A Recent Realization

28 May 2015.

So lately I haven’t felt like writing much. Maybe it’s due to a lack of inspiration, or a lack of interesting subject matter. But I’ve been inappropriately lazy these past few weeks and it’s actually kind of getting out of hand. As I was scrolling through my email a few minutes ago, an idea finally--finally--came to mind. I’m going to discuss body image, in my own words, and in my own world. What I have to say doesn’t necessarily have to apply to anyone else. This is for me, because writing out my feelings is just as effective as screaming them to the world.

Like most girls, I’ve never exactly had a positive body image of myself growing up. I was the D.U.F.F. (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) from an early age. Or at least that’s the label I gave myself. The feelings of fatness fluctuated (try saying that three times fast) over the years, but I never really tried to do anything about it because I was scared and lacked proper motivation. Then, one day, during the spring break of my freshman year of high school, a switch was flipped in my brain. Something had clicked, and I decided I was going to be healthy: I would become a runner and eat more fruits and veggies and pay more attention to my surroundings. Within three months, I had lost twenty pounds and could run a mile in six minutes. And I’d never been happier. I went to Europe that summer and everyone in my family commented about how remarkable I looked, how thin I looked, and I was on cloud nine. I was 5’5” and 121 pounds, the skinniest I’d ever been and will ever be. From that vacation on, I’d adopted a newfound confidence that helped me make new friends and maintain my relationships with the girls who’d been there from the start.

 

I’m a junior now, and in that one year between freshman year summer and sophomore year summer, I’d gained about ten pounds. And I wasn’t happy about it. But there wasn’t much I could do about it either. If I didn’t eat, the weight stayed on; if I did eat, the weight stayed on. In my mind, it was a lose-lose situation. And it was a nightmare--I was no longer the little twig I was only 365 days prior.

Then I was asked to prom by one of my friends; he’d planned the entire promposal himself and I never even saw it coming. Of course I said yes, if nothing else because I got a beautiful bouquet of wine-red roses out of it. (Just kidding, I’m not that mean!) That was this February.

So I started shopping for dresses. At the first store I found two I liked; but neither did I buy because I wanted to think over my decision. My plan was to buy a beautiful gown for a reasonable cost; I was set on finding an A-line ballgown with a high neck and a totally bedazzled beaded bodice, and a low back; I didn’t care what color. As pretty as the other dresses were, that was my vision and I would stop at nothing to get it. The problem was, none of the dresses fit quite right. Sometimes I was a size six, sometimes an eight. Regardless, the size I would have had to buy made me quite unhappy, though I never said anything about it.

The next weekend I went to a second boutique with just as many beautiful dresses as the first. I must have tried on three, and the third one I fell in love with. I had a high neck, it was shoulderless, it had divine lattice beading, and it was black. But it wasn’t right: it was form-fitted, and I felt like a sausage in it, even more so when my mother (no harm intended) mentioned that the back did look rather tight. And it was a size six, and the store didn’t have any left in a size eight. But I didn’t want to be a size six or especially a size eight; I wanted to be a size four. Or a two. Or a zero.

To my mother’s surprise, I winded up buying it. Because you know what? It’s the most beautiful gown I’ve ever worn. I’ve never smiled the way I did when I first looked at myself in the mirror. The imperfections no longer mattered; I set myself the goal to lose a few pounds so I could zip up the back in one go, and my mother went out that week to find me a pair of spandex somethings to wear underneath to flatten out my belly and smooth the remaining lumps and bumps. And let me tell you, the spandex works wonders. Worth every penny.

I was the first of my friends to buy a dress, and I was happy because it was one-of-a-kind and I radiated a special kind of beauty when I wore it. But that happiness was short-lived. One of my friends worked to lose maybe, maybe, five pounds. Maybe. To fit into the dress she ordered online, which was a size four anyway. And you know what? It was loose on her!!!!! About a whole size too big! Talk about discouragement. And same with another friend; her dress is probably a two, and she’s having it altered because it’s too big. And there I was, the elephant sausage woman that barely fit into a six. Ugh.

It’s been about a month and a half, maybe two, since I started yet another new diet regimen; I’ve been eating healthier again and I’ve gone running/to the gym every day or every other. And I’ve lost a whopping...maybe three measly pounds? If that. So there goes that; prom is in a week.

And then I started thinking: why am I doing this to myself? Why am I so angry that I’m 128 pounds? That’s only seven pounds more than two years ago, and the reason I gained that weight is because of puberty. My hips and shoulders got wider because I’m a whole year and a half older. I’m still a work in progress, so of course my weight is going to fluctuate. That’s just natural. I’m no less beautiful than I was when I weighed 121 pounds. I’m smarter now than I was when I was 121 pounds. I’m more experienced now than I was when I was 121 pounds. And I realized, finally, that there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

I can happily say, once again, that I am 128 pounds. That’s 128 pounds of beauty, intelligence, experience, talent, kindness, wit, and love. My weight has no weight on my life; it doesn’t impact my future admission into college, or my future husband, or my future job. Or my future success; if I’m lucky, my cash wallet alone will weigh more than I do.

I know now that I’m still skinny, regardless of what my brain tells me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a size six, or a size eight, or a size ten or twelve or fourteen. We all have different body shapes and we all have different dietary needs and restrictions. And I feel incredibly shallow when I think back; I was so obsessed with my weight, and I had no reason to be because I am perfect just the way I am. I have my happy days and my sad days, my eat-everything-in-the-house days, and my eat-nothing days, my I-can-do-this days and my I’d-rather-sleep days. At the end of the day we are all human.

I’m still keeping my gym membership, of course, because I do like to exercise and stay in shape. The difference is that now, I’m not going to say no to ice cream.