Neurosa

No wax to blame

Monday, September 29, 2008

It’s hard to know what is “normal” when you have your first child. It’s especially hard for us because we don’t meet other families and experience their “normal” and so we have nothing to compare with - not that I want to compare Carlita to any other child by any means, but it’s hard to get a good picture of how she is doing developmentally when we have nothing but gut instinct to go on.

I’ve been worried about her reluctance to speak. If it is indeed reluctance, and not something that is hindering her. I’ve been wondering if maybe she inherited her father’s dry earwax and maybe can’t hear us too well and that is why the words she try to say are so shortened and, well, kind of distorted. But her 2 year well baby checkup that Jelly Man took her to didn’t show any problems, with wax or hearing, and so it is perhaps just reluctance to speak that is keeping her back.

Carlita will ask for juice, water, or a pie. She’ll ask about the kitty (she calls all three of them “kitten” because the youngest, which is now at least 3 or 4 years old and named Olivia, is still called Kitten by us and so by association they are all “Kittens”). She has taken to say “Bye!“ while waving, she will exclaim “Papa!“ when grandpa comes home and she will ask for “daddy”. She still does not ask for me, she has yet to say Mama, and yes, it hurts a little - but I console myself with the fact that we are in each others faces all day long and she never gets a chance to miss me - but still, it does hurt a little.

Now that we know that her speech is still in the normal range for a bi-lingual household I’m worried that I’ve been wishing for her to speak for so long now, that I’ve been focusing on it so much that I’ve been missing out on how awesome a person she is in spite of her non-verbal-ness. The longing I have for having an actual conversation with her that involves me asking her questions and her telling me what is on her little mind, or all the “WHY?“ questions she must have but is unable to articulate, has taken the place of what actually IS. A clever and funny little girl that is growing and thriving, following her own schedule.

And I worry, still, that she will never, EVER understand just how much I love her.

Carlita, Daily, Parenting

Fat

Sunday, September 14, 2008

When I started on my quest a couple of years ago to accept the fact that I have incurable hair loss because of my trichotillomania, I didn’t know it would lead me down a different, yet so very similar, path of fat acceptance, via the rocky road that is body acceptance.

My body, it is fat. I accept that. Now.

For as long as I can remember diets and dieting have been present in my day to day life. My mother is diabetic, so her need to watch her eating could not be avoided, but it was less about the superficial and more about health*. My grandmother, on the other hand, has always been dieting, and she is no closer to reaching her goal weight today than she was twenty years ago. Sure, she has dropped in weight from time to time, but what good it has done her I’m not really sure, as she is still, to this day, body-fat obsessed and more or less just as plump as I remember her being most of my life. Yo-yo dieting, ahoy!

*She was also not fat by any means when she was diagnosed, some year or so after my birth.

I think I was 13 when my mum took me to the school nurse to discuss my possible weight problem. It was humiliating, most of all, but also gleeful because the nurse measured my height and put me on the scale and made no big fuss about the results. Heavy boned, I think was the term she used to describe me. My mum, however, was not convinced. “She said that just to be nice, you know“, she told me in an agitated voice once we left the office.

The mixed messages did absolutely nothing for my 13 year old self esteem. But nor did it result in the body I have today - which is to say - the fat body I have today. I’m sure feeling worth less than my thinner peers and my mother’s concern (be it for my health or my appearance - both are probably true) could have made my transition from regular teenage chunky to nearly 30-year-old obese that much faster, but overall the damage done was not physical nor visible.

My first boyfriend was very body conscious and the three years I spent with him were years of frustration at failed diets and fitness craze. At 19 I was bicycling everywhere, watching what I was eating (albeit having regular pitfalls, because when you tell me I can not have something, of course I MUST. HAVE. IT!) When nothing worked, indeed when things just seemed to get “worse” and I kept putting on the kilos, I went to a test trial for a new diet pill in a last ditch effort to lose weight, but was turned down because my blood pressure and blood sugar was normal and so I didn’t qualify for the study, which was to help pre-diabetics to lose weight and gain control of their illness.

Seven years of self loathing took seven years of unconditional love (in terms of outer appearance, not in the way I treat the people I come into regular contact with) to get back to a place where I can now separate the person I am from the body I inhabit. My body, it is lumpy. And my hair, it is patchy. Me? I am so much more than the sum of my parts - and they are not small parts to begin with. There is the option of weight loss surgery, and I won’t minimize the grounds on which people choose to have these surgeries, but I know it’s not for me. I am also not willing to starve my body of necessary calories just to conform to some kind of standard - and more likely than not gain back the weight I might have spent many grueling months or years to lose. Now that I am past the hurdle that is self acceptance, I see what I need to do to live my life to the fullest.

Be healthy. Screw the rest. And I guess that is where we have to start separating health and fat - not because we need to separate ourselves from the fat, but because we need to see the difference between being unhealthy and being fat.

I’ve started taking interest in my appearance again. I’ve begun wearing jewelry just for the fun of it. I should definitely exercise more, but it’s no longer for a purpose that cannot be fulfilled. Instead it’s to achieve something I never considered before - to live healthily in a fat body. To love myself just the way I am, even if what I am is also fat (among so many other things.)

There is so much more to say about fat. The disposition to be fat vs. being fat because of how much you eat (exercise and keeping an eye on my diet did absolutely nothing for my weight, while someone naturally skinny might eat whatever they wish without gaining weight - it works both ways), and that is absolutely what I needed to start my self-acceptance journey - but I needed to tell this part first. Of how I got back the courage to love myself. And to give thanks.

Thank you, Jelly Man, for showing me the way.

Egotastic, The Bad, The Good, The story of

When it becomes obvious

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

I guess you could say we had a shotgun wedding, even if it was an extremely well planned shotgun wedding - as far as shotgun weddings go, anyway. We sent in our “we aren’t mutants and we aren’t married to other people, so can we please marry each other, thankyouverymuch?!“ obligatory papers on April 20th, or at least we signed them then (LOL, 4/20!) and then didn’t hear anything back all summer. I wasn’t too worried, thinking maybe the government people were on vacation, like, a really LONG vacation. In any case, I haven’t ever actually expected to be a married woman - not in the daydreaming of white dresses, trails and multilayered cakes kind of way - not that I didn’t ever want to be married, but not hearing anything back kinda solidified it in my mind that being married was for other people, not me.

Jelly Man came home last Friday and told me he had talked to his boss about not going to work on Monday, because the car needed fixing and he wouldn’t be able to get to work until it was finished - and also not going to work on Tuesday, but not telling me why he wouldn’t go to work then, being really coy about it. I just kind of let it slide, having stuff on my mind such as Mum flying up and occupying our private space for a week and a half. When Saturday rolled around my curiosity peaked and with a little probing I got him cornered.

“Do you want to marry me on Tuesday?“ he asked.

Silly man.

Signing papers was, to me, just a formality - for all intents and purposes we have been married for a while already, the line between being boy/girlfriend and husband/wife being more of a process than a day to day transformation, and the rings that we put on each others fingers yesterday are rings that we’ve been wearing for god knows how long already. Of course I would marry him. Of course.

I didn’t expect it to actually feel so final as it did when we stood at that secular altar in the municipal office, which is located in the same building as the police station (good riddance!) and I can’t quite explain how standing in front of a stranger could make our union feel more real than when we had Carlita, but somehow it did. Maybe it’s because we are each connected to Carlita in our own way, as her mother and her father, separately, and even if we were to walk our separate ways we would always be her parents. This time, however, it was just about the two of us, despite Carlita - if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Maybe one day I will look back and feel sad that we didn’t have a grand wedding, but in many ways this ceremony was an accurate representation of us - not quite planned, but not quite accidental either, not extraordinary but special enough to bother - special to us.

And now I get the connection. And it was indeed staring me straight in the face the whole time.

Egotastic, Family, Jelly Man, The story of