"You Can Never Be Too Rich, Too Blond...

...or too thin."


your feedback has blown me away.

i had no idea.

i honestly thought these posts were going to get a lot of negative feedback, in no small part because i thought you'd find them boring.

i mean, these thoughts, this chronology, is SO ingrained that it's just matter-of-fact for me now. i don't think of it as surprising. i just assumed everyone knew.

um.

so i hope not inappropriately, i am inspired to share more -- in response to some of the points you've made.

***

like, for starters, i wasn't an unhappy kid. i wasn't even unpopular. i was active and social and engaged, i was just hiding a whole lotta shame at the same time. i don't want to give the impression that i spent my youth sulking or hiding from the world. i didn't -- i just hid my body and my related issues, the way people with eating disorders do.

i could be genuinely happy at parties (i even tended to throw them) in middle school, for example, just as long as i ignored that nagging voice of doubt. eventually, i just made a deal with my 11-year-old self that if i was having a good time somewhere, i wasn't allowed to look in a mirror.

***

maybe it resonates with you or maybe it seems odd that my best friend and i have never discussed our respective body issues (until, you know, 18 years later in front of our nearest and dearest invisible internet friends). but the truth is, i NEVER talked about them with anyone. ever. not really. not until i was older. i was just so ashamed of how i looked and how i felt that the only way i could cope was to ignore it as much as possible.

that said, i wanted to respond in particular to one of the anecdotes Em remembered:

...we were both wading in the pool and these two older guys ...came up and started talking to you. They were cute! They were fun! And you TALKED to them, like it was no big deal...they asked if you wanted to join them on the ride again...

it's amazing. i do OF COURSE remember, because of how it made me feel.

i am pretty sure his name was scott and he was 14. i was 11. he looked like a man. he was tall and had broad shoulders. and he was nice and he liked me and i wanted to like that he liked me and i wanted to be okay with it and that's what i projected.

in actuality, i felt gross. dirty, and disgusting.

i didn't exactly know why then, but i do now. this teenager was sexually attracted to me, and something inside me knew it and revolted. i didn't want to be thought of sexually! ew ew ew! i wanted to be thought of as cute, sure. fun, sure. pretty would have been fine. but there was something about our exchange -- maybe the way he looked at me? -- just something that i knew made me uncomfortable and i made me want to hide under a tent for the rest of my life. i wished i could look pretty like Em looked, or go play with my little sisters and do anything that wouldn't involve me having breasts. but what was there to do?

he was cute. and my mom was impressed that i'd attracted him.

***

i have been relatively (har, har) vague about my family's impact on my body issues, for a few reasons. mostly because it's hard to get across the fact that they loved me unconditionally, but also wanted me to be thin.

those things aren't mutually exclusive, and i didn't want to sound like i thought they were.

THAT said...

(uh, hi dad)

...my dad grew up (in stepford) as a popular jock. he dated beautiful girls, and then beautiful women. he was a frat boy and a swingin' single in nyc. and while we have never discussed it EVER, i suspect he's either laughed at (or told) a few fat girl jokes in his day.

i will not relate the WDW fat-ass photo contest story here. suffice it to say there WAS one, and i thought it funny at the time, too. fuck, i still do. but stuff like that doesn't leave one's consciousness, you know?

and given where he came from, how could he not? his father -- one of the most brilliant and thusly terrifying men on the planet -- used to pull me aside and explain to me, very plainly, that i was an amazing person/woman/grand-daughter, but what are we going to do about your weight?

yeah.

but and then.

oh, man.

and then there's my mom.

you notice i don't talk about her much? i don't because it's hard. it's been over three years now since she died, but maybe not surprisingly, i feel okay introducing her in a post about body issues. still, i'll just give the facts. that's easier. and you gotta start somewhere...

• my mom struggled with weight and body issues her entire life, though after the age of about 14 she was ALWAYS thin. because she worked her ass off to be thin.

• my mom didn't eat carbs (except on sundays) for about 20 years. i'm not kidding.

• she also excercised regularly. she jogged 5 miles, 4 days a week for several years. she came to change her workout routine eventually, but even in her 50s she could kick my butt at tae bo.

• when i was just starting to put on weight, my mom would give me little "tricks" for not eating bad stuff, like telling me i should just think of candy bars as being made up of tiny insects.

• when i was around 11 or 12, she bought a "gag" toy that she installed on the inside of the refridgerator -- for her and me. it said (and i will NEVER forget it, because i heard it a million times):

"what!? you eating again?
no wonder you're getting fat!
you can stop, just close the door.
don't be a fatty fatty two-by-four,
can't get through the kitchen door.
remember, with thin you win!"

• my mom would tell me on occassion, "you know, i always said i'd be anorexic if i had more willpower." she meant it to be funny.
  

and really, i could go on and on. my mom placed tremendous value on her having a hot body -- for her and for me -- even if she only let me know through quiet, indirect means.

so much so that later, when she weighed 86 pounds at almost 5'6" -- because she had cancer even though the doctors hadn't been able to tell us that yet -- and i was helping her shower, she was absolutely mortified.

not because of her frail health.

but because, when she looked down at her emaciated body, she was disgusted. she said, "my god, my body is so ugly."

and she paused and she looked at me, and with as much despondence as i'd ever seen in her, she asked, "do you still love me?"

***

anyway, the quote that leads this entry is one of my mom's favorites. and so has it been mine.

at the same time, i cannot forget that it was my mom who saw the humor in the phrase, "she just walks around with it."

truth be told, i'm pretty sure she'd be proud that i do.