Tag: Feminist

FAT GIRL, SKINNY BODY

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a toxic relationship with food; more unhealthy than any cheating boyfriend or back-stabbing bestie could ever be.  I have body issues that have plagued me since I went on my first diet at 9 years old, and unless I’m 115 lbs, a size 0-2, and have had a whopping dose of vitamin D, I hate looking at myself in the mirror.

For as long as I can remember, people have also felt pretty comfortable commenting about my appearance, as though it’s the most important thing about me.  I guess because I look a certain way, it’s ok to assume that I’m comfortable in my skin.  They don’t realize I weigh myself 20 times a day.  They don’t know I have a tape measure in my makeup bag to obsessively wrap around my thighs, my waist, and my hips.  They think that it’s ok to tell me to “eat a cheeseburger or something” when I’m looking very thin, or that “you’ve put on a few pounds” when I have been slipping.  They don’t know the torment I’ve had since I was a chubby little girl, with squeezable cheeks, that was developing anorexia when she wasn’t even a teenager yet.

I think about every single bite of food that enters my mouth.  EVERY. SINGLE. BITE.  Do you know what that’s like? I have literally counted every calorie I’ve ever eaten.  But I have had to fight past the insensitive comments about how I’m “one of the lucky ones” after I lost all of my pregnancy weight.  Twice.  I gained over 90 lbs for EACH of my pregnancies as I abandoned any thoughts about my own body and focused on doing my best to bring two healthy babes into the world.  I had to workout at all hours of the night while running a business and taking care of these 2 little ones, just to fit back into my clothes.  I had to talk myself out of starving myself daily, and still do…because that’s what recovering anorexics do, for the rest of their lives.  It doesn’t just go away.  You don’t just get over it.  You are never “healed”…you’re healing.  I don’t feel like “one of the lucky ones”.  And calling me that discounts the discipline it took to lose that weight, without falling into a dark place.  But it’s ok, because I look a certain way.

My body doesn’t want to be skinny.  It fights me every day.  If I gave my body a break, and ate a healthy caloric intake , I would easily fall into a much larger frame.  But for some reason, I have always wanted to wear whatever I want, more than I wanted to eat whatever I want.  And so I fight my body.  And so, people think, because I look a certain way, they can comment on my appearance.  Because I’m lucky.  I would go so long without eating that I would dream of how food felt while chewing through it.  I would go to bed at night praying that I would just lose two more pounds.  I could slip a size zero on and off without undoing the zipper, and all I could see in the mirror was a fat girl.

We hate that word – “fat”.  But why is it acceptable to say “skinny” and so taboo to say FAT?  Even as I write the word, I cringe.  “skinny jeans” “skinny girl brand” “skinny drinks”, but we whisper the word “fat” like it’s a secret.  And why is it so acceptable to make jokes about someone being too skinny, but insensitive to call someone fat?  And why do we think that if someone is attractive, we can be as mean or forward as we choose when we talk about their appearance?

I’m exhausted.  My body is tired of trying to please me, and try to make people happy enough to keep their comments about how they think I look best to themselves.  “You look too skinny”, “I like you with some meat on your bones”, “You’re perfect at this size, don’t gain or lose a single pound”, “You could lose 5 lbs, but no more than that”, like seriously wtf?  I think about every comment that has come out of the mouths of family, friends, and strangers, and wonder, for real, WTF?  I’m TIRED.  You shouldn’t have a vocal opinion about my body.  It’s hard enough, as women, to deal with our own opinions of our bodies.  It’s hard enough to love and accept what we see in the mirror without factoring in the careless comments of others. I write this as I sit in my bed, knowing that I’m getting out of it only to walk to the scale and see what the morning weight will be.  And then I will walk to my makeup bag, get out my tape measure, and see how many almonds I can treat myself with today. 

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones.

“I would go so long without eating that I would dream of what food felt like while chewing through it”

FACING THE F-WORD

Remember when we were teens and 30 seemed old? Then we were 30, and it wasn’t so bad, cos at least we weren’t 40…but then we were 40 and apparently it’s MID-LIFE?!!! It’s true.  Forty is mid-life and I’m shook.  I tried to fight, but I’ve entered my 40s and there’s nothing I can do about it.  But seriously, when did it become midlife??

 I have never cared about aging as much as I have leading up to this milestone.  My skin changing, my body changing, everything becoming unknown to me.  Aging terrifies me.  Sorry, let me re-phrase: looking older terrifies me.  From the time we are little, girls are “taught” that appearance is important, and we grow up placing so much of our self-worth on how we look. A multi-billion dollar beauty industry, fashion magazines and both men AND women have focused so much on what a woman looks like, no wonder we are so hard on ourselves.

Turning 40 changes many things for a woman.  You can’t help that.  Our faces will show our happiest moments in the form of laugh lines, and our saddest grief in the form of frown lines.  Our eyes will show our experience when we hear our children speak of their failures and fears.  Our bodies will show the years of carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.  Yup, it’s scary for a woman to face physical change.  Feels like a cruel joke.

What is scarier, though, is the deeper examination of your life.  Realizing you don’t have any more answers at 40 than you did at 30.  Personally I have MORE QUESTIONS!  Am I truly happy professionally? Should I take a chance on a new venture?  Can I afford to fail at this point in my life, having a family that depends on me??  At 30, I wasn’t scared.  I had youth, confidence, and no dependents.  If I failed (which I never believed would happen), I could just do something else. 

So why does this number send us into such a “crisis”?  Perhaps because we are many things, to many people, and the struggle of getting through each day is EXHAUSTING.  We, as women, mothers, professionals, significant others, and let me stress again, MOTHERS, are finding less and less time in the day to do what makes us happy as INDIVIDUALS.  Having 2 kids myself, I am basically a chauffeur and spectator to extra-curricular activities 6 days a week.  SIX.  Now add their homework, my business, gym, chores, errands, baths, bedtimes, a few stolen moments of silence dedicated to feeling guilt or failure at any or all roles I must play (perhaps a little cry in there as well), and what does it really leave you with?  Just enough time to realize that there isn’t enough time, or to feel inadequate. 

Our perception of ourselves is terrible.  We are never enough!  We are never good enough mothers, can never keep up with the housework, stress about work decisions, feel like we aren’t making our partners happy…and in turn we make ourselves unhappy.

To make matters worse, we live in the most judgemental world, where even we, as women, tear each other down, criticize each other, hate on each other, and feed off one another’s misery.  I refuse to be that woman.  We need to do better.

Yes turning 40 is scary, especially through our own eyes.  But have you tried seeing yourself through your children’s eyes?  To my daughters, I am not just an aging face; I am the most loving mom, the person they run to for kisses on their bobos, who loves them more than anything or anyone in this world.  To them, I’m not just an aging body; I am SUPER strong (“like Wonder Woman Mommy!!”) and SUPER SMART (“Mommy how do you know EVERYTHING?!”).  And no matter what I look like in the mirror, they see me as the most beautiful person in the world.  They’ve never judged me, like I judge myself, and they definitely don’t care if I’m a size 2 (even though I still do).

If only we could give ourselves a break, and see what they see, how much happier we would be.

Forty is only mid-life (and doesn’t have to be a crisis!!).  There is still a whole other half of life to experience.  None of us are perfect; we are all just a work in progress.  If we could just focus on what we have, instead of what we are losing, maybe we could appreciate how aging is a luxury, and comparison (to a younger you, or others) will only rob you of any joy that your first 40 years have brought you.