Last week, a horrid little troll of a woman here at my office told me she thought she saw a picture of me on a news website. I thought maybe it was a picture of the crowds from the Rock & Roll Marathon or something. Instead, it was a picture accompanying some blurb about obesity, one of those horrible middle of the torso shots that is so very unflattering. It was completely and obviously not me, (seriously, the clothes were extremely unflattering and the chin line practically screamed "Not Melinda!") and I very quickly told the woman that no, it was not me thankyouverymuch.
It was pretty much a nightmare come true, realizing that this woman (who is, for the record, a bitter, unattractive, not well-liked eavesdropper who could stand to lose more than a few pounds herself; transference much?) thought that I was large and lumpy enough to pictorially represent The Obesity Problem in America. I'll admit, I always scan those pictures when they appear on the news, making sure than my midsection isn't one of those ones being filmed, relieved when I realize that once again I'm not there. But to have someone else think that they ahd spotted me? Ugh.
And I wasn't even going to write about the whole thing except....it made me feel ashamed. And angry for being ashamed. And as much as it doesn't affect the way I think about myself (because I am still awesome in my own quirky, special way), it stuck with me. It's weird, I can go for days, weeks even, forgetting that I am fat. I'm just....me. Even when I look in the mirror or glance at pictures of myself, I don't think "Hey, look at the fat girl! Oh wai..." I don't think about it unless someone else points it out to me. (Then I think about it all the time.)
I did, however, brace myself before meeting my new Little Sister; kids can be brutally honest and I didn't want to have the same reaction to her noticing I was fat as I did to the horrid little woman across the hall from me. I wanted to be brave and strong and say "Yep, I'm fat, but that's okay because I can still run and play with you." I even practiced saying that in my head beforehand!
But she didn't say anything about me being fat. She just wanted to tell me about the new book she was reading for school, she wanted to ask me questions about where I live and my pets and what I do at work. She didn't see the fat first; she just saw her new Big Sister, and that was enough for her. And I suddenly didn't care so much about what the horrible troll-woman thought of me.
Which is good, because it really doesn't matter, does it?
It was pretty much a nightmare come true, realizing that this woman (who is, for the record, a bitter, unattractive, not well-liked eavesdropper who could stand to lose more than a few pounds herself; transference much?) thought that I was large and lumpy enough to pictorially represent The Obesity Problem in America. I'll admit, I always scan those pictures when they appear on the news, making sure than my midsection isn't one of those ones being filmed, relieved when I realize that once again I'm not there. But to have someone else think that they ahd spotted me? Ugh.
And I wasn't even going to write about the whole thing except....it made me feel ashamed. And angry for being ashamed. And as much as it doesn't affect the way I think about myself (because I am still awesome in my own quirky, special way), it stuck with me. It's weird, I can go for days, weeks even, forgetting that I am fat. I'm just....me. Even when I look in the mirror or glance at pictures of myself, I don't think "Hey, look at the fat girl! Oh wai..." I don't think about it unless someone else points it out to me. (Then I think about it all the time.)
I did, however, brace myself before meeting my new Little Sister; kids can be brutally honest and I didn't want to have the same reaction to her noticing I was fat as I did to the horrid little woman across the hall from me. I wanted to be brave and strong and say "Yep, I'm fat, but that's okay because I can still run and play with you." I even practiced saying that in my head beforehand!
But she didn't say anything about me being fat. She just wanted to tell me about the new book she was reading for school, she wanted to ask me questions about where I live and my pets and what I do at work. She didn't see the fat first; she just saw her new Big Sister, and that was enough for her. And I suddenly didn't care so much about what the horrible troll-woman thought of me.
Which is good, because it really doesn't matter, does it?
3 Comments:
Exactly. To the Little Sis, you were so much more than Fat. And that's because YOU ARE.
(I can't BELIEVE the woman at the office did that. So totally rude.)
What. A. Bitch. !!!
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