It’s Thanksgiving and I’m 11 years old. My aunt is visiting — a bubbly, outgoing woman who is my dad’s sister. Like my dad, she’s also a health nut who loves working out, running, and talking about things like muscle and protein powder and weight loss tips. I lay on my bed with a book, trying to be invisible. I know that my family thinks I’m fat — they’ve told me a million times. Disappointment oozes from their pores every time they mention my cousin who is a cheerleader at her junior high, my pretty blonde friend Melissa who plays volleyball and softball, my brother who runs the fastest mile in our entire elementary school.
I’m the chubby girl who wants to read. I read anything I can get my hands on, ignoring the librarians recommendations and reaching for books way out of my age range. I sneak books from my mom — VC Andrews, John Grisham, Thomas Harris. I read Roots twice, The Thorn Birds at least a dozen times. I sneak Reader’s Digests from waiting room tables, bringing them home to read from cover to cover.
I enjoy immersing myself in the stories of others, dreading the moment I have to emerge from my room and face my parents.
“You need some exercise,” “Your clothes are getting tight,” “Your brother has been outside for hours.”
I know I know I know.
I wear glasses — the thick frames favored in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I tell myself that cute girls wear glasses too — Tracy Gold, Kellie Martin. But they are skinny and their parents are probably proud of them.
It turns out that the local gym is open on Thanksgiving. My mom shoos everyone away as she prepares our dinner. My dad and aunt decide that heading to the gym will be a good way to pass the time. They yell for me to put my shoes to come with and my stomach drops.
There’s a scale right as you walk in. One by one, we all hop on. I go last and my face burns with shame when needle stops at 92 pounds. My brother weighs less than 80.
They all look at me. “I didn’t weigh 90 pounds until I was in high school,” my aunt says. My dad looks disgusted and makes me get on the treadmill. I know it isn’t going to make a difference. I’ll still be fat when we leave.
We go home, shower, and I pick at my dinner. I don’t want them to watch me eat. Every bite makes me feel weak and humiliated.
I’m 20 years old and I go to Dillards with some friends. We need new jeans and just got our paychecks. I go for a size 5, what I’ve been wearing forever, and my friend gives me a side eye. “I don’t know why you do that,” she says. “Do you just like baggy clothes?”
I look at her confused as she hands me a different pair of jeans. The tag says 00. I laugh. “Try them,” she says. I take them into the dressing room, annoyed. I slip them on and they button easily, hugging my hips and butt the way jeans are supposed to. I come out of the dressing room almost in shock. She claps as she sees me in them, yelling, “YOU HAVE TO GET THEM OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO!!”
Is this who I’ve been? The person who wears the smallest size? For how long? Why didn’t I see it? That question lingers for days, months, years. I look at myself in the mirror always wondering if I’m looking at the truth. I feel like I might never know.
I get married and have my first child. I walk him around the mall in his stroller one day and stop when I see a scale outside the GNC. I pop in a couple of quarters only for it to tell me that I’m 10 pounds overweight. I eat popcorn for breakfast and lunch every day for months until that 10 pounds is gone. We go to a birthday party and everyone remarks on how good I look for someone who recently has a baby.
My house is always clean, my make up is always on, and I’m tiny. They all want to know how I do it. I blush and shrug and change the subject. What I really want to say is, “I can’t look in the mirror without seeing a fat 11 year old who doesn’t fit in. I’m starving. I’m so sick of popcorn I could vomit. I’m trying to be perfect and I AM EXHAUSTED.”
But I don’t. Instead I wish my parents could see how perfect I am now, how thin. Maybe if they knew I’d turn out like this, they wouldn’t have made me go to the gym that time on Thanksgiving.
I’m 34 and having panic attacks. They happen at the oddest times and with no warning — at the grocery store, in my kitchen, sitting in traffic. My lips tingle and things start to go black and until I find something to focus on, breathing in my nose and out my mouth. Ashamed, I finally tell my husband. I’m afraid he will think I’m a bad mom, that I’ve been putting my children in danger. He doesn’t say any of those things.
I make a doctor appointment. She thinks I need an antidepressant, but warns me that I might gain weight. I’m so anxious to find relief that I barely hear her.
A year later, I’ve gone up several pants sizes. Six months later, a couple more. Every time a pair of pants stop fitting, I feel like it’s a lie. Surely I’m not a size 6. A size 8? A size 10? A size 12? I look in the mirror, prepared to see the same fat girl I’ve seen since I was a child.
Instead, I see a good mom. A flawed, strong woman who is doing her best. I see a business owner, a creator, a dreamer. I see a loving wife, a good friend, an encourager, a listening ear. I see a woman who is wonderful with a make-up brush, a piping bag, a pen. I see a woman who laughs so hard she snorts, loves so hard she cries, and fights so hard that she has scars.
She happens to be a size 12 today. Maybe a size 14 one day…a size 16…who knows. She doesn’t care.
I see a woman who finally sees the truth.
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