is having some effect. But it still has not completely silenced the siren song of chocolate that calls to me still, reminding me of its power to quell my emotional upheaval as well as to keep me company when I am alone. Chocolate as companion, chocolate as savior. Chocolate as the all-powerful ingredient in the mixed batter that is my life.

Summer People

A novel by L.H. Finigan

    Spanning four decades, two families, and the ever-changing visitors to a New England coastal town, Summer People is a story of intersecting lives, buried secrets, and unexpected moments of grace. Catharine Conor and Tom Osborne meet on Harvard's library steps in the early eighties and fall deeply in love. Tom, struggling with mental health challenges, is expelled after an impulsive act of campus rebellion. Pregnant Catharine follows him to London, where circumstances alter their lives. Eventually settling on the coast of Massachusetts, they purchase an old house and raise a son, Toby. A batch of forgotten letters reveals a poignant connection to the house's previous owner, whose own son died tragically. With compassion and complexity, Summer People portrays love's resilience and the unexpected ways human lives impact each other. L.H. Finigan’s novel “...may remind readers of...Sherwood Anderson’s classic Winesburg, Ohio...and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, ... given its sweeping presentation of several characters in a small town...An ambitious and affecting interweaving of troubled characters’ lives.” - Kirkus Reviews Learn more about the author at lhfinigan.com Available from Amazon, Bookshop, and your local independent bookstore.

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