"Hard to Kidnap"

in my last post, I talked mostly about my own journey with weight.  notice I didn't say 'struggle' or 'battle', or 'gain' or 'loss'.  that's because I try and be intentional with language, and I choose to believe the energy of our breath pushing words out of our mouths creates intention, and we need to be mindful of that (just so with typing them, because it's almost - but not quite - the same energy).  for instance, if you say you're 'fighting' a thing (like cancer), that implies conflict, and that there will be a winner, and a loser.  if you say you're 'dancing' with it, or 'moving through it', that implies a partnership that can be beneficial, or a place you can get to where you've finished with it.  you see?  so I mention this because I'm not a person whose weight has see-sawed due to dieting, or because I've made multiple attempts to change the shape of my body, as I really haven't, other than that time I wanted to fit in to my prom dress (see last week's post), and one flirtation with a late night infomercial product because my relationship was falling apart, and I thought weight loss might be the key to keeping 'my man' from leaving me (in retrospect, that's not the kind of man I want anyway, so...yeah).

as someone who used to be slender, and is now fat, I can see the different ways the world treats the two ends of that spectrum, and that's the original reason I wanted to talk (post) about my experience with my own body, and its increasing size.  as a skinny teen, it was easy to get people (read:  boys and men) to give me, and do, any number of things for me because they thought I was pretty, and they probably thought they could get me to bestow sexual favors on them.  I mean, that's generally the reason the guy at the pizza shop will slip a pretty young girl a free slice or a soda, or the guy driving the ice cream or chip truck will toss you a free cone or a bag of something.  how about all the alcohol I drank for free, or the pot and hash I smoked at parties?  all the drive-in movies I got taken to?  it was because those dudes thought they could have their way with me if they got me drunk or high (many of them did), or they thought I'd have sex with them in the back of the Pinto while James Bond fought for his life hanging off the side of a hot-air balloon (that was a regretful evening). sometimes, when you're conventionally attractive - or in my case, 'exotic' enough to pass - the men of the world seem to think you owe them something, and that something is a piece of you.  but a fat chick?  forget it.

at first, I think my tendency towards weight gain was almost a reaction to that - a way to literally insulate myself from the unwanted advances of men, and the contempt of other women.  my mother was not a slender lady when I was a teen, and she would berate me for being so covetously slim ("how dare  you be a size 3, I was never a size 3, I was born a size 9").  my high school best friend and I once bought the same bathing suit, and when we showed up to work looking like twins, we teased each other as to who looked better in it - of course, I joked that I did, because my boobs were bigger than hers, to which she replied "your boobs are all fat!"  ouch.  and she shouted it.  at the pool.  at the summer camp we worked at, in front of all the kids and other counselors.  later that day, one of the male counselors got one of my 6-year-old campers to ask me to catch him as he jumped into the pool, and to pull my strapless bikini top down when I did.  live and learn, ladies...never wear a strapless bikini top when swimming with sharks.  I was tired of being picked up in the school hallways by football players, and used as a human ball for a game of catch.  as a small, pretty girl, no one listened to me, or took me seriously.  I was expected to stand there and look...well, pretty, for other people's consumption.  I wanted to have some weight in the world.  I wanted to be substantial.

after I did start putting on some weight, my dad and I were out shopping for shoes in the mall (he loved shoes, boots especially), and I tried on a pair of boots that fit my feet, but were too slim for my calves. they bunched down at my ankles, ruining the look, so we didn't buy them.  he berated me for putting on weight, because he said if I wasn't careful, my body would "get all out of proportion".  never mind the boot-maker assuming someone with my size feet should have legs that skinny, but I haven't been able to wear high boots since then.  I simply don't bother to try them on, because I know they won't be made to fit "my proportions", and won't go over my fat calves (it's cool, I'm happy with my low-rider Frye Harness boots, which are probably the last pair of boots I'll ever buy, because they'll last me for the rest of my life).  my mom had similarly unkind things to say - if she didn't hate me enough for being skinny, she sure as hell hated me for getting fat.  one could say that my parents were just concerned for my health, and wanted me to maintain what is considered to be a healthy weight for a person my height, as they were both in shape, once - my dad having grown up on a farm - but through a rich American diet, lack of exercise, and smoking habits, they both filled out quite a bit.  as a parent myself, I caution my son against making the same mistakes I do with diet and exercise, but if I'm not walking my talk (literally), what good will it do him?

a friend that I met in my late 20's once gave me an earful about how society equated 'fat' with 'ugly', and while I don't remember what either I, or the other woman sitting with us, said to her that made her feel like she had to reeducate us concerning that particular idiom, but I took it to heart because she was (and is) right.  from boyfriends telling me I was putting on weight, to being told by guys that they didn't date fat girls, to not having been asked on a date - or having had sex - in more than a decade, where would I come up with the impression that I was unattractive?  from being the girl who could smile coyly and ask for a free whatever and get it, to becoming the woman men don't make eye contact with because I might misconstrue it as interest, and even to the guys who DO want to make eye contact (and more) because they have a fetish to which I fit the description...why would I start to feel like the size of my body may be the reason I will spend the rest of my life alone?  I wish I knew that the last time I had sex was going to be the last time, because I would have enjoyed it more, paid more attention, or picked a better partner - not that I have a lot options, but that guy and I actually had feelings for each other once, back before I was so fat.  in retrospect, it feels like the mercy fuck it probably was. 

my weight gain, like many others, has to do with the natural aging process - moving less, stress, lack of sleep, giving birth, slowing metabolism, lost muscle mass, hormonal changes, and the aches and pains that put limitations on the amounts and kinds of physical activity I can comfortably engage with.  there are also the poor eating habits that result from poverty - the cheap pasta that keeps me going at a dollar a box when cauliflower is six dollars a head.  I have chronic back issues, and the 'helpful people' who like to tell me that losing weight will alleviate that issue didn't see me carrying 50 lbs. bags of carrots/turnips/onions working on that one farm, or bent over harvesting veggies on that other farm, or standing for literally tens of thousands of hours on the concrete floors of every retail establishment I've ever worked in, the trucks I unloaded, the equipment I hauled back and forth to every gig, the boxes I packed and lifted for every move of not just mine but my friends and family, the cords of wood I've chopped and stacked, etc., etc., etc..  they didn't see the metal-framed window that fell on my foot and crushed the joint of my big toe on my right foot that made walking long distances (and wearing high-heeled shoes) a thing of the past.  all they see is a fat chick, which obviously indicates weak abdominal muscles, a lack of core strength, and a lack of self-control with food.  what they don't see is the strong woman who shouldered more burdens than she was physically able to bear, until she finally broke herself.  do these 'helpful people' tell skinny folks with back issues to lose weight, I wonder?

so, in my almost 50 years, I've gone from a deliciously chubby baby, to a pudgy-shamed kid, to a skinny-shamed and sexually predated teen, to a fat-shamed adult, ending up as the lonely and unloved hermit-whale of a middle-aged woman I am today.  we live in a time when there are YouTube channels dedicated to telling us what disgusting excuses for people we are (women and men) for being fat.  there are countless articles on countless sites happy to help steer us in the right direction should we choose to lose.  we have our primary care providers suggesting that every single issue we have is related to our 'morbid obesity', we have liposuction, body-sculpting, 1001 fad diets, boot camps, fat camps, weight-loss surgery, an ever-growing list of fat-centric television shows, and the list goes on.  you know what we don't have?  people of all shapes and sizes loving themselves.  I love myself...I'm not sure why, given all the negative feedback I get from society, including having to pick out the chairs in the library that I fit into...but maybe it's because I know I'm smart, and funny, and have great hair, even though I'm not considered to be attractive anymore.  but not everyone is able to get there by themselves, and we need to be more supportive of each other, no matter what we look like.  this stands true in Every area of our lives - not just our weight

sure, I over-eat.  I eat when I'm sad, which happens every now and again.  I eat when I'm lonely, which happens a lot.  I tend not to eat all day long, and then eat everything in the house for dinner.  when I'm mourning a death, I tend to go for butter, for some reason...not on it's own, but I'll eat overly-buttered toast & pasta.  I have an unhealthy attachment to ice cream, so I tend not to buy it - when I did the detox last summer, and I examined my earliest memories around food, one of the oldest memories I have is going to Carvel with my grandfather.  it brings to mind the time in my life when everything was perfect and about me, and has to do with feeling secure, loved, protected, cherished and being the center of my kind and generous grandfather's attention, so of course I turn to ice cream when I need to feel loved.  there is no one else in my life giving me those feelings anymore, and knowing that there never will be again leaves me with very few other ways to access that kind of wholeness and calm.  none of these habits are healthy, but all of them can be changed with due diligence.  it's just more work that I hardly have the energy for, let alone the money to afford the healthier fare.  the truth is, I don't even try most of the time.  I mean, what's the point?

lol - I'm comparing myself to Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies!

shouldn't I just be fabulous and live a full life anyway?  shouldn't I just buy myself some pretty plus-size outfits and rock that shit, rather than go around in stretchy leggings and cheap sweats?  there are some seriously gorgeous fat chicks out there, I'm just not the kind of woman to put that much effort into looking good!  the styled hair, the make-up, the fancy clothes, the accessories...it's more work than I care to do.  but for low-maintenance ladies like me, the laid-back look tends to leave me looking frumpy.  so what's the answer?  lose weight?  buy better clothes?  not care?  put in the effort?  I've got a doctor's appointment today, so let's just see what they say to me before I end this rather long post ~

the doctor said hypothyroid and diabetes.  she also said Pap and Mammogram.  she also said losing weight and adding exercise wouldn't help anything (but keeping the weight off might), and I should take some prescription pills.  I said no, if I can quit smoking, I can lose weight and exercise, too.  I mean, I lost 15 pounds last summer without really trying - I modified my diet in order to try and detect a food sensitivity, the weight loss was just a bonus side-effect of the detox - and I've kept it off so far without any change in lifestyle.  in this case, though, I think it's worth it to make a real commitment to that lifestyle change, because I may want to be around to see my kid make good on all the hard work he's been doing in school, and get himself all set up as a functioning adult in the world before I kick off.  maybe I'll make sure to document the journey, in case anyone is interested.