{I Can Only Be.Me}

Thinking back, they were the most hideous shoes I’d ever seen. They were shaped like tortoises, black, with thick white soles and turquoise shoelaces, fuchsia lightning bolts etched on the sides. Who in their right mind would have worn them is beyond me.

Back then, they were the most amazing shoes I’d ever seen. Mailed all the way from California, from my mom, for my birthday. It was the first time she’d ever sent me anything, and I was elated. She’d remembered that year. My grandmother wouldn’t let me try them on until I’d opened my other gifts. I tore through them, barely paying attention,  and flopped down onto the kitchen floor and started to lace them. I rushed, with such excitement, and I could barely get the strings through holes.

When I did, I shoved my right foot into one and was horrified to find that they were too small. I squeezed and pushed and forced my foot, my huge foot, my much too long for my body foot into the shoe until it was on completely. My toes were crumpled together in the front, my arch was bent to its max and unable to settle down on the sole. I did the same with the other foot, and stood. My grandfather asked how they fit and I blurted out FINE! as he knelt down to test them for growing room with his thick fingers. I stepped back, gingerly, as my feet were already burning with pain. I walked, carefully, around the kitchen attempting to convince them that all was well. My grandfather ordered me back over to him and immediately announced that my shoes were much too tight. I argued, but he held up his hand to silence me.

I took them off and my grandmother called my mom, who said she’d ship another pair as soon as they mailed those back to her. She apologized to me, wished me a happy birthday, and promised to send me shoes that fit.My grandmother and I sent them off the two sizes too small sneakers at the post office the very next morning. My mother never sent me that other pair.

#3.

{ 1 comment }

I sat with Katie and Christina at the blue table and they were my very best friends. I didn’t have very many, being as the class I was in had a very small number of students – 12. They used to fight in the bathroom sometimes, over who was more my best friend. The day that Christina and I came to class wearing the same coordinated outfit (a white tank top and white shorts with big fuchsia polka dots), Katie didn’t speak to either of us for the rest of the week.

This day, all of us wore different things, and we were getting along fine. In P.E. we had practiced running the mile for the President’s Physical Fitness test and we were tired and famished. “Stupid presidents and their stupid fitness tests. Girls can’t do pullups and climb ropes.” Katie huffed and puffed. “María could” Christina retorted. Katie didn’t say anything but looked sullen as she started opening her milk carton. “Only climb the rope. And one pullup.” I offered. My grandfather had built me a jungle gym in our backyard when I was in California for the summer as a surprise and I’d developed quite the upper body strength over the past few months. Katie still frowned as she she drank, pulling the carton down and revealing a chocolate mustache. She saw me looking at it and wiped it away with the back of her wrist.

My grandmother had packed my lunch that day, but I wasn’t sure what she’d given me. Probably fried bologna I complained to myself. My lunch box was plastic, yellow with a fading Charlie Brown scene painted on the front. It came with a thermos, which I opened first, happy to find apple juice, still cold. I poured some into the lid of my thermos which was also a cup and pushed it aside. I had a bunch of grapes, some with their stems still attached, of the red seedless variety. My sandwich was peanut butter and grape jelly, on whole wheat, and some plain Lay’s potato chips were in a small bag underneath it. What did I have to do to get my grandmother to buy some chips with flavor? I really wanted to try those sour cream and onion ones, but, all in all this was a good lunch.

We ate in silence, waiting for Katie to lift herself out of her mood since Christina and I had learned that it was impossible for either of us to do so.I finished my food messily and rabidly. By the time I was finished I had crumbs all over my shirt and peanut butter spread over my chin. Christina finished her cafeteria spaghetti, or as much of it as she was willing to stomach. The class was lining up to go back alreadyso we decided to leave Katie where she was, still poking her fork in her pizza, eating only the little cubes of pepperoni off of the top.

She was standing behind us soon enough, smiling from ear to ear because Jonathan Crutchfield asked her if he could have her sugar cookie and their fingers touched when she handed it to him.

#2.

{ 0 comments }

I was 12, and I loved him. I loved him so much, in that awkward stage between woman and child. My breasts had just started developing, and I was being noticed by boys for more than my curly hair and my big ears. It was a magical time in my life. I wanted him to the be the first one to touch them, see them. Well, besides Javier, but Javier didn’t count – he groped them without permission in class one day, and I punched him in the arm.

I hated New York, but I loved it. I was used to North Carolina, to mild winters and quiet nights, people who spoke with warm twangs and comforting colloquialisms. New York was bitter, there were no smiles or salutations to strangers, the ‘children’ weren’t really children at all. They traded their parents’ porn in the hallways at my middle school, smoked real cigarettes instead of just pretending they were with empty fingertips and their warm breath against cold air. It was terrifying, and it was invigorating.

I loved that New York boy. He lived down the street from me, and he and his friends would play curb ball outside of my house. I would sit in my living room window and watch them, out of sight. Not that it mattered, they never looked in my direction, even when I was out in the open. They were too cool for the little bony girl with broad shoulders and big feet. They hadn’t noticed my new tits. I wanted them to. To notice me. And my tits.

The day after one particularly heavy snowfall, I heard the sharp bring! of a basketball hitting cement, over and over and new that a new game of curb ball had just began. I was prepared, I was going to be seen today. I was already dressed, in the tightest jeans I had, which weren’t actually tight, just too small for me after my latest hormone induced growth spurt, and a clingy shirt. I slipped on my mother’s heeled snow boots and my black coat, checking my hair in the mirror and prancing delicately out of the door and down the stairs.

I worked my way over to them, this little brown girl attempting to saunter like a grown woman and failing miserably at it. They didn’t look away from their game. I was almost across the street, to the opposite side of where the love of my life was standing, almost directly in his line of sight. And I slipped. The sole of my mother’s boot made contact with the slick black ice on the asphalt, and I went flying. In a second, I was spread eagle, on my back. I looked as if I were attempting to make snow angels where there was no ice.

“Daayuummm!” came the exclamations from the curb ball boys. I closed my eyes, too slow to attempt to play it off, too embarrassed to think of anything else to do but just lay there. I opened my eyes to find my love leaning over me. His long lashes fluttered as he blinked at me. “You aiight?” he asked. Before I could answer, he decided I was and walked away, continuing his game with his friends.

I lifted myself up out of the road when I heard a car round the corner. I wanted to die, but I wasn’t brave enough to do it that way. I figured jumping out of that window I spied on them from so often in the past would be quicker.

#1.

{ 0 comments }

Although I have not and will never do the same, I don’t have a problem with people who have accepted their larger shapes and have decided not to beat themselves up over it. More power to you, but I don’t believe in the Fat Acceptance movement. I don’t believe that we should let our children believe that it’s fine to be overweight or obese. The obesity rate in children here in the states is ridiculously high. They learn that at home. It’s not okay – we are jeopardizing the lives of those we swear to love the most with the examples we set and the standards we’re attempting to lower.

Is it alright to teach a young girl that it’s okay to be comfortable in her own skin, no matter her shape or size? Of course, definitely so. It is not alright to teach a young girl that it’s okay to be comfortable being overweight or obese, be out of shape, eat nothing but McDonald’s, to put her health at risk for sake of being alright with who she is. There’s a fine line there, but I’d rather cross it than not approach it.

We teach them to strive to be the very best that they can with everything they do, right? School, social relationships, extra-curricular activities. That should also extend their outward appearance. Not solely for the sake of vanity, but for their quality of life as a whole. We should tell them to strive to be healthy, not thin or skinny, but to be healthy. It they are healthy at an above average weight, fine. If they are not, we should not coddle them. It does them no good, and much harm.

My younger sister is fat. She’s 13 years old and weighs a significant amount. She’s at high risk for diabetes, and her pediatrician has suggested to her and my mom that she lose weight. Neither of them take heed. She eats nothing that doesn’t come from a microwave or a paper bag. The most walking she does is getting from class to class in school. She is growing, every day, width wise more so than in height, and my mother is so concerned with not making her feel self concious about it that she won’t address it.

That’s not what my sister needs – people tiptoeing around the topic of her weight. She shouldn’t like herself the way she is. She is unhealthy. She should be aware, if some rude child at school hasn’t already taken care of that for her, that she’s too big. How is she being taught to love herself if she’s not being taught to take care of herself? Those two things seem to go hand in hand, if we’re talking about teaching them to a child. I don’t want her to be huge and happy. She should be average, normal, healthy and happy. If that means that she can’t have anymore Hot Pockets and Toaster Strudels, and that she’s miserably riding her bike around the neighborhood, so be it.

She’s about to enter high school. High school is hard enough without being the fat girl. Soon, there will be boys. I’d hate to see her crushes crush her because of her size. Yeah, sure, that makes the boys assholes and shallow and all of that, but they’re teenage boys. That’s what they are. She’s going to be in the thick of it, and I don’t understand why my mom is willing to send her into that den of hyenas with a bullseye on her front. People don’t want to accept or acknowledge it, but the truth is that looks matter. They shouldn’t – sure – but they do.

Now, it’s time for me to practice what I preach. I’m not going on any weight loss journey, but I’ve got set a better examples for my girls. I know that I’m not going to sit idly by while they get fat. It’s never going to happen. We have some serious genes in this family to combat, and when they’re old enough to know/do better, I’m going to encourage them to be their best, both inside and out. People may think that’s a bad thing, but I think it’s a wonderful thing. I think it’s bad to do the opposite, and I realize that if I’m pushing them to join the volleyball team or not eat a triple whopper with cheese while sitting here 80 pounds overweight, unable to resist that last donut, that they’re not going to take me seriously and they probably shouldn’t. How am I supposed to tell them to take care of themselves mind, body and soul if I don’t do the same? ‘Do as I say, not as I do‘? Yeah, no. I know my daughters, and that is not going to fly.

—————-
Listening to: John Mayer – In Repair

{ 36 comments }