He Told Me I Was Fat

It's no secret that I've struggled with my weight for a really long time. In high school, I struggled with an eating disorder and since I can remember, I've always been a yo-yo dieter. Liquid diets? Tried 'em. Slim Fast diet? Done it. South Beach? Well, I attempted it. You name it, I've at least researched the hell out of it.

Why? Simply because I'm the word no one wants me to say out loud, but they're thinking it inside their head.

And I don't have to wonder why. I can tell you why. Because when I was 8 years old in the third grade, a boy named J.R. told me that I was fat. I know exactly where I was standing, I remember exactly what I was wearing: blue jeans, a long sleeved white tshirt and a yellow vest. I don't think I'll ever forget that day.

And ever since, I've known. Before that day, I was clueless. If you looked at me now you might not believe me, but until the summer before middle school, I was easily the tallest kid in my class. I towered over the girls and the boys had to look up to me just a little by default. I hit puberty early on in life and while my flat-chested friends joked about stuffing their training bras with tissue paper, I logically decided that if I could just figure out how, I'd trade my body with them in a heartbeat.

Looking back at my third grade self, I can most confidently assure you that I was not, even by my own critically high standards, fat. I was very tall and my body was developing much differently than my peers. I was six months older than most of my classmates and those six months made a big difference - no pun intended. I was active in sports, cheered for the Startown Tigers and played softball for the "purple" team - whatever that was.

My stomach was flat but you couldn't see that under the baggy clothes I started to wear. My legs were toned but I never wore shorts because, fat girls don't wear shorts. I began to despise gym because I just knew they would make fun of me for trying to do the things small people did. I had long legs and I could run swiftly, but I was terrified to. So I didn't. 

And from that very moment in third grade when a boy told me exactly what I was, I became that.

I knew that boys would not be attracted to me because I wasn't thin enough and I was just too tall. I knew that fat girls didn't play sports, so just after I nailed my back handspring for the first time, I stopped cheering. I didn't have anyone at home telling me to play outside, so I didn't. I was a latchkey kid, I did what I wanted to and I did what I thought I was supposed to do.

By the time I was old enough to know any better, the damage was done. I began to fit the lifestyle of what I had been told I was. So when I looked in the mirror one day and saw that I had gained a lot of weight, I wasn't surprised. I thought I looked like I had always looked; I thought this was how I was supposed to look, according to J.R.

As an adult, I do know better. I know that eating right and staying active are important things to do. But the struggle for someone who grew up knowing what she was is real. It isn't as easy as just do it. There's a mental block that takes time to get over. About a year ago I actually got a message from J.R. on facebook. He apologized for what he said; he remembered. As vivid as I held onto the image of finding out that I was fat, he held onto the guilt of letting me know.

It's been 14 years since my struggle with weight began, and I can't blame the little kid in my third grade class for who I am today. I am my own person and I do make my own choices. I put myself in the position that I'm in today, but I can't help but wonder...

...what if I had never been told that what I was, was fat?
...what if someone would have looked me in the eye and told me that I was beautiful?

 

New Year Rewind

2013 and I got off to a pretty rocky start.

For some crazy reason, I convinced myself that once the clock struck midnight on January 1st, the year would fly and my husband would be home just like that. I counted and recounted the marbles in my homemade countdown jars, I checked the pie chart and percentage of deployment left on my iPhone like it was my job, and I realized that January wasn't magical; by the first of the year, we still had months and months to go.

I began working out fiercely again in January but by the end of the month, I had lost just a few more pounds. I cried when I stepped on the scale because even though I managed to hit my first real goal, I realized how far I had to go. Few people who really mattered even noticed I had lost thirty pounds and I found myself asking, "Is it really worth it?" My brain knew that it was, but my heart wasn't sure. I felt like I had failed already; I simply didn't want to have to acknowledge that it was just too much.

I became, if it's possible, more sensitive than normal. On the day my best friend left to go back to college, I cried in my office because I didn't want him to go. For the first time during this entire deployment, when E would call, I would break down in tears when he had to get off the phone. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I didn't and when one of my board members came into my office and asked me how my husband was doing - you guessed it - the tears wouldn't stop falling.

January was, by no stretch of the imagination, rough. And when February rolled around, I wasn't given much of a break. Within two weeks I had been diagnosed with the flu, an upper respiratory infection, strep throat, pink eye and last but certainly not least, mono. At first I was irritated and then slowly, I became sad. I cried in my doctor's office saying simply, I don't want to feel like this anymore. On my last visit, my doctor looked me in the eyes and said, "You aren't sleeping. Your immune system is shot and your anxiety is pushing you over the edge. Are you sure you don't want to try..." and I stopped him. No, I don't want to try anti-anxiety medication. I don't want to take anything for depression. 

I knew that pills weren't the answer. I needed to get back on track; but I still didn't get back on track.

February kept rolling and as Valentine's day approached, I became proud of myself for staying so strong. My sweet E had sent flowers that arrived a week early, and we talked almost every day for a week. Once the 14th showed up, I was actually excited. My love my be 7,000 miles away but I still got butterflies knowing that I was sharing yet another Valentine's day with my E. But that night, after I was done with my shower and I was getting ready for bed, the restaurant below my apartment started their live jazz for the holiday. The saxophone started, the romantic melody of Shania Twain's You're Still The One floated into my bathroom and I was finally brought to tears. I so missed my husband; spending the night alone was not ideal.

But I kept going. I finally started to feel better and I geared up for my fourth big night at work. Jon Reep was coming to the NCA and the show was sold out. I always panic before these shows, and being so new to my job I feel like I have everything to prove and even more to lose. I was beyond ecstatic when I found out my best friend would be coming home and coming to the show. In hindsight, I honestly don't know what I would have done without him last night. Or any night, quite honestly, but that's an entirely different post.

The show went off without a hitch and I did not realize that by tonight I would have learned and grown in ways unimaginable. Opening for Jon Reep was Brian Kiley, a comedian from Tennessee. Before the show, I talked with Kiley and shared jokes with him back stage. I introduced him, but his own request, to an audience of 500 people as Krispy Kreme Donut's Sexiest Man Alive. After the show, we talked again and as a joke, he autographed a piece of paper for me where he had written the one-liner that I used to break the ice before his arrival on stage. He was delightful.

Tonight, I learned that as Brian was driving on I40 in the early hours of the morning, he was killed by a drunk driver. Just like that. Gone.

Anyone who knows me knows that death is my least favorite thing. Not only is it my biggest fear, but it's my biggest anxiety trigger. It's been almost two years and I still haven't fully recovered from seeing my sweet pug be put down at 14 years old. To remember Brian's voice, to remember shaking his hand, to have been the last person to introduce him on stage and to have been the last person he ever signed an autograph for, well, is quite simply overwhelming. As I learned of his passing, I sat in shock before the tears fell. Life is so short. I thought I knew this. I should know this.

From never forgetting the death of Spc. Trevor Pinnick to being faced with terrifying possibility of what war could do to my own husband, I thought I realized just how short life was. Perhaps I did but I got immune to the idea. Tonight, I am harshly reminded that once again, life is so short.

So 2013, I am ready for you to begin. I know we had a rocky start and I'm well aware I can't rewind you (not that I'd add back 48 days to the Deployment Countdown anyway), but I want to really start you. 

So February 18th, let's do this. Tomorrow is it. We're in the final leg of this deployment and there's no use in giving up now. I have more pounds to lose and more of myself to find, and I can do this.

Happy New Year to me.