On Fat

So despite the name of this blog, I didn't really expect to write too much about body image. Frankly, I'm kind of sick of talking about it as a "feminist issue." I mean, with everything else that we have to deal with--violence, racism, exploitation, fucking CONGRESS--I am supposed to add my ass-size to agenda? Please.

But that does not mean that I do not obsess over my ass size. And my thighs. And my gut.

I was feeling good about myself this weekend, and so I bought myself a bathroom scale for the first time in several years. Now, I know that I am at my fattest right now. A cocktail of various medications and recent situational depression have ensured this. So I shouldn't have been shocked by the number I saw on this scale. But I was.

Reader, I nearly cried.

I nearly cried because I felt so unhealthy, so ugly, so irreversibly unlovable. I should point out that during this recent fat period, I have resumed yoga, gotten laid, and rediscovered a sheer joy in my own company--and yet, that all felt beside the point when I saw this number. This number eclipsed all of that, leaving me with self-hatred and self-pity. Lord, I almost thought of buying Dexatrim or getting mono. I was like an after-school special.

I grew up skinny. I was picky, pain-in-the-ass eater whose mother was a registered dietician. I never felt fat until I was in college, and then I was surrounded by feminists who taught me to revel in a little extra chunk-age.  I learned to cut back a little and exercise, but not buy into the patriarchy. Age has slowed down my metabolism and the real world has slowed down my feminist response.

I calmed down a little. I am trying to make healthier decisions on what I eat and move my body a bit more. But I am still weighing myself every morning and spending time with hunger gnawing away at me. I look down at my stomach and wonder when my body decided to turn itself against me, or when I turned against it...