Saturday, May. 08, 2004 | 7:36 PM

This is basically what he said in response to my letter�and I�m writing it from his point of view using his words:

When I first met you I wasn�t physically attracted to you and yes that had to do with your size, because like everyone else, this is the culture in which I grew up and I internalized the same stuff everyone did. But then when I began to know you and love you, your physicality became part of who you are to me, and I learned to love it. And it�s not that I love you in spite of your body, but that I love your body because I love you.

As far as me lionizing myself over having made this breakthrough, I don�t think I�m stroking my own ego, but I am really glad that I made such a positive choice, and I want to share that choice with other people. I want them to know that loving someone the way that I love you is what love is really about, because people are sold a bill of goods about what love is�especially men,. I think the world would be a better place if people loved another human being the way that I love you.

I don�t want you to change for me. If you stay the same weight forever as you are right now it will not affect whether I love you or am attracted to you. And I accept who you are totally. But I have to tell you that I think this weight you carry isn�t �who you are.� Etta James is a big woman naturally. You are not. I have seen what you looked like as a child before you developed a disorder. And I know what the rest of your family looks like as well. This weight is all of your self loathing. It is all of your fears. It is all of your walls. And I accept it�I accept it lovingly. But the weight itself has nothing to do with love. You are hiding underneath it.

Your seesawing between deprivation and indulgence is indicative of you not trusting in your own needs. And that goes for your drinking and your pill popping and not sleeping and everything else you do which doesn�t support you. What if you treated yourself well? What if you took care of yourself the way I want to take care of you? What if you exercised and ate three meals a day and got enough sleep and gave up the pills�not because I want you to but because you love yourself? Maybe you�d have to stop being everything to everyone. Maybe you�d have to start living for yourself. You don�t need to do much here. I love you and I�m worried about you and I want you to be happy.

He�s pretty amazing, huh?

Pretty fucking amazing.