All posts tagged woman

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.