Yesterday when the shrink (who got his BA the SAME DAMN YEAR AS ME) was doing my pre-op consultation he asked me how long I'd been overweight, and I glibly replied "My entire life! Since the day I was born a 9 pound, 9 ounce baby!" And that answer was just so absurd because hello, overweight since birth? What kind of crazy idea is that? So what if I weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces? I was also 23 inches long and 3 weeks overdue, but that's not what I talk about, I just talk about how I was a GIGANTIC FAT BABY.
The thing is, I cannot remember a time when I did not think I was fat. My earliest memories of elementary school involve me chasing some boys, intent on punching their daylights out because they had called me a fattie. I had dimpled knees, meaty thighs, pudgy little fingers. I was the class chubster, keeping my rounded belly well past the kindergarten years unlike my classmates who slimmed down and sprouted up as we dashed through the playgrounds. I turned into a semi-bully and a complete know-it-all, responding to the taunts with occasional punches and making sure that I was always the first one to wave my hand in the air with the right answer. Little did I know that being a know-it-all smart fat kid was pretty much a million times worse than being a not smart fat kid in the eyes of my classmates.
And somewhere along he way, I stopped believing my lovely, pudgy grandmother's declaration that it was just baby fat, that I would shoot up like a sprout and become lovely and slender (she believed this would happen despite the numerous butter-and-jelly sandwiches she would make for me). Instead, I started believing the kids at school, the ones who called me fatass and lard butt. And once I believed it, fully and truly believed that I was a fat kid and there was nothing I could do about it something clicked and my subconscious decided that hey, I might as well eat the whole world.
So I did. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. I would share pizza with my friends at school, I would come home and eat stacks of cinnamon toast with pitchers of Kool-Aid. I joined a soccer team but only for one practice; fat girls weren't supposed to get sweaty and run like skinny girls. Fat girls were supposed to be bookish and hate the outdoors, so I eschewed fresh air in favor of piles of books read while curled up on the couch. Oh sure, I rode horses competitively for a couple years, but that wasn't really exercise, that was just me living out a girlhood dream.
And so it went, through elementary and middle school, right into high school. I was the really smart, really funny fat girl, the one who had friends in all of the social groups because I wasn't a threat to any of them. I ate gigantic cinnamon rolls during my breaks, I drank oodles of Pepsi, and I didn't care about things like fruits and vegetables because hey, I was the fat girl so I got to eat whatever I wanted to with no thought about diets. And after high school came college.
Mm, college. Binge drinking, binge eating, binge sleeping. I would occasionally drag myself into the gym on campus on a regular basis just long enough to drop a few pounds. And then I would get lazy again, head back to the cafeteria for a giant baguette with 5 pats of butter and a 32 ounce Pepsi for lunch. But I was healthy! I rode my bike (for 10 minutes at a time)! I walked (across campus a few times a day)! I was pretty and I had people to make out with and guys grabbed my ass at parties and I had friends and an awesome job at the bookstore and I even had some other fat friends. I was the fat girl, so it didn't matter that I was steadily putting on 10-15 pounds a year, it was expected of me.
Except I didn't even realize that being the fat girl had become such a big part of me. I was so unaware of it that I was a little shocked every time I saw a picture of myself. Who was this giant woman? I was only chubby, so that couldn't be me! And there was a little voice in my head that kept telling me it's just baby fat, it'll go away eventually. Except...wait, it was supposed to go away a long time before I got to college, wasn't it?
Eventually (really, pretty damn recently) I realized that the big assed woman in those pictures really was me. And so now I'm finally accepting that I am the fat girl, the fat chick, the fat woman, the big hot piece of buttery goodness. These days I finally realize that being fat doesn't mean that I can't work out or that I can't be giddy over a pile of fresh veggies and fruits from the farmer's market. It doesn't mean that I can't turn down a dessert or that I have to wear sweatshirts embroidered with sparkly cats. It means I am who I am, and I can be active and healthy and dance and lift weights and be in love and have a great job and be awesome.
How might my life have been different if I hadn't believed them, those schoolyard hellions with their taunts about the size of my thighs and the largeness of my butt? Would I have run with more abandon? Would I have found joy in playing soccer, in running around and getting sweaty and exercising? Maybe I would have discovered my love for fresh, cold watermelon rather than my obsession with hot, buttered toast. And maybe my grandmother's prediction would have come true and I would have grown up and stretched out my baby fat and become a lovely, slender swan instead of staying a fat, fluffy duck. Maybe I would have been prom queen, or one of those impossibly bitchy cheerleaders. Or maybe I would have been exactly the same, just skinnier, which is exactly what I'll be after the surgery. Maybe I wouldn't be needing bariatric surgery now if I hadn't believed them back then.
Regardless, I hope that the little girls in my life never have to go through this, the daughters of my friends, my honorary nieces. I hope I am able to tell them not to believe the mean kids at school, that they don't have to become what they are called. And I hope that I am able to tell them (and convince them) that even if they do become part of the fat girl brigade, life can still be pretty damn cool. And I hope it doesn't take them 30 years to figure it out like it did me.
The thing is, I cannot remember a time when I did not think I was fat. My earliest memories of elementary school involve me chasing some boys, intent on punching their daylights out because they had called me a fattie. I had dimpled knees, meaty thighs, pudgy little fingers. I was the class chubster, keeping my rounded belly well past the kindergarten years unlike my classmates who slimmed down and sprouted up as we dashed through the playgrounds. I turned into a semi-bully and a complete know-it-all, responding to the taunts with occasional punches and making sure that I was always the first one to wave my hand in the air with the right answer. Little did I know that being a know-it-all smart fat kid was pretty much a million times worse than being a not smart fat kid in the eyes of my classmates.
And somewhere along he way, I stopped believing my lovely, pudgy grandmother's declaration that it was just baby fat, that I would shoot up like a sprout and become lovely and slender (she believed this would happen despite the numerous butter-and-jelly sandwiches she would make for me). Instead, I started believing the kids at school, the ones who called me fatass and lard butt. And once I believed it, fully and truly believed that I was a fat kid and there was nothing I could do about it something clicked and my subconscious decided that hey, I might as well eat the whole world.
So I did. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. I would share pizza with my friends at school, I would come home and eat stacks of cinnamon toast with pitchers of Kool-Aid. I joined a soccer team but only for one practice; fat girls weren't supposed to get sweaty and run like skinny girls. Fat girls were supposed to be bookish and hate the outdoors, so I eschewed fresh air in favor of piles of books read while curled up on the couch. Oh sure, I rode horses competitively for a couple years, but that wasn't really exercise, that was just me living out a girlhood dream.
And so it went, through elementary and middle school, right into high school. I was the really smart, really funny fat girl, the one who had friends in all of the social groups because I wasn't a threat to any of them. I ate gigantic cinnamon rolls during my breaks, I drank oodles of Pepsi, and I didn't care about things like fruits and vegetables because hey, I was the fat girl so I got to eat whatever I wanted to with no thought about diets. And after high school came college.
Mm, college. Binge drinking, binge eating, binge sleeping. I would occasionally drag myself into the gym on campus on a regular basis just long enough to drop a few pounds. And then I would get lazy again, head back to the cafeteria for a giant baguette with 5 pats of butter and a 32 ounce Pepsi for lunch. But I was healthy! I rode my bike (for 10 minutes at a time)! I walked (across campus a few times a day)! I was pretty and I had people to make out with and guys grabbed my ass at parties and I had friends and an awesome job at the bookstore and I even had some other fat friends. I was the fat girl, so it didn't matter that I was steadily putting on 10-15 pounds a year, it was expected of me.
Except I didn't even realize that being the fat girl had become such a big part of me. I was so unaware of it that I was a little shocked every time I saw a picture of myself. Who was this giant woman? I was only chubby, so that couldn't be me! And there was a little voice in my head that kept telling me it's just baby fat, it'll go away eventually. Except...wait, it was supposed to go away a long time before I got to college, wasn't it?
Eventually (really, pretty damn recently) I realized that the big assed woman in those pictures really was me. And so now I'm finally accepting that I am the fat girl, the fat chick, the fat woman, the big hot piece of buttery goodness. These days I finally realize that being fat doesn't mean that I can't work out or that I can't be giddy over a pile of fresh veggies and fruits from the farmer's market. It doesn't mean that I can't turn down a dessert or that I have to wear sweatshirts embroidered with sparkly cats. It means I am who I am, and I can be active and healthy and dance and lift weights and be in love and have a great job and be awesome.
How might my life have been different if I hadn't believed them, those schoolyard hellions with their taunts about the size of my thighs and the largeness of my butt? Would I have run with more abandon? Would I have found joy in playing soccer, in running around and getting sweaty and exercising? Maybe I would have discovered my love for fresh, cold watermelon rather than my obsession with hot, buttered toast. And maybe my grandmother's prediction would have come true and I would have grown up and stretched out my baby fat and become a lovely, slender swan instead of staying a fat, fluffy duck. Maybe I would have been prom queen, or one of those impossibly bitchy cheerleaders. Or maybe I would have been exactly the same, just skinnier, which is exactly what I'll be after the surgery. Maybe I wouldn't be needing bariatric surgery now if I hadn't believed them back then.
Regardless, I hope that the little girls in my life never have to go through this, the daughters of my friends, my honorary nieces. I hope I am able to tell them not to believe the mean kids at school, that they don't have to become what they are called. And I hope that I am able to tell them (and convince them) that even if they do become part of the fat girl brigade, life can still be pretty damn cool. And I hope it doesn't take them 30 years to figure it out like it did me.
2 Comments:
Yes. Love you.
"Except I didn't even realize that being the fat girl had become such a big part of me. I was so unaware of it that I was a little shocked every time I saw a picture of myself. Who was this giant woman? I was only chubby, so that couldn't be me! And there was a little voice in my head that kept telling me it's just baby fat, it'll go away eventually."
This is pretty much the last 10 years of my life story summed up rather concisely.
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