Size
8
While attending a dinner party my
hostess introduced me to a woman who was also her workout buddy. We found we
had much in common like growing up in the city and the things we missed living
in the suburbs like the neighborhood bakery. The conversation took a humorous
turn when they described their daily run to a bagel bakery on their travel route. These
two women leave their homes every morning at 5 a.m. and commence to their daily
hour workout at the gym followed by the daily run to their favorite bagel
bakery. I admired the commitment to working out every day but questioned the
daily bagel run. “I can’t help it,” my hostess exclaimed, “I’m really a fat girl
at heart!” I simply grinned and stated, “Well, I’m really a thin girl at heart.”
I am not a fat girl at heart. I’m
not a skinny girl either and never have been. But in my mind’s eye my body
image is not that of a fat person. While I don’t maintain a regular gym membership I do
have a regular yoga practice which began in my early teens. Slow movement is better
than no movement and often doesn’t leave me with strained or sore muscles and leaves me with a certain contented energy.
There have been many moments of
clarity when I realized that my size is simply the space I take up in this
universe. One of those first moments was attending an information session on
the process of preparing for and living with gastric bypass surgery. I attended
with my daughter who eventually went with a gastric surgery. As I looked around
the room I was struck with the number of visibly sad and physically overwhelmed
people who were desperate for an intervention to change their lives. Although I
was gathering information and keeping company for my daughter, I knew immediately
that I did not belong in that room. I was not desperate for a change, nor was I
sad. There is so much more substance in my life than worrying about my weight
all day.
It was another moment that hit me while
sitting in a Weight Watchers meeting listening to a lifetime member tell the
group about how she still wrestles daily with her inner mindset and will always
see herself as an overweight person. Her internal body image will never be thin.
I thought how very sad it was that after all her hard earned success of losing
weight, meeting and keeping her goal weight for years, that she still saw
herself as a fat person. I realized I don’t have that image of
myself. In my mind’s eye my body image in not that of a fat person.
I see my size in the mirror and in
photographs. I’m not blind to my size. But what I see first is a smiling
redhead with a really great haircut and usually along with people who love me
as I am and I love them. I am big, big in size and personality. I’m a woman of
intelligence and wit along with being a wife, mother, matriarch and
grandmother. None of those descriptions have anything to do with my ample
hourglass shape or size. And when I’ve left this earth I am relatively sure my
weight and size will not be detailed on my headstone.
Once I was asked in conversation,
“What if you could change something about your appearance what would it be?” Without
hesitation I replied, “My nose. I’ve always wanted a patrician looking Roman
nose.” One woman was surprised and responded, “Really? You wouldn’t want to be
thin? You have such a pretty face.” Well, haven’t I heard that one before.
More often than not, I have been
relatively comfortable in my own skin. It is the only skin I’ve got and I can’t
trade it in.
I wouldn’t know what to do with
‘thin’. To be truthful, every time I endeavored to lose weight, I encountered
some sort of health issue, the last one being breast cancer. I don’t believe
the weight loss caused the cancer. As a matter of fact it was having cancer
that led me to one of my “ah ha” moments in body acceptance. A year after
completing treatment and during a follow up visit, my oncologist asked if I was
interested is seeing a plastic surgeon for ‘scar revision’. I didn’t think I
was a candidate for it because of my size. Her response was, “This is not a ‘size
8’ world.” No, it is not. Especially for me since I have never been a size 8,
except my shoe size.
Personal validation came when the plastic
surgeon requested to take before and after photos of my scar revision surgery to
use in his teaching med students about treating the larger patient, because we
do not live in a “size 8 world”. My body shape and size was going to contribute
to the study and training of future cosmetic surgeons!
That surgery repaired more than the
appearance of my chest. It reenergized my self-esteem at a time when I was physically
and emotionally weary. After recovery and healing the doctor asked me what I
thought about the results. “I love the view when I look down.” He said, “how
you feel about what you see is 90% of my job, the rest is medicine.”
The sweetest moment of clarity came
recently with cuddle time with one of my grandchildren. She was snuggling with
her PopPop and left him to come and snuggle up to me. As she got comfortable he
teased her and said, “Oh, I see where I stand with you.” And her priceless response
was, “Well, PopPop if you were chubbier, maybe you’d be soft and comfy like
Grammy.”
That’s me, woman, wife, mother,
matriarch, and Grammy, all wrapped up in one big beautiful huggable package, in
size 8 shoes.
My
entire family of kids, grandkids and sons-in-law spent an awesome day together.
We got a picture to prove it.
My
younger grands had notable accomplishments; #3 received the much sought after
teacher nominated Husky award for kindness, something she had wanted so badly
through her years in elementary school. Ironically, kindness might not be in
her wheelhouse, but maybe that’s just at home. 
Finally, #5 had
her first dance recital performing to “Teddy Bear Picnic”, one of my mother’s
favorite kiddie song, I’m sure she looked down from her heavenly seat and
beamed. I know I did.
We
said goodbye to a dear friend who just didn’t have it in him to keep going in
this world, but he wanted one last cruise and we did it. It was a good thing.
