The Woman on Page 194

               As I was Stumbling around the internet I came upon a website. This website had a picture of one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I mean I sat there and looked at this women for maybe 2 solid minutes. She. Was. Breathtaking. If Rick had been home he might have gotten assaulted… Seriously.

               What you can’t really tell from this picture, since it’s too small, is that this is an advertisement with the slogan, “Forget about it. Men's preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt.” It is a series of three I saw, each with a “fat” woman at the center and this slogan at the bottom. This campaign made me want to murder whoever came up with it for three main reasons. 1) How DARE they use shame to make a woman not feel good enough about her body. As a person who has suffered with anorexia I am outraged. 2) The second picture had the woman mimicking the famous Marilyn Monroe pose and dress, Ms. Monroe was a size effing 11, which is my size. She was a sex symbol and was she mind bogglingly beautiful. Got JFK’s attention for sure… 3) This woman got me all hot and bothered. I find her more beautiful than 90% of humanity. She is just stunning and they are trying to say she’s unattractive because she’s what? Not a size 3? In the few places I’ve seen this exact picture the majority of the comments center on how beautiful this woman is.

               Ok media, I get it. You think there is only one form of beauty, of entertainment, of comedy. You seem to think that there is only one way to do something at any given time. But now tell me, does anyone else remember the reaction Glamour magazine got in their issue that featured only plus sized models? Does anyone else remember how the internet was a glitter with glee for weeks? Everyone loved it! Thousands of men and women alike wrote into the magazine saying how beautiful the girls were. How nice it was to see real women in the pages.

               Now how about Bill Clinton? Or David Beckham? Ever notice how these famous men who have the “preferred” kind of woman have affairs with women who look like real people? Monica wasn’t a “skinny” girl, she looked like me and most other girls I know. She said that she fell in love with Mr. Clinton because he made her feel beautiful, because he told her over and over how much he loved her and how lovely she was [this is in no way me condoning cheating on anyone]. This picture of David Beckham I must say I love. Don’t get me wrong, Posh Spice was always my favorite, and I think she’s pretty attractive, and I wish I could pull off some of the hairstyles she does, but it makes me feel good to see this picture and know that Beckham is still so obviously checking out a girl whose got some curves.

               In the movie Pulp Fiction Bruce Willis’ character Butch is having a conversation with his girlfriend about how she thinks potbellies are attractive, how she thinks that they are just the most beautiful thing on women. Butch says, “You think guys would find that attractive?” And Fabienne responds, “I don't give a damn what men find attractive. It's unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.” I love this quote, and I think she is absolutely right. It’s tragic, in fact, that this is the truth. Now don’t get me wrong here, I don’t find thin women unattractive. I just tend to find them unrealistic, and I’ve always found that those who catch my eye happen to be the ones with curves.

               I feel like the world is ready to accept people as they are. I think Glamour proved that well enough, I just don’t get why the media is fighting it so damn hard against it. As a woman who would fit into the plus size category I am finally starting to accept myself after fighting anorexia for years, after breakdown after breakdown because of my low self-esteem, and after my husband telling me he loves every part of me for the four years we’ve been together only now am I starting to accept myself.

               Back around February, I think it was, Rick and I went to see a local showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. We dressed up. However, I found it necessary to wear jeans, along with a long sleeve shrug AND a t shirt under my corset. I looked fine, I felt stupid. As we were passing the campus it was preformed at the other day I thought back on the show, and I got a thought of this woman dressed up for the show. That’s kinda when it hit me, she looks like me and I’ve got no problem seeing HER dressed that way. It was like a revelation. Now I don’t plan on going running through the streets in lingerie, and next week I’m sure there will be at least one day when I stand in my closet looking at my cloths in lament,  but I feel like I’m finally a good step closer to actually feeling attractive. I have never felt this way before.

               I’ve gotta give this advertising firm a failing grade for their effort. They have done a deplorable job with this campaign not only because it is insensitive and downright ignorant, but because it has had the exact opposite effect on me than was intended. Looking at the woman in this ad makes me feel inspired, emboldened, and beautiful. It also makes me want to grab a regular yogurt out of the fridge just to spite them. “Light and fit” my apple bottom ass.

On Resilience

                I pride myself on having patience. I feel like I can handle situations pretty well. I’m good with empathy, I am very conscious of other people’s feelings and opinions in conversations and interactions. I try very hard not to let people get on my nerves. However, there are a few topics, a few things that I cannot abide.

                I was in on my mom’s computer a few nights ago; I was trying to put new music on my ipod without her having itunes [it didn’t work] and she was telling me about a family I used to be very close with. The daughter used to babysit me and the son was one of my best friends for years. As she was talking I was doing my running commentary, making little points as she was talking. With most of my family this is the only way you get any words in, more so other family members than my mom, but the fact remains.

                My mom was talking about this family, and I was making comments as she went. Most of the comments centered around the fact that the family was stuck-up, bratty, mean, and self-centered. Finally my mom responded, “Well if they were so mean why did you play with them? Huh?”

                “Because I had no other friends. No one liked me.”

                “Oh you always say that! You always thought everyone was just so mean to you!”

                I finally looked at my mom, and after years of her making comments like that, I said, “Well that’s because they were. When I was a kid everyone was mean to me.” And she changed the subject.

                The fact is that my childhood was sad. It was filled with loneliness and anger and pain. Everyone goes back to those moments and thinks about what they should have said, what they’d do differently. After thinking about this exchange, I think my new response would have been something like, “Everyone WAS mean to me, why do you think I went through friends so quickly? Why do you think I was suicidal by the time I was four years old? Why do you think I’ve suffered with depression my entire life?”
                I remember when our neighbor Betty died, she was my friend. She invited me in, gave me cookies, and even gave me presents on special days. It wasn’t long after that, I remember lying in my bed crying and pleading to God to just please kill me. Just please end it all. I didn’t want to be alive anymore. My mom heard me crying and came into my room, and asked me what was wrong, my response, since I was a quick thinking kid, was, “Why did Betty have to die?” and I kept crying. Years later I finally asked my mom how old I was when she died, so I could have a time frame on my suicidal thoughts, and she told me I was four years old.

                Adults like to try and sweep things under the rug. My mom always had a hard time dealing with the idea of me having clinical depression, being a cutter, or my rough childhood. I don’t have a problem with the fact that she has trouble dealing with it, but when anyone tells me that I’m lying about what’s happened to me I get angry.

                Children used to kick me when I sat down at the lunch table, I got called horrible names, and I didn’t have any friends at school until I was in the third or fourth grade. When I did get them, they weren’t very good friends. My best friend in high school was abusive, emotionally and on a few occasions physically. I’m still dealing with the mental scars he gave me. Why don’t I answer my phone when someone calls? Because I’m still afraid. He would call and yell at me for hours, telling me how horrible I was and what I did wrong during the day. He would tell me at the beginning of the school day that he had to talk to me about something, or tell me something, but would wait hours and hours to drop the bomb of whatever unforgiveable thing I had done. If anyone says those words, or alludes to something vague to this day, I have a panic attack.

                My husband and I were in the mall a few weeks ago, I was looking for some good work shoes, ones I liked but were suitable for church, and I was already getting frustrated because I couldn’t find anything. Then someone’s arm brushed mine. I was wearing a shirt with sleeves that only went to my elbows [I have worn long sleeve or ¾ length sleeves every single day I go into public now for nine years], and this guy’s skin brushed my skin. I put down the shoes I was holding, went to Rick and told him we needed to leave. In the car I started shaking and crying for the entire 15 minute drive home. Because someone accidently touched me, skin to skin.

                Lynda Barry is a comic author who does stories illustrated in water color. The one that resonated with me the most was called “Resilience”. It was about an experience she had when she was a child, something she can “never remember, but never forget”, and she details all of the repercussions that had on her [read it here]. The point of the strip was about how even if you forget things, or shove them to the back of your mind, pretend they don’t exist, they don’t go away. They still affect you, no matter what parents or adults want to think, no matter how thick the rose colored glasses are, you can’t wipe away the truth, the pain, or the loneliness. She said, "This ability to exist in pieces is what some adults call resilience. And I suppose in some way it is a kind of resilience, a horrible resilience that makes adults believe children forget trauma."
                I guess I’m trying to put the pieces back together finally, trying to feel like a complete person with the ability to heal, the ability to deal with the trauma and experiences. When someone tells me that “it wasn’t that bad” or “you’re making that up” or “that can’t be true” I want to make them hurt. It makes me feel like what I went through didn’t matter, that what I’m trying to do now is in vain. I love my family very much, this week I’m on vacation with them, but I can’t be me. I find myself needing to be resilient again, needing to fake always being ok, always being the perfect little Christian, daughter, or person. Under their scrutinous microscope I need to be walking on eggshells all over again. I’ve already been told once this week to shut my mouth and just deal with it when someone treated me like crap. Pretending it's ok for someone to treat me like that, being resilient, is getting harder and harder to do.

Pictures via here and here.

Beginning

 I wrote this months ago, but since this is the first post, and since I've taken so long to actually get this going I decided it was a good one to start with. What I wrote is still mostly true. The rest of my blogs will hopefully be written as I go, not pulled from an archive somewhere.

               My art teacher in High School used to give the best lectures I’ve ever heard. What made these lectures so great is that they were only veiled in the topic of art. In the years since I’ve left his classroom I’ve only found them to become more and more applicable in my life. They spring out from random places, suddenly there, aglitter in front of me pointing out something I’d never noticed before, revealing some deeper meaning about myself and about my life.

               Everything has three stages, he once told us, the beginning, the middle, and the end. Everything must be started, everything must be carried through, and everything must finish. Put the veil of art over this and it seems very simple. Any art piece, a vase, a painting, a wood block print, has had a maker that goes through the process. The start of an artwork from the conception to picking the media, to taking the blank canvas and making the first mark has a beginning. The middle is the obvious continuation, erasing, redrawing, coloring, and so on. And the finish is pushing through and putting on the last touches, adding in the flourishes, perhaps even signing the piece. But the method wasn’t the point of the lecture. He told us that each one of us would be very good at one of these things, and very bad at another. I happen to be very, very bad at starting something.

               I would often sit countless class periods daydreaming and trying to figure out a concept, trying to come up with an idea. I would wait for my muse to strike so I could finally have something to do, some passion to put on the blank page in front of me. Once the inspiration struck, though, wasn’t the end of it. It would take me even longer to figure out HOW to do it. I could get as far as laying out the basic sketch to erase it again and start the process over. Starting a piece of art was akin to climbing a mountain for me. I could think of nothing more difficult.

               My trouble with starting something didn’t end with my chalk pastels, however. I noticed that when I started a paper for a different class it would take me nearly as long to simply start the paper as it would to write the 4 pages that followed. I had friendships that would last for years on end, but it would take me nearly a year to begin a new one, to get up the courage to talk to a person. Once I got into the habit of things, like going to church, or later to my college classes, or even to watering my plants I would do fine. But if I missed just two or three days it would take an insurmountable energy to get me back on the right path.

               So here I am, six years after I hear this lecture and I’m still thinking of the countless ways it can apply. Because here I am, six years later, newly married, in a new apartment, at a new job, starting an entirely new life and I feel stuck.  Everything in my life is just beginning, starting, and I don’t know what to do. I feel the weight like Atlas and I’m struggling to keep my head above water.  I am being so overwhelmed with everything there is to start and to get moving that I feel as though I’d rather crumple up the paper and give up on the drawing altogether. I’m finding myself losing passion for everything, getting frustrated with life and people because suddenly my life is at the starting point again, only this time I don’t have birthdays and parents forcing me to keep stepping forward. I’m finding myself at a loss with what I should be doing, where I should be going. Worst of all, I find myself at a loss for what used to make me feel alive and excited to face all these things. The constant beginnings life is filled with. I feel lost. And I simply don’t know what to do here at these crossroads of endings and beginnings.