This is not to be confused with the book and film of the same name. But it describes perfectly the reason a person (me) might weigh more than the actuarial tables recommend. We find the lightness of being unbearable.

For me, it began at birth. One ounce short of eight pounds, I was not exactly svelte on arrival. But nor was I one of those “24-pound baby born to 10-year-old mother in the remote Andes mountains” entries in the Guinness Book of World Records. (My mother was 30.)

As a child, I was of normal weight. Not too fat (we all knew who those kids were) and not too skinny (ditto, those kids).

I never thought about weight until I had to put it on my first driver’s license. And my weight never rose above actuarial levels until after I married and found myself introduced to a kitchen.

Now I grew up in a circa WWI-era house and although my bedroom was off the kitchen, for me it was mostly a passageway to someplace else. My father did most of the cooking and he DID NOT WANT HELP.  Except maybe afterwards. Mom and I did the dishes.  So I had never learned to cook. And I was too busy going around with my friends to be much interested in eating.

That all changed when I got married. Newly domesticated and learning that my husband wasn’t all that keen on what my dad had always cooked but did seem to enjoy what his mother had always cooked, I borrowed recipes from my mother-in-law and commenced my new-found career in our apartment’s little galley kitchen. And promptly gained 12 pounds.

Those came off quickly when the zippers on my skirts started complaining when I tried to zip them. We were both poor college students. We had no money for more clothes. The clothes I brought with me to the marriage HAD to fit. I soon got bored with cooking anyway. And fortunately, my husband more or less only eats to live and doesn’t much care what I put in front of him (although I do always get a surprised smile and special compliments if it’s “like Mother used to make.”)

Our first house had a nice kitchen with a double-doored pantry. That pantry was my downfall.  I used to stand in front of it and decide what to cook for dinner… what to eat for a snack…  All that standing around in front of the pantry showed up as 20 pounds on the scale.

But the pounds came off easily when we moved to our second house in Ohio, a 70s four-level split I really loved for the way the sunlight came through the sliding glass door of the den and lit up the harvest gold and avocado green decor. That house was so obviously designed by a man: there was a man cave in the basement; the furnishings were all designed for minimal upkeep; and the kitchen was an afterthought. That kitchen was my saving grace. It had the necessities: a fridge, sink, and stove. But hardly any counter space, hardly any cupboard space, and no pantry at all.

A few years later, we moved to Cary. The builder’s wife must’ve had a hand in the design of that house because the kitchen workspace was an efficient “U” and the counter space was lavish enough to lay out a dress pattern without disturbing dinner preparations. But alas, once again: there was that double-doored pantry. That pantry, and my discovery one day of the Hostess cupcake outlet store in Raleigh put those 20 pounds back on the scale.

They stayed there until we moved here to Oxford, when they found that several more friends had joined them on the scale. And they seem to be staying too. You see, this house has one of those modern ‘open plans’ — you know the kind of house — where you don’t actually have an actual separate kitchen, but it’s all one big happy room, with the couch and tv within friendly handshake distance of the refrigerator — and the pantry — only it’s no longer a double-doored pantry with shelves one or two cans deep. Now we have a walk-in pantry. It’s nicely placed at the center of the house so in case of a tornado, we can take shelter in there. Depending upon the duration of the storm, we may come out several pounds heavier.

That is, I may. My husband always stays the same, no matter what. No matter that he scarfs Pepperidge Farm cookies while he’s working at the computer; no matter that he enjoys a bowl of  Breyer’s chocolate chip ice cream large enough to feed a family of four while watching Wheel of Fortune (He should go on that show — he’s really good!)  The numbers on the scale always read the same for him.

But not for me. This kitchen/couch potato combo has done me in.  And that walk-in pantry? Either designed by one of those people hoarding food for the millennium or by somebody like me who finds the lightness of being unbearable.