It was 1975 and I was a chubby preteen. Healthy, active, and thick.
My athletic older brother brought a lovely young lady home to meet our parents one weekend, from college.
She was tall, blond, beautiful, and thin.
Everything I was not. Everything I thought I should be.
It has taken decades for me to accept this, rejecting my own appearance, comparing myself to the incomparable.
Now I'm middle-aged, fraught with thyroid disfunction, the effects of seven pregnancies, and genetic determination.
I've been dieting my whole life, always resorting to banning sugar. It doesn't work as well as it used to.
Girls get hungry. Languish or eat.
I have found that the male members of my extended family really get a kick out of fat jokes. (Not my husband. He's too smart for that.)
It started with being called "Minnesota Fats." (How convenient!)
Words hurt. Words curse.
A young girl with the genes that dictated brown hair, short stature, and round shoulders tried hard to run and swim, exercise, and work that hideous form into something attractive.
A life's pursuit, and how vapid.
Our culture has ruled us insignificant. We don't fit the picture---at least in this part of the country.
I'm old now. I still hate the way I look, but I'm beginning to see that God had his own plan for me, including the way I look.
"Trim Healthy Mama" is amazing. For once we girls can eat without gaining five pounds.
I'm thankful for Serene and Pearl. They understand! They wrote the book, and found this incredible plan that seems to nourish without packing on the weight.
It's amazing. So many fat girls are finding hope for the first time ever. I am included.
So, this fat girl Sings.
And I do.
It's over.
The struggle is over. I think I can keep this weight (and not gain) for life.
And guys, we short, thick girls are God's creation too.
Change your mind about beauty. It's not just skinny blondes that God finds beautiful. Maybe you are missing something. He made us, too.
I'll keep shrugging off the bitterness when you laugh at me. That's my problem.
Yours is to readjust your own outlook about beauty, and realize that words matter.
2 comments:
Beautifully written Con!! I feel the same way! A lifetime of diets (until I quit that route around 1997 when my daughter was born!), always self loathing and making jokes about how fat I am just so those around me know that I KNOW that I'm fat. (Kind of like pointing out the flaws in a meal I'm serving so my guests would know that I'm aware that the gravy's lumpy!) If only I , as well as my sister, could gather back all the time spent in self loathing, goal setting, dieting, resisting, crying... I feel I am on a trajectory: death by M&M's ! ��
Wow. You know!!! <3
Post a Comment