novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the ghost of fat girl A long time ago, man would listen in amazement to the sound of regular beats in his chest, never suspecting what they were. He was unable to identify himself with so alien and unfamiliar an object as the body. The body was a cage, and inside that cage was something which looked, listened, feared, thought, and marveled; that something, that remainder left over after the body had been accounted for, was the soul. my body is changing. dramatically, quickly, obviously, more so than bodies usually change. people notice the changes every few months. they halt and look at my torso, and then at my face, and slowly say, you really have lost a lot of weight. it really shows. i can really tell. that is amazing. male friends are treating me differently. the way they regard me is transitioning, and i can tell by the way they act. our bodies represent social structure, gender bias; they require certain mannerisms. i am no longer seen as one of the guys, or a basis in-between girl and boy. an easy counterpart to how boys are supposed to treat girls. in the summer one took to grabbing my ass whenever he could; not in a funny way. it was proprietary, this bit. he'd stare at my chest and grin. i stopped calling him. i am putting off seeing other guy friends as long as i can; this way, they won't see me in the transition part, but will encounter me closer to the end, farther than where i am now, a few more sizes down. this way it will be easier on them. i'm scared to see a couple of them. i was always the easy friend, the one they could burp and scratch in front of. i don't think it will change with all of them but some i question... fat friends are telling me to stop. i can understand that; so many fat girls have born in their mind the ability to incessantly compare their bodies to everyone elses'... especially to their friends. one friend has admitted that she is scared i will become a different person, that she won't like me thin. i am afraid to write about this here because a fat person might read it and think something like she got out. she's a success. i should do it too. look at my ugly body. look at me. no, don't look at me. i should lose weight...IT'S NOT TRUE. most people gain a percentage or even all of the weight back that they have lost on diets. this might happen to me even though i'm not on a diet, i just changed the way i live, simple changes meant to deter behavior. i don't mind, and i think that if i ever become as overweight as i was, this whole process will show me that it is simply okay. most people who are fat or who have been fat for most of their lives will stay that way. do not be resigned to your fate. revel in it. it is odd to say this because i am not sure that i believe in fate, only circumstance. i have lost close to seventy pounds. ten sizes. i still have about thirty to go. how strange to think i am doing this for me, but that losing weight is affecting everyone around me more than me personally. the old idiom says inside every fat person there is a thin person screaming to get out. this might be true, but in an aggressive, societal way. this idiom was forced on me and i believed it. in my day dreams, i am thin. always have been. ever since i was eight i equated "thin" with "happy." there is no ultimate plateau on which we stand and shout I AM HAPPY GOD DAMMIT I AM FINALLY HAPPY because feelings are like ladders and we are constantly climbing up and down them, our knees buckling underneath the impact of each step. there is no person inside me anymore because i let her out and let her go. kicked her bony ass out my door. i will always have the mind and disposition of a fat girl, even if i'm now a whatever i am, a chubby borderline thin girl, even if i become a thin girl. losing weight does change my personality, but not in the assumed ways. i am sad to lose the easy identification of FAT GIRL, the pride of being able to say that, the few times that i felt proud enough to say it. the process of changing my relationship to food has altered my personality the most. i am stronger because i am treating this as an addiction, not as a means to attain some ideal, but to make sure i'll never regress to binge disorder or bulimia again. i am going to a weight loss support group and i am treating it like AA. i am defensive when i think people may believe that i lost this by puking, and i feel like i have to explain that i've had binge disorder since i was eight fucking years old, that i am exhausted and deadened by it, and that it has been close to three years since i stopped purging, and that as a fact my bulimia would never have induced weight loss on its own. i feel like i should present people with documentation. throat cultures. this is idiotic because no one has intoned anything along these lines, but i am thinking it has been assumed. that broken girl with the broken body she can never fix it again she's humpty-dumpty. what i want to say now is that to grow up fat and coexisting with a terrible body image and self-loathing is to remember it for the rest of my life. i'm glad for it. i'm glad to realize that this isn't what i thought it would be, that it is just a body changing. 9:50 am - 11.07.03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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