I started doing that thing again… waking up in the morning... gripping my stomach in front of the mirror...
…critically checking to see if there’s been overnight change. I’m not quite sure when it became a part of my morning routine or what prompts the automatic check in or why it matters but here I am daily. Standing in front of the full length mirror intended for admiring my thrifty fits, trying to convince myself that I don’t have to look a certain way – a different way – thinner.
Cut to a core memory from high school… where I’m standing in a courtyard at school wearing black velour pants with a red and black striped shirt when a nameless boy approaches me unprovoked. Imagine me, already a self conscious fifteen year old girl who questions her appearance, in front of a crowd of peers watching the interaction. He gut-checks me and asks when I was due. It didn’t register immediately and then he and the crowd chuckled at the cheeky comment and it hit me that he’s referring to a pregnancy belly. Instead of showing any sort of hurt emotion, I shrugged it off and probably called him a name in defense. The exact details escape me but the feeling–the uncomfortably awkward, please get me out of here, feeling is all too familiar. I didn’t hate my body entirely but I also didn’t think anyone noticed it to this extent…It’s ironic how I’ve begun my own reenactment of this event to myself every time I look into a mirror lately searching for imperfections; contorting my abdomen posing the same questions to myself… Do I look pregnant? Is my stomach flat enough? Can people tell that I’ve stopped lifting weights? The amount of questions posed in the mirror could spiral around me a dozen times. Each question getting farther and farther away from any sort of acceptance. And it’s gotten painfully clear that the relationship I have with my body at thirty-something feels a lot like the one I had as a teenager.
It sucks. Thinking of all the work I’ve done to dismantle the negative dialogue in my mind and seeing it unravel is heartbreaking. I thought I was more confident than that, I thought I was past the struggle with my appearance. Years and years spent feeling like the ugly friend, the fat friend, the bigger friend…the girl with the gap…never feeling pretty enough…never having clothes fit right… all rushing back to me in these moments in front of the mirror. Why now? Is it just aging? When did being in my 30’s start to feel like I’m not where I should be emotionally and physically? Here we are spiraling again.. Have we learned nothing?!
Okay – So, if I pause and take a breath to process my emotions like a “grown up,” I also must ask… what am I even expecting my physique to look like? Where did the ideas around my body come from? As I reflect, the dots connect to a very complicated childhood and complex relationship with a mother who worked tirelessly as a waitress. Are you surprised? Probably not.
As an adult, the relationship my mother and I have is one that I believe many can relate to; one where there’s intent for connection but somewhere along life’s many tribulations, distance has taken its place. It hasn’t always been like that though. I used to always want to be with her. I remember begging to come along while she ran errands and calling her incessantly when she wasn’t home. At one point I’d even considered her to be a best friend. When or why that changed is a story for another day but I find it important to note here so you can envision the kind of relationship where we’d share clothes, float between the lines of friendship and mother-daughter relationship and have open dialogue about pretty much anything. She’d casually mention her dieting or tactics to lose weight and I’d secretly follow suit. There was this saying she had - if you wanted to lose five pounds you just have to refrain from eating for a day. I would hardly look at a scale but whenever I felt that I looked too big, I’d skip a meal or two like the mantra says. It’s ironic thinking back about how we could talk about anything yet never really talked positively about body image or self esteem. Phrases like “fat cow” and “grody” were regularly thrown around the house without aim. It was like there was some imaginary standard set but only applied to adults and yet I had no frame of reference for what I was supposed to be.
It didn’t help that I was well developed by third grade. I was the tallest girl and probably was one of the first to have “chi chi’s” come in. I just remember feeling like I stood out among my peers. Always in the back of the class photos; always taller than all the boys; I categorized myself as a tomboy to make it make sense. My mother and I also never really talked about bras or puberty. One day we were coming home from the store and I randomly found the urge to ask her when I should start shaving my armpits, showing her the hair that had begun to grow. Innocently, she laughed suggesting I start now. For some reason it felt like I should have known but had no idea where I would have learned if not from her. From then on I took it upon myself to start shaving any place that grew hair. I can thank the learning curve for the many scars acquired during that phase.
Like most, my teenage years weren’t exempt from inner scrutiny. I tried my hardest to hide in a t-shirt, jeans and sunglasses daily. My confidence was always teetering. I couldn’t get it out of my head that I was “bigger” than everyone else. Even playing sports I was reminded of my size based on the position I played. “You’re not fat, you just have big boobs.” The intentions were always good but seemed to dig a deeper hole in my self esteem.
Looking back now, I wish I could hug her. Tell her that our body deserved our love no matter its size or stretch marks or what we wore. In hindsight, we weren’t even overweight. BMI charts aren’t realistic anyways. It’s also amazing that I almost weigh what I weighed at 16 but have so much more muscle. I workout more and try to eat more things that fulfill my health holistically.
On my way to the gym the other day my mother and I stumbled into a conversation. She often spews compliments like rapid fire and then follows it with a self-deprecating comment like “yeah I’m a fat cow, I need to stop eating.” I stopped her in the conversation and asked if she knew that her mindset was something that I held onto as a kid. She shared that she didn’t think I would have taken her seriously but that’s what she would really do. I can’t remember a time where she ate regularly or found anything remotely nice to say about herself or created a dialogue that welcomed a variety of acceptable body images. I can’t blame her for the conditioning of the 80’s and 90’s, being thin was “in.”
I’m not sure how I would have known not to take comments like that literally as a child but where the conversation went next provided so much insight into how I might’ve gotten here. “You should have heard what my mom used to say. She would say such horrible things about herself and I thought she was so beautiful. It made me think, wow I must be hideous if SHE thinks she needs to change.”
And just like that, it clicked for me. These harsh beliefs I’ve carried with me were passed down to me subconsciously. In this moment, a simple five minute conversation, I saw generations in front of me; standing in front of mirrors, dissecting their bodies piece by piece, wishing they looked like the version of themselves they deemed perfect. My heart broke for us on my drive to the gym that day. I couldn’t help but to think where we would be had our mothers talked nicer to themselves; accepted their bodies as is and loved them through their changes with compassion.
Maybe it wouldn’t have changed much but maybe I can start now – standing in front of the mirror daily and telling every inch “I love you.”
This essay was published in an anthology “Amidst the Drought”, available for purchase here.
