this is embarrassingly probably one of my most girliest admissions. it sucks. when i was about 12 years old it finally hit me that i wasn’t like all the other girls. even though i’d previously thought myself pretty much the same as any other kid in my class, it wasn’t true. i was much bigger.
sure, there were girls taller than me by considerable amounts; even a few shorter or the same height. but i was wider. i remember being frustrated that i wasn’t exactly a kid anymore, but certainly didn’t look like any of the pretty girls. i kept wondering when i’d end up looking like a real grown up girl. i guess maybe everyone goes through that? one day you’re a child and the next you’re grown and glamorous, with a whole new body. instead, all i figured out was that i wasn’t as thin as the rest of the girls around me. my clothes were a little bigger, and i took up more space.
taking up space.
this concept completely occupied me for the rest of…well, forever, i suppose. if we’re going to be honest here. constantly aware of exactly how much space i’m taking up, how much room i fill, the yards of cloth required to cover me from sight. constantly fucking aware. and it started in earnest just by looking at my classmates, probably in PE or something like that, and realizing we weren’t exactly the same.
when i was 12 i thought i was fat. bordering on fat. too big. too much. i worried about it, always in the back of my mind it’s right there, nagging. over the years it still occupied my mind, surreptitiously i’d work on trying to reverse it, trying to stop it, trying to do something, anything, to not be so much. to be less.
maybe that’s why i worked so hard in school, that was one thing i had definite control over, you know? academic prowess. i could make my achievements far great — larger — than myself.
it worked for a little while. but it turns out i’m not entirely that smart.
if i stop and think how much time and money and effort i’ve put into trying to not look the way i look…i’m not even sure i can accurately tally it myself. i work(ed) really hard to keep it hidden from almost everyone, so much that i’ve partially hidden it from myself as well.
and it’s not all out of pure vanity, despite how it might sound. something more akin to fear of failure drives me on, and has since i was younger. and while it pushes me on, drives me to do the things i do, it doesn’t quite work. nothing clicks that makes me 180 on my current situation and improve, i’m never there. the desperation isn’t quite desperate enough yet.
i have failed.
it has never been more clear than today. oh, i’m not claiming obliviousness here, far from it. but i’m just realizing how much today. sure, there have been unfortunate pictures, clothes that pinch, general displeasure, etc. today i cleared out a bunch of old clothes from my parents house — can anyone say boredom? these were things i wore when i was about 12-14. things i was so frustrated with because they didn’t seem as cute as what all the other kids were wearing, they seemed so much larger. there was no reason to keep them, so i piled everything up to be thrown away.
of course, as the pile grew larger, i actually started looking at the things i was tossing aside. this is what shocked me.
jeans, sweaters, tank tops, shorts, dresses…a random sampling of my past. i remember wearing a few things, some fondly some not so much. but then i really looked at them. held them up, inspected the tags, tried to imagine what it was like actually wearing these clothes.
and then the shame. because there is no way i could fit into even the largest item now. even if i tried with all my might. how embarrassing is that?
i didn’t try, i couldn’t bring myself. i just looked, and looked and compared. back when i thought i was truly fat, truly too big, too much, too…everything…compared to now seems nothing. i sat with my favorite pair of old jeans. well-worn and much loved from years of wear when i was younger; a soft, faded pair of button-fly (my favorite) silver tabs. they seem so small now. so very fucking small. i would literally kill to be that small again. to wear them again.
oh god was i ever really small? really and truly?
all my life i’ve felt bulky and too large, uncomfortable and at odds with my own body. i’ve never once felt ‘small’ or ‘thin’; short, yeah…but that’s about it. today i realize that perspective is everything. sure, i may have been a bit bigger than the other girls back when i actually could fit into my silver tabs, but in comparison it is nothing next to the clothes i wear now. the things i always thought i was so fat in, are so small and mocking in comparison. it’s beyond depressing.
and the worst of it all is, what if some day down the line i look back at the clothes i’m wearing now with this same shameful longing?
i can’t even stomach the thought of it.