“She’s 14-years-old and weighs 75 pounds, how skinny!” a teacher remarked as I passed in the hallway. I was standing in line ready to go to the cafeteria, thinking to myself, Well, I’m eight and I weigh 75 pounds -- so what does that make me?
Isn’t it funny how memory works? I don’t know the teacher who said it, and I know she wasn't talking to me, but those words stuck with me, and even as an adult I can remember how they made me feel. Not skinny. Not great. Not enough. One comment, taken so out of context in my eight-year-old brain made me feel that suddenly my weight was my name, my identity and my worth.
There’s a lot of history leading up to that moment; I was bullied throughout elementary school for being a bit on the pudgier side, for developing earlier than others, for being non-athletic. I got the “spazz” award because I was so bad at sports they couldn’t think of anything else to label what I was. And because I was bad at sports, I didn't exercise much. Kids my age made a point to tell me just how bad i was at running, jumping and climbing, then graciously pointed out how much bigger my thighs were, too. At eight, it was made very clear that I wasn't skinny, and I never would be.
Flash forward to high school and I learned to eat better and how to exercise non-competitively to keep myself active. I was healthy, but I wasn’t skinny. I had salads nearly every day for lunch, loaded with beautiful vegetables and vinaigrettes. I learned to drink (and love) coffee black, while my friends drank that so- sweet- it’ll- make-you-sick vanilla frappuccino. I stuck to water and developed a habit of Diet Coke, occasionally. While my friends had lovely raging metabolisms, eating and drinking whatever they pleased, I stuck to a diet -- and still wasn’t skinny.
Prom, junior year, my friends and I went shopping for prom dresses together and I dreaded it. They picked beautiful gowns, grinning like kids in a candy store as they spun around in dresses that swirled around them. I was so happy for them, so excited they felt so good. I tried one on and nearly broke the zipper. I tried another one on and my chest drooped more than a basset hound’s face. My friends were supportive, encouraging, saying things like, “Well, we’ll try another one, there’s one out there for you!” So I could fit into the dresses, sucking in the air as the zipper climbed up my back, but they never looked quite right. I wasn’t “fat,” but I still wasn’t skinny.
College, freshman year; we’re beyond broke so we share things like crazy. Everyone borrows my stuff, my shoes, my accessories, but no one bothers to borrow my clothes, and I don’t borrow theirs. My size is the elephant in the room, even though it's not that much bigger. The only thing they borrow from me are my hoodies and yoga pants because “they’re cozy and big and good to veg out in.” I wore hoodies all the time because it meant that something wasn’t hugging my skin and I didn’t need to be reminded that I still wasn’t skinny.
College second year -- I find a personal trainer who needs me to be her guinea pig. I learn to love working out and manage to exercise 20 to 30 minutes a day. I gain confidence, skill and strength and, yet, the weight never budged. I could dead lift, squat, bench press, whatever. The love handles still clung to the running shorts, the chaffing still caused bleeding on the inside of my legs, my face still turned purple -- and I still wasn’t skinny.
“Your blood work looks great, but according to your BMI you're still overweight --here’s a list of fruits and vegetables to eat and exercises to do.”
“You’d really look great if you could just lose like, 15 pounds.”
“Wow! You look so much better!”
“Why do you eat so healthy all the time?”
Skinny always seems two steps ahead of me. Overweight seems to be my constant companion, saying that skinny equals good, and that overweight was not good enough. It's like if I could have just reached skinny then I would have reached success. But it was always a game where skinny was the carrot that got pulled away; just outside of reach, but there's more to my identity than being skinny.
Skinny does not equal good. Fat does not equal bad. Weight is too grey, too individual, too simplified to ever be a measure of worth. Overweight, pudgy, love handles, not skinny -- they're not who I am. I am a child of God, a wife, a sister, an aunt, a friend, an artist, a writer and a creator. I used to let not being skinny define me, but I’m learning day by day it’s much more useful to define yourself by what you are rather than what you’re not.
