Today a friend of mine and I were joking that he could not stand up on a transit bus. It would be his luck that he would lose his balance, fall and he would crush someone. It would be some little old lady whose family would sue him for wrongful death. For clarification, Tuck (my friend) is 6’8” and built like a tank. A solid muscle tank. But the doctors want to tell him he is overweight. He commented that whoever made up the height/weight chart must have been tripping the light fantastic to which I agreed. We started comparing stories of how we never fit in to that chart, even as children. Which led us down the rabbit hole of what size we were when we were growing up as compared to now.
I started life as a stick figure. I could LITERALLY hide behind a telephone pole. Then the tweenage years hit and it was like my body changed overnight. Suddenly there were hips, glutes, cleavage. My angles turned in to curves, and I could no longer wear clothes built for stick figures. Unfortunately that was all the fashion during those years (egads what I would give to have had the Curvy Girls movement back then) so everything bought for me looked like I needed baby oil and fishing line to get them on. Imagine a girl going through puberty, already a misfit, with body changes that she doesn’t understand nor appreciate.
My step brothers constantly called me “Fat Boy”; they would not use my given name for anything. One evening after having had absolutely e-fucking-nough of the name calling (having heard that awful moniker 10 times in just as many minutes) I told everyone in the room that that is not my name and I would appreciate it if they would knock it off. The whole family laughed.
Sometime after that it was time for back to school shopping, which included clothing of course. After a frustrating afternoon of trying on clothes that would not fit properly and having to settle on the few pieces that did, my mom announced “See that is what happens when you let yourself get too big.” WHAT?! I was a freshman in high school wearing a size 8. What the actual FUCK was she talking about?! And my ego took a hit, because if my mother says I’m fat, then I must be, right?
I look back on all of that and I see the amount of damage I’ve had to repair, and am still repairing. And thank the GODS for stores that make trendy clothes for curvy girls. I finally found a style that I feel gorgeous in. More importantly, I don’t give a flying fart in a windstorm if anyone has a problem with my skulls and roses skater dress with a chest window. Because I feel like a goddess in it, and that is all that matters. Some days I wish I was more than a few pounds lighter, but most days I know that I look dayum good after 3 kids and years of stress eating. It also helps that I have surrounded myself with friends who have much praise for me, but are not afraid to tell me when I have lost what little mind I have left.
Tuck says my family was just jealous of who I was becoming and that is how they expressed it. Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t. I know that I am super proud of who I am today.
Chaotically Controlled 