All posts tagged fat

I am 28 and driven to depression, thinking myself fat and undeserving of the name “beautiful.”

To me, thin is beautiful. Not for everyone— the plus sized model who recently graced, grabbed, shook the crap out of Glamour Magazine’s traditionally skin-and-bones model bodies, I kiss your feet, girl. You rock. Thin is beautiful for me. Thin is a necessary Jodi commodity.

…this belief is a sickness. But despite my efforts I can’t, poof!, make myself better. My only (working) remedy is to be thinner. The only consistent, non-white-washed remedy is to lose weight.

… When I was young and found myself turning into WOMAN I recognized/ learned my assets. I was never going to be the cute, athletic, perky-titted type. Nor was a ever going to be deliciously curvy, oozer of yes-I-can-carry-and-deliver-your-many-children. I was never going to be the girl next door or the exotic, brown skinned lovaah from somewhere south of the border. If anything, as a sexual-something, I was going to be “the model.”

“Wow, you are so tall-and-thin. You could be a model…”

Tall-and-thin, tall-and-thin, tall-and-fucking-fucking-thin. That’s what I heard (and hear) as my female value proposition. And it is one item. One description. Tall cannot live without thin… not in the land of high-value anyway. This is a combo-effect. Necessarily married or doomed to nothingness.

And that is what I fear, I think, as I see my love handles expanding beyond confinement of my jeans. What will I become… if I’m not tall-and-thin. The athlete? The curvy girl? The exotic? Not a chance.

“Tall-and-fat” just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it…

So where am I left? Embarassed. Angry and feeling small and immature that the same goddamn issue that I wrestled with and starved myself over as a teenager, and again mid-college, is creeping up on my otherwise evolved life.

I don’t want to deal with this one anymore, guys. Can we pick another flavor of focus? Can someone please help me understand how fat-Jodi can be beautiful? Not the intellectual-quick-fix. Please don’t patronize me. I, too, took Women’s Studies in school. If it was quick as (thump-chest) “Beauty is from within” for the love of God don’t you think I’d kick this addiction/ self-depriving/ confidence-mutilating roller coaster?

I may not want to be fat… but I want to be okay being fat. I want fat to be okay.

I am getting fat. All six feet of me. Well, actually just the middle section. Stretched out frog. Green and protruding. I am wearing my fat jeans. They are rubber-banding me right under my belly-button (maybe they are castrating me into two sections?). I am waist-ed.

I blame James. He makes me fresh gnocchi. And I mean the real doughy shit—imports the flour form Italy, the Olive Oil from Italy. Mixes it with Organic, free-range eggs, straight from the womb of chickens that actually have sex (what exactly does chicken sex entail anyway? #nowthatsanimage). He hand rolls it carefully on my wood dining room table. Not the kind of gnocchi with potatoes, no (“Too light”). Gnocchi with ricotta cheese. He eats it raw. Pops it in his mouth like Kettle Corn.

Not me though. You might as well smear the damn dough on my ass. Cooked or uncooked, it rests in little pockets on awkward bodily spaces. Why can’t I take a little from my hips and squish it into my chest? Or (Ooooo!) buns? I mean, I could manage a bit of extra volume in the rear section. Wouldn’t that be a clever trick??

Dear God, I’ve grown.

I’m now padded—in pesto and asiago and vegan alfredo sauce and warm, wholesome pasta gestated in the hands of a simply superior human being. (But also!) I am now layered with ocean-wide love, and reverence, and devotion. I dare say I might be able to change the world with this newfound girth. Undoubtedly a sign of health, and healing. WELL FED. Expansive. Grounded. Whole. This is now me.

My darling, lifelong, friend came over for dinner the other night, feeling rotten. A truly hideous day. An hour later after her arrival she sighed and remarked with surprise, Gosh, I suddenly feel like an entirely different person.  I smiled. Closed my eyes, knowingly. Ahhh, I’m baaaaack.

It occurred to me as I noticed my (chubby-faced) contented look in the reflection of the sliding glass door…the more I am, the more of me there is to give. And so I eat and feed, and share abundantly. Full and again able to fill.