Here's that story I mentioned, that's been knocking around in my head for weeks now. It's a tale of a life spent trying to make myself into something I never was...
...and that was, thin. I was a chubby youngster, and that fact, IMO, caused my mother great distress because she had no boundaries, and what was so for me she perceived as a failure on her part. And never wanting to look bad or inappropriate to anyone she knew, my body became her project.
If only I could be thin (like my step sister, and like my mother's friends' daughters) -- if only I had straight hair (like my step sister, et al.) -- if only I was more social (like the rest). So early on, in my preteens, she began deriding my body, making fun of me, pointing out my physical shortcomings to her friends AND my friends, and enlisting them all in her effort to make me different, forbiding me to eat this or that, making me feel like an absolute freak compared with everyone else.
When I certainly wasn't. But of course, I didn't know that until much later in life. She called me obese, when I was 16 years old, 5' 6" tall, and weighed 160 pounds. She sent me to a diet doctor who gave me pills to lose weight (uppers), she made me go to Weight Watchers when it first started, 40 some odd years ago, she asked about my weight and grilled me about what I ate all the time, got my step father to pay me for every pound I lost. We'd go out to dinner, I'd reach for a piece of bread, and she would say to the table how I couldn't eat that. And how many family dinners were there where I had to watch everyone else eating dessert while I abstained. Many, many years later, after not speaking to my mother for nine years (yes, 9 years), the first thing she asked me when we did reconnect was "How much do you weigh?" Unbelievable!
So I grew up with all these eating prohibitions, mentally counting calories or carbohydrates, being on one diet after the other year after year, all an effort to keep my weight at or below 125. In my 20s and 30s, I would go on these two or three week juice fasts to maintain my weight. The fasts themselves were a kick after the first couple days, and the "thinness" would last for a few months. Then eventually I'd start eating "bad things" again -- a long binge I would call it (I never purged) -- until I couldn't stand myself any longer and would begin another fast. I did this for close to ten years. One time a chiropractor told me that I had decalcified my bones by fasting.
The dreaded number was 160 -- I always feared that if I ever weighed 160 again I would have to kill myself. I hated myself so much when I gained weight, which eventually I always did. I went up or down 20 - 30 pounds innumerable times in my life. I always felt like everyone could see that I was heavier and that meant that I was a terrible person who had no self control, who couldn't maintain thinness, who had no integrity, etc. For the better part of 45 years my weight totally controlled my affect, how I felt about myself, how I interacted with the world, what I allowed myself to do. Oy! Poor bubie!
The point of all this is that I just don't care anymore. And wow, it only took me 45 years of madness to give it all up. I have a fleshy body, I weigh 160 pounds, I am not obese, I'm still thinner than the average woman in this country, I look like I weigh maybe 15 pounds less than I do. And who gives a shit anyway?
If you're reading this and it resonates, here are a few morals to the story.
- don't waste your life trying to become something you're not
- especially, not for anyone else's sake
- because they'll probably still hate you anyway, their derision wasn't really about your weight to begin with
- never say never
- please yourself, responsibly
- spend your time focusing on the things you do well and the things you really want to do in life
- trust your own intuition
- divorce your family before you turn 55, if need be
- bear in mind that you are a completely unique person, one in six-plus billion
- one size, truly, does not fit all
End of story. Thanks for listening.
Independence Day is a good time to celebrate our personal sense of independence in life, and all the ramifications thereof. And I plan to be doing that this weekend. And hopefully see some fireworks tomorrow night, as well!
