Apple not far from the tree, see how it falls.. and falls

Friday, November 14, 2008

I got some good advice last week, although I don’t think it was intended as such, and unfortunately I didn’t follow it.

My mum is convinced I am dying on a daily basis. I am going to get a blood clot or heart attack or whatever, especially if I get pregnant, because I am obese. I find it really fucking interesting that she knows how healthy I am, or not, as it were, from her week long visits 3-4 times a year. (Although it explains a lot about these past few months and Jelly Man..)

Jelly Man gets exasperated from the blatant hypocrisy she exhibits when she comes. It’s fast food this and fast food that almost EVERY day she is here, and chocolate this, chocolate that. When Carlita was younger we explicitly told her NOT to let her drink soda and yet.. We saw her help Carlita holding a glass full of soda because Carlita was so young (maybe a year and a half) that she couldn’t hold it steady on her own. She fed her french fries when we told her not to, and now that is all Carlita will eat the few times we DO eat fast food, so we quit buying fries for ourselves to try and get her to eat something a little more varied. My mum? Has to have fries, with a mountain of mayonnaise to dip them in.

It’s not that we don’t want Carlita to have any of these things - I think it would be wonderful to indulge her every now and then, but I wanted to wait longer - much, much longer. Does mum care? No, of course not. She comes 3-4 times a year and decides for us, and when she then goes home we are left with the aftermath. We can’t undo the things she does. The things she does despite our pleas.

My mum was born in ‘61 and she was somewhat of a wild child. She revolted against set rules of society, she beat her own path, having me young and all - and now she is kind of stuck in that rut. She thinks the only generation to have new thoughts, about life and the world in general was her own. The only people who “gets it” are her people. That the choices that other people make should be choices that she UNDERSTANDS, because gods know it isn’t enough that we are genuinely happy with the way we live our lives.

So, she took advantage of Jelly Man the visit before last, when he drove her to the airport alone (my mistake, won’t happen again - unless I manage, again, to forget how easily she slips back into her role as ALL KNOWING MOTHER*bleep*.) He bought her a bun and coffee and in return she told him how it is all his fault that I am fat, that IT IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY to get me to lose weight because he is my “boyfriend”. It’s bitter because she is willing to point the finger on him but can’t see that it ALL STARTED WITH HER. No, never HER. And when I confront her she tells me that she turned on Jelly Man because I don’t give a damn about myself, so she had to…

Ahem.

That is pretty much the point where I laugh AND cry hysterically, because REALLY? The only way I could possibly care about myself would be if I were to starve myself? I can’t possibly be eating healthy since I am still fat, right? I can’t possibly eat well or exercise, or I would be THIN, like HER. In true irony we never eat as much junk as when she is around. In true irony Carlita never had a sip of soda or a taste of french fries before she came around, breaking a pact that Jelly Man and I made together to try and give Carlita as healthy a start as possible.

Sometimes I think she feels that that is her cross to bear - that her only child grew up fat. Jelly Man was a fat, adopted kid and his mum was relentless about it (“look at you, you have tits!“), so in his late teens (after she died) he lost a lot of weight (with the help of not-so-legal substances), and ever since he has starved himself periodically because his natural weight is not skeletal, but he doesn’t feel good about himself if he gets too heavy. When we met his hip-bones were sticking out, now he looks “normal”, but his eating habits are anything but. We want to set a good example for Carlita, but when both of us have this emotional/food baggage and chips on our shoulders it’s hard enough without someone coming in and deliberately throwing a stick in the machinery despite our pleas not to.

It’s not that I think she is malicious, but her mind is as narrow as my asscrack. People, it is TIRESOME. And infuriating, because I have only one mother and I don’t want to despise her. She comes here and complains that my grandmother and uncle try to meddle in her life by telling her what she should be doing, yet she can’t see that when she comes here and do the things she does she is merely passing it on. And when she comes here and complains about the rest of the family I have no trouble seeing her complaining to the rest of the family about us when she gets back home. (In our most recent argument her stance was that I shouldn’t be so upset with her because she doesn’t mention how this place looks or how we raise Carlita - AND THAT SHE WOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO COMPLAIN BUT IS GRACIOUS ENOUGH NOT TO, AS IF IT WAS ANY OF HER BUSINESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.)

So, I guess it’s a lot of issues rolled up in one big fat lump of distrust. It’s not that I don’t think she would be there for me in a heartbeat if I needed her, but I fear it will always come with a price. And sometimes I think I’d be better off relying on someone else - like Jelly Man (always), or Jelly Man’s dad. Often enough I think that the only family that is good for me is the one I’ve created for myself with Jelly Man - and that is sad. Infinitely so. Because I know not everyone is as lucky to still have their mum alive and somewhat well. And I worry that I can only be at peace with her once she is no longer with us.

That right there just breaks my heart.

So next time I’m going to listen to the advice, that wasn’t really advice, and hug my mum the minute she arrives, because gods know when I can bring myself to do it otherwise.

THAT or the OTHER

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The other day I nearly started crying, that is how much I was laughing. The image inside my head that got me laughing was of me showing up to school and no one being there because everyone else was on the scheduled field trip that I knew about but plain forgot. How many times this happened during my childhood I’m not sure, but enough to imprint that feeling of walking into an empty school, knowing that something is really.. off. Like, where are all my classmates? kinda wrong.

At the time, of course, it was highly upsetting. I was THAT kid. The one who forgot to bring running shoes or indoor shoes to gym, their swimsuit or perhaps their towel on the one of two days a year we’d go swimming. I spent countless hours sitting outside our apartment because I forgot the key, tucking my jacket under my ass because the stone stairs were cold, pressing myself far into a corner so our neighbors wouldn’t see my shame.

I relayed this to Jelly Man the other day in between howls of laughter. Why I thought of it I don’t know, and why it struck me as funny is still a mystery, but it turns out he was THAT kid too. And if 15 years is not enough to put things in perspective then I don’t know what is, and still… I really hope that if Carlita ever has some weird revelation about her childhood once she is grown, it won’t be that life goes on even if you are THAT kid. Hopefully she’ll be that OTHER kid.

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.

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.