The "F" word

I was sitting down last night, thinking to myself, and I realized I am different. 

Recently I have heard ground shaking spoken word on the subject of growing up in the shadow of skinny. These women pour out all of their shame and anger. They draw up a picture of mothers who are thinner by the day. They speak of diets and exercise routines and an outpouring of love they received for each pound gone. It seems this may be the "typical household" and if that's the case, I guess I grew up atypical. 

My mother, as far as I'm concerned, is as tall as the sky is wide. Since I was a kid I marveled at the way she reach up, up, up, almost as if she could touch the stars and bring them down for me. I told myself that one day, I would be tall like her. I can't remember one instance where I looked at the shape or size of my mother's body and really had an opinion on it. I never compared her to her friends or to other people's mothers. To me it was always apples and oranges. There was no way to compare the beauty of one woman against another. 

I know that at one point my mother had a gastric bypass. I remember vaguely when she went in for the surgery. Surgery was for when you are sick. My mother was sick; her body was not feeling good and so she fixed it. I don't ever remember my mother sharing any negative body talk with me. I remember eating rolls of cookie dough on the couch with probably the millionth viewing of Mrs. Doubtfire. I remember getting our favorite chips, eating them, and then me styling (read: knotting the hell out of) her hair. My mother never made me feel bad about her body or my own. My mother never taught me to hate food. My mother never uttered the words diet, fat, or shame around me. She never projected her negativity on me or tried to tell me I should be some way that I wasn't. After her surgery, she had to eat a certain way. She told me it was painful otherwise. Somehow she never made it about being skinny. To be honest, I haven't sat down and had a conversation with her on why she did it. 

I grew up with a lot of girlfriends. We went through our hormonal mood swings together, got each other sick, and were together at least 75% of our teenage lives. I'm sure at one point or another, someone decided they were on a diet. Hell, truth be told it was probably me. I do know for sure that it wasn't very often that someone claimed that they "looked like a whale" in an outfit or "needed to lose some weight". Like I said, I know it came up but it was never the center of a discussion. We didn't sit around the cafeteria drooling over rail thin models. We are all very different, which I think helped this dynamic. We had all heights and shapes. We would joke about trading boobs for hips or long legs for a rounder tush but it never felt like we were picking on ourselves. It was really just a backwards way of giving a compliment. I know that my friends never ever made me feel fat. They never made me feel like there was something I couldn't wear or couldn't do because of my size. They never encouraged me to joint them on a fad diet or insist that we needed to run together. We encouraged each other to chase our own lifestyles. If one of us was in a sport, we would go to her games and cheer them on. If one of us did a play, we would go to her shows. We did dance class together because it was fun and challenging and it was another hour we could spend together. 

The only place I clearly remember body shame growing up was in my own household. I have a million different memories of my step mother focusing on fat. She felt fat, so she took diet pills. She felt fat so she only drank water and ate salads. She felt fat so she couldn't wear certain things. I remember that at some point, these ideas carried over to me. She saw me as being fat and she wanted me to fix it. She didn't put me on a diet or make me run laps, but she was never without a comment. Certain clothes "showed my belly" so I shouldn't wear them. Dresses "weren't flattering". Snacks and treats "weren't necessary". These sorts of comments even carried through to my own father. She would pat his stomach and say something about him having a baby, or being round. She would tell him that it was no surprise, when she saw him eating something unhealthy. Her fat shame seemed to spread to everyone in the house. She made me second guess myself when I got dressed in the morning. She made me re-consider the food I enjoyed. She never let me forget that I was fat. I was fat and fat was limiting. Fat should be hidden and, when you get older, fat should be shed by any means necessary. 

I didn't know how these conflicting ideas had affected me until I got older. I knew I was beautiful. I knew that all shapes and sizes were beautiful. But I also knew that I was fat. I knew that I had to make sure I looked flattering all of the time because "other people don't want to see that." I was 75% confidence and 25% shame. I don't think most young women today can claim such high statistics. I feel almost like I am not entitled to feel fat because I was raised so positively. I feel like I shouldn't write about body shame because I never experienced it to the degree that so many do. I worry that maybe I am not qualified to teach you to love your body. But you know what? I'm going to keep doing it. 

I like the way I grew up, if we're being real here. I grew up eating strawberries out of the field and tomatoes off the vine. I grew up eating vegetables by the handful because they were so good. I also knew the sweet torture of waiting for brownies to cool, ice cream to thaw, and bacon to fry. I grew up running and climbing and playing like all the other kids. I worked hard on the farm and in school. I took a lot of pride in everything I did. I loved the sunshine and the animals...and my Gameboy and my N64. My perfect Friday was spent at the  movie theater or at the drive-in with a bucket of KFC. I was told, every day, that I was beautiful. I was loved by so many people that it was almost greedy to keep all of the love. I learned that some people thought being fat was bad. I learned that other people thought that dating, piercings, and trick or treating was bad too. I learned that it was important to have my own ideas on good and bad, and to live accordingly. I was called mean names and I was rumored about. This helped me figure out that words could not, in fact, kill me. I saw a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. I was blessed, but not sheltered. 

I continue to grow every single day. I reflect back on the things that brought me here. I remember all the things I learned, laughed about, and loved. I try to remember all the lessons but there were so many. If there's one thing I was fully equipped with when I graduated, it was a good head on my shoulders.