Ivy
Member
So, this is my blog.
Yup.
I'm starting it this evening because something pretty horrific and scary is happening to someone in my family tonight and I'm staring at walls worrying myself sick and I need a distraction. Anything. And I don't have TV.
So, I guess we'll start with a prologue, so some of the effed-upness of my current circumstances makes more sense.
Prologue: The Pity Party
So, I was the fat kid. Like, the smart fat kid who everyone was mind-bogglingly mean to. Respected fat kids knew their place, didn't win too many awards, certainly didn't strive for undue attention, and pretty much put their skinny friends' glory first. I didn't do that. I won spelling bees and crap.
The favorite joke in junior high was to send a cute guy--preferably one I'd recently been nice to--over to me, and have him tell me I'm pretty and ask if I wanted to "go out" with him (i.e. conduct the twelve-year-old equivalent of a relationship). If the joke went well, I'd blush, get flustered, say yes, and then he'd launch into a hysterical explanation of why someone as popular as him would never, ever even look twice at a girl as fat and ugly as me.
Fun fun. Lots of laughs.
In high school, I started to do the "fat friend" thing a little--that is, keep my feelings and attractions entirely to myself, and smile and be supportive while my best friends dated the boys I wanted. If I was lucky, they'd give me a play-by-play of their blooming sex lives. Or, they'd figure out who I liked, and gently break it to me that "he doesn't like fat chicks." It was especially exciting when I was *also* attracted to the girl in question. Double rejection, plus a dose of feeling creepy and gross for having a crush on a female friend.
I kind of got sick of it. Eventually, I dated a fairly popular guy, who constantly reminded me that he could have any girl he wanted, so I was lucky to have him. I made a lot of enemies simply by initiating that relationship. I also took to winning debate team competitions and getting irritatingly high SAT scores. I was not well-liked. Dating was something I very badly wanted to do, but it just wasn't an option.
In college, I met my husband (whom I shall henceforth call Vino). Specifically, we got very drunk together after he and my roommate broke up, and we...erm...hit it off, so to speak. But we clicked amazingly well. Vino was (and is) extremely good-looking, and liked (and still likes) strong, sturdy, successful, powerful women. I didn't intimidate him, and my weight didn't gross him out.
So we got married. Our relationship was never very traditional, but it was very monogamous, in large part because we were both raised with the inflexible belief that non-monogamy is a one-way street to divorce and dying alone and forgotten in a filthy nursing home somewhere.
Eventually, we got knocked up. I was still quite heavy--I remember the OB writing "OBESE" in capital letters across the top of my intake sheet.
Our son was born with a severe disability, spina bifida. Within his first few weeks of life, he had a half-dozen surgeries.
I found out a short while later that obese women are far more likely to have children with that particular birth defect. Naturally, I slipped into a puddle of overwhelming self-blame.
But I'm also a control freak. I LOST THE FREAKING WEIGHT. No excuses. I stopped eating crap and feeling sorry for myself and I just effing lost it all. It was difficult as hell, but it happened, and it allowed me to let go of some of that self-loathing.
As a nice bonus, I was suddenly very easy on the eyes. People (of any gender or sexual preference) were much, much kinder to me. Men held doors. Women asked about my fitness routine. For the first time ever at all in my entire life, I felt attractive.
And then I felt empowered, so I applied to law school. And that's where the Prologue ends, and Part I will have to begin....
Yup.
I'm starting it this evening because something pretty horrific and scary is happening to someone in my family tonight and I'm staring at walls worrying myself sick and I need a distraction. Anything. And I don't have TV.
So, I guess we'll start with a prologue, so some of the effed-upness of my current circumstances makes more sense.
Prologue: The Pity Party
So, I was the fat kid. Like, the smart fat kid who everyone was mind-bogglingly mean to. Respected fat kids knew their place, didn't win too many awards, certainly didn't strive for undue attention, and pretty much put their skinny friends' glory first. I didn't do that. I won spelling bees and crap.
The favorite joke in junior high was to send a cute guy--preferably one I'd recently been nice to--over to me, and have him tell me I'm pretty and ask if I wanted to "go out" with him (i.e. conduct the twelve-year-old equivalent of a relationship). If the joke went well, I'd blush, get flustered, say yes, and then he'd launch into a hysterical explanation of why someone as popular as him would never, ever even look twice at a girl as fat and ugly as me.
Fun fun. Lots of laughs.
In high school, I started to do the "fat friend" thing a little--that is, keep my feelings and attractions entirely to myself, and smile and be supportive while my best friends dated the boys I wanted. If I was lucky, they'd give me a play-by-play of their blooming sex lives. Or, they'd figure out who I liked, and gently break it to me that "he doesn't like fat chicks." It was especially exciting when I was *also* attracted to the girl in question. Double rejection, plus a dose of feeling creepy and gross for having a crush on a female friend.
I kind of got sick of it. Eventually, I dated a fairly popular guy, who constantly reminded me that he could have any girl he wanted, so I was lucky to have him. I made a lot of enemies simply by initiating that relationship. I also took to winning debate team competitions and getting irritatingly high SAT scores. I was not well-liked. Dating was something I very badly wanted to do, but it just wasn't an option.
In college, I met my husband (whom I shall henceforth call Vino). Specifically, we got very drunk together after he and my roommate broke up, and we...erm...hit it off, so to speak. But we clicked amazingly well. Vino was (and is) extremely good-looking, and liked (and still likes) strong, sturdy, successful, powerful women. I didn't intimidate him, and my weight didn't gross him out.
So we got married. Our relationship was never very traditional, but it was very monogamous, in large part because we were both raised with the inflexible belief that non-monogamy is a one-way street to divorce and dying alone and forgotten in a filthy nursing home somewhere.
Eventually, we got knocked up. I was still quite heavy--I remember the OB writing "OBESE" in capital letters across the top of my intake sheet.
Our son was born with a severe disability, spina bifida. Within his first few weeks of life, he had a half-dozen surgeries.
I found out a short while later that obese women are far more likely to have children with that particular birth defect. Naturally, I slipped into a puddle of overwhelming self-blame.
But I'm also a control freak. I LOST THE FREAKING WEIGHT. No excuses. I stopped eating crap and feeling sorry for myself and I just effing lost it all. It was difficult as hell, but it happened, and it allowed me to let go of some of that self-loathing.
As a nice bonus, I was suddenly very easy on the eyes. People (of any gender or sexual preference) were much, much kinder to me. Men held doors. Women asked about my fitness routine. For the first time ever at all in my entire life, I felt attractive.
And then I felt empowered, so I applied to law school. And that's where the Prologue ends, and Part I will have to begin....
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