Puzzle Pieces

Writing the Truth or Lie post was tough. Posting it was tougher. In fact, it sat as a draft for several hours while I previewed it over and over. Finally, I clicked Publish and asked my brother (the one of my heart and soul but not my blood) to read it.

A few minutes later I dashed off this e-mail:

B: It feels SO wrong to quote the guy about "beautiful woman," but the story doesn't make sense without it.

Does it sound arrogant?

Please tell me the unvarnished truth.

The story rolled together easily except for the difficulty of writing that. I may not be able to leave it up. When I read it after it was published, I cringed. Big time.

B's response was totally typical of him——smart, loving, and reassuring. It also contained a challenge to write about how difficult it was for me to tell that story.

So here we are, talking about my bad body image. It really is very bad.

When I was a very young child, I was rail thin. My folks even consulted a doctor about how to fatten me up. I don't know whether his suggestions worked or it was simply Life that took care of that problem. And created another.

Either way, I started second grade with the other kids my age, but after a short time the teacher and my parents decided to skip me to third grade. With no warning and no explanation, one day my teacher told me to gather my pencils and crayons and then led me to a third grade classroom.

Let me tell you, throwing a 7 year old into a classroom of 8 year olds is like throwing raw meat to jackals. The younger, smaller child gets eaten for lunch. Keeping up the class work was no problem, but being accepted by the other kids was no day at the zoo. Check that. Maybe that's exactly what it was.

That summer, with no warning and little explanation, our family packed up and moved from a small city in California to a tiny town in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri.

By the middle of next school year, I was a chunk. My mother's worst threat was “Do (whatever I say) or I'll make you wear Chubby sizes."

This was a punishment worse than being spanked with sticks I was forced to retrieve myself from trees in our yard. I would have done anything to avoid the humiliation of Chubby sizes.

Shame shadowed me until the summer before 7th grade, when I somehow morphed into a shapely teenager. No major dieting, no crazy exercise regime. I just grew into myself somehow.

7th grade was a revelation. Boys who hadn't known I was alive in 6th grade now fought for my attention. These were guys who had known me for years—boys who had sat next to me in class, laughed at me on the playground, and acted like I didn’t exist when we first got old enough for speculation on who “liked" whom.

The whole thing confused me. I was exactly the same person. Same brain (carefully concealed so it wouldn'’t intimidate the boys). Same sense of humor. Same values. Yet everything was different.

For the next decade or so, I was appreciated, valued, and rewarded for the way I looked. It did not always feel good.

Then came the years of my marriage. I wore a size 6 in year one and a size 16 by year 16. The longer my marriage dragged on, the more energy it took not to let myself know anything dangerous to the status quo. And the more spoons full of sugar I swallowed to help the betrayals go down.

Periodically I would get on an exercise or diet kick and drop a few pounds, but it rarely lasted more than a couple of months. When men—not including my wasband—began to shoot admiring glances my way, I unconsciously slipped back into the comforting embrace of carbohydrates. Far less dangerous than the sort of embraces my body—and my soul—craved so desperately.

The leader at my Weight Watchers meeting once asked, “If what you need is a hug and what you reach for is cookies, how many cookies will it take to fill you?" I tested the limits of the question but found no definitive answer.

When my wasbund’s betrayals became so blatant they could no longer be ignored, one of his justifications was, “How could you let yourself look the way you look?"

Now the answer seems so obvious. It was easier to put his apathy down to my size and general dishabille than to the truth that he didn't love me.

Boy Howdy, how I did not want to know that.

But one Sunday afternoon I blundered head-on into the unavoidable truth when I stopped by the office on my way to the grocery store. Instead of information on what he would like for dinner, I got an eyeful of him and his secretary making out on the lovely tapestry sofa I'd picked for his office.

Shit.

I crept back down the hall and out the door. They never knew I'd seen them. I actually went to the grocery store and then cooked dinner. I simply didn't know what else to do.

He came home later, full of details about how well his conference call had gone and what a rosy future was in store for the corporation we'd been nourishing together for seven years.

When he began to say grace before dinner, I threw up in my plate.

It took another month or so for the full drama to begin and many, many months until it reached the denouement. In that time, I could barely choke down solid food but drank cup after cup of hot water, which I found soothing for some reason. Literally before I realized what was happening, I was a size 6 again.

There's more, of course, but I'm going to save those gory details for another post. For the moment, I'm going to conclude with words of gratitude for the people who have loved me through every stage and every size I've been. They are my true tribe and I thank God for them.

People who can only accept me in single-digit sizes have worn as thin as the sole of a dancing slipper never meant to touch the mean streets of the real world. I'm trying so hard tnot to invite any more of them into my life.

The trick is recognizing the difference in time to avoid crash-and-burn scenarios. I'm a slow learner, I guess. Details to follow.