A Long Time Ago

I had no use for me,
could not imagine your liking me
because surely I knew me best
and if I believed I had no merit
you couldn't help but see it, too.
But that was a long time ago,
at least eleven years.
So what has changed?
Well, a lot. Family members,
added, lost, enjoyed, mourned,
accomplishments accumulated,
noted, enjoyed even if they belied
my incompetence... Retirement,
twice for good measure, but no,
it was mot those changes.
It was reading a book, stories
that could have been mine,
at least in the beginning. But
I wanted what they had
at the end of the tale.
I knew how they found it,
Overeaters Anonymous,
but Christmas was coming,
I'd join later. God had other plans.
A week before Christmas Eve
I told him what he already knew,
that eating the treat I'd just bought
was stupid! And since that day
I've claimed O.A., imperfectly
but earnestly, and now my story
turns around like those in the book!