HUSKY
I have never been quite comfortable in my body.
It’s the revelation of the century, some fat chick doesn’t like the way she looks sometimes! Stop the presses!
Yanno, what? That’s not it at all.
When I was little, I was so teeny and thin. I was bony and STILL worried about my weight. I would scoot forward in class in my little, orange, plastic, 5th grade chair so my leg and thigh fat wouldn’t spread. I was wearing a size 10 slim jean. If you are not familiar with what that looks like. Take a wooden ruler, then take another wooden ruler. Make them about a 32 inseam and you have a 10 slim. I was also the 2nd tallest in my class. So I was this bird like little thing with what my father called a hollow leg, “Stand up and shake all that food into your hollow leg, girl, so you can keep eating.”
I danced, I played, I roller skated, I sweated and sweated in that thick, sweet Georgia air.
Moving to Texas in the 6th grade was a shocker. Number 1. No horse tied up for me in the front of what was supposed to be my parents’ new sprawling Texas dude ranch. Number 2. Why the hell does this (hands making the “encompassing this whole damn area” gesture) look just like every other suburban area that I have ever seen? Number 3… dude, where are the tumble weeds? And finally, Number 4. Holy shit, I do not stand a chance here, all of the boys are good looking and the girls are smoking hot. I am DOOOMED.
Add the graceful way I had about me and my inherent athleticism… (OMG, I almost got through that with a straight face.) and you had a recipe for disaster. If THAT wasn’t enough, I grew almost 5 inches in three months over that first summer between 6th and 7th grade. Yeah, I (alarmingly to my parents) gained 20 pounds then shot up to tower over my sister in less than three months. The nights and days of growing pains were agony. I outgrew my 10 slim jeans and started with hot flashes.
I still danced, I still played, I even still roller skated and I definitely sweated and sweated in the thick, hot Texas air.
I quit ballet and started with contemporary dance (mumbles… and tap… shut up) and jazz in earnest. I still can’t hear Al Jarreau or Basia song without thinking of a warm up routine. If you catch me at it, I may be doing the stretches and flexes to warm my muscles. Each song, each warm up was a routine that has been ingrained into my muscle memory.
I was dancing with a company, I was dancing in school, I was dancing (by the time I was 16) at the Good Luck Rodeo Club in Lewisville. I never thought I was “the pretty one”, I never thought I was “the smart one”; I never thought I was “the slutty one” and I never thought I was “the aloof one”. I just thought I was kind of invisible, some girl, just brash enough to ask a man to dance before he asked her. When high school rolled around I became “the funny one”… I think as a defensive measure. This would definitely mold my character when later I became the “fat funny one”.
I’ve never thought as myself as anything but as someone’s wingman. In college, or when my sister was in college and I would go to visit, her friends, knowing that I had never met a stranger (or turn down a dare*), would point at a cute boy and ask me to go find out about him. I would walk over, tap said dude on the shoulder, strike up a conversation and then lead the boy back to my sister and her gaggle of friends. I would stand in the back, nervously looking around or just waiting until there was a lull in the conversation so I could fill it with something bawdy and inappropriate that would guarantee laughter (and a red face of either pride or embarrassment from my gorgeous sister).
*She’s wily, that sister of mine. Her: “MOON THAT CAR!” Me: “Dur…. H’okay.” And the car stops at the full site of my lily white 6 year old ass. We all scatter. This apparently never got old.
I dared to think that I was even slightly cute when I was in college. I had several dance partners and I was never at a lack for friends to hang out with. It was so easy to be in the company of these people. I started to grow some self confidence. I was never short on character, and I was a forced extrovert to my sister’s painful shyness**, but I was never boastful or full of myself.
**Never short on BOSSY, that one.
I’ve always had friends, and I tend to try and throw strange groups of people together … “Freaks, Jocks… Cheerleaders, Choir Nerds, Drama Club… and my church group… annnnnnnnnnnd GO!” and sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t… but at college, it was a diverse group of people and they ebbed and flowed around the nimbus of our existence. Two things made up the molecules for this awesome atom (didn’t I tell you to shut it?)… our neutron was beer and our proton was dancing. Everything else was just a bonus.
I still danced, I still played, I traded roller skating for jitterbugging in a parking lot and I definitely sweated and sweated in the thick, hot East Texas air.
I started to become relaxed in my skin. It was a strange sensation to be comfortable in what I wore, how my hair and makeup looked and (or didn’t)… or maybe I just didn’t care. Oh, we all know that is horse shit. Anyone who could make their hair THAT high in the 90’s cared. And they cared a LOT. I was just more interested in the physicality of dancing, finding the beat, closing my eyes with a trusted partner and knowing they’d never let me fall, or bump into another dancing couple on the floor.
It also kind of nice to be thinner with all the exercise (probably… hell.. OK, FINE… I was Anorexic as fuck and my family PRAISED THE SHIT OUT OF ME FOR HOW AWESOME I LOOKED) and the dancing (and not eating, sleeping or doing anything that remotely followed a healthy plan).
There was still a bundle of nerves below my sternum, but I was (here’s the biggie) pretty fine… ok… (LIAR, deep breath)… I can even admit that I found it thrilling to be physically picked up by men for jitterbugging, a bear hug, just to carry me, to catch me if I came at them like a spider monkey. I had not been picked up physically by a man (or sat in one’s lap (except accidentally)) since I was all of 10 years old. Being tall and what my mother considered “husky” this was not something I had ever really expected.
When as a cheerleader I was a base…. Of course. I could bench press a small Volvo because I am freakishly strong, but lo, because I am also… “husky”. I threw people in the air. I was always one to help people move… “Hey, could you grab that trunk of really old novels for me that weighs a thousand pounds and put it in the attic, Sue?” “I’m on it.” I was never petite. I went from my size 10 slims into a Junior’s 13. The fuck? “It’s the length of your legs.” My mother’s mother would say to mask the fact that I was bordering close to being in women’s sizes at age twelve.
My feet? Pretty, yes. Size 10 mother fuckers. My ass when I first started to gain my weight? I was horrified that I was a 14/16. Now I would PAY to be a 14/16 and not have someone have to use the Jaws of Life to get me into and out of it. Whatever IT is. I gained all of my weight at once. Really in one fell swoop. It was like the fat stork was like “Here ya go… HUSKY!” and then flew away cackling after he dropped the extra 60 pounds for me to pack around my face, neck, ass, chin, belly and boobs. Holy shit. I got boobs out of this?
They’re real, and they are fantastic.
So, I noticed, that even when I crept over 200 pounds, I really wasn’t that big. When I crept past 250 I really wasn’t that big. When I sent Trance Jen a picture text sometime in the last 18 months that said “HOLY FUCK” with a picture of my feet on a doctor’s scale that was perilously close to 280 pounds, I really… wasn’t THAT big.
I’ve lost a lot of weight in this “divorce and be completely miserable with your job” diet. But I am still not comfortable in my skin. Dre still doesn’t believe that I can be anywhere near a deuce and a half (he saw me stand on the scale in a hospital) and still look the way I look. Some of you have seen pictures on Flickr and are all… DUDE, no way. But yeah. I’m thick. It’s cool. We’re all sexy, no need to be jealous. But I still can’t get over that my food baby is enormous. I dress well for my body type, and I am freaking adorable naked (think Cupid, with longer legs, tits, and no wings) but some days, like today. I am just not comfortable in my skin.
Sure it’s handy to rest my little t-rex arms on my food baby as I type this. And yeah, my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard…. But maybe it’s because they’re hungry and I can cook like a mother fucker.
So a resolution. If you will. I want a tummy tuck sometime near my 40th birthday. They won’t give me one if I weigh this much, regardless that I can carry so much weight and most of it is muscle (shut up, it IS)… and I just turned freaking thirty-nine years old.
No, I am not quitting smoking. No, I will not quit drinking beer. But if one thing is a constant in me being “smaller of sizes” it’s the dancing. I don’t care if I Zumba or whatever, I just need to be active. So, are y’all with me?
Yes, I am aware that this is ironically similar to many posts over the years that have to do with body type and health, blah blah blah. I have nothing to lose but a food baby. Cheer me on fuckers.
