One Eighty

I’ve had a body image issue my entire life – I don’t remember ever feeling comfortable with my reflection.  I’d have to go back decades to find a moment when I felt good about the way I looked – I would have to dig past the moment I became aware. 

I can hear my grandmother’s voice in my mind, it is laced with loving concern… “If I was a little girl who didn’t want to be fat I wouldn’t eat that piece of toast.”  I was a little girl, one who was just about to eat a piece of toast.  I didn’t know I didn’t want to be fat – I didn’t even know I was fat until my grandmother told me I was.

I know with all my heart my grandmother had no idea she was planting a seed, one that would grow into an invasive weed.  She was well meaning and I was in fact a chubby kid – I see old black and white pictures of that little girl and cringe.  Did everyone realize I was fat and just not tell me?

To make matters worse I was also tall – I was always placed in the back row with the boys for class pictures. I stood out like a sore thumb – which is exactly the last thing a self conscious little girl wants to do.  

By the time I was in grade twelve I had invented bulimia – I was a genius, I’d found the answer to my lifelong problem.  My mother was out of her mind with worry and carted me off to the family doctor and then to specialists – they couldn’t find a medical reason why I was losing so much weight.  My secret was safe with me.

That eating disorder has never disappeared, although it’s been many years since I actually purged.  The disorder evolved into an obsession at the gym for a while and to repeated enrollments in programs that promised weight loss success – my bookshelves filled with expensive books boasting new and better diets.  I beat myself up on the daily.  And while I was beating myself up, dieting like a fool and exercising like a crazy person, people were watching – my children were watching.  I was setting an example.  

It is not my place to tell other people’s stories – this space is reserved for my secrets alone – but I will say I found it impossible to give my kids confidence when I didn’t have any to give.  The body image problem was another story.

Which brings me to today. I’m beating myself up about twenty pounds I’ve packed on over the past two years – I am constantly making a new plan to lose the weight.  In my most recent effort I had an experience that really shook me up.

Here’s what happened:

I stepped on the scale last week (first thing in the morning because we all know that’s the best time of day to step on the scale).  

I wrote the date and my weight on the bathroom mirror with an erasable marker (I live alone, nobody would see it – right?). 

One of my granddaughters came for a sleepover…. (you might have an inkling where this story is going).

‘What’s that?” She asked pointing to the large number written on the mirror.

“Nothing.” I answered as I hurriedly erased said large number.

“It’s okay Gramma,” she said and then told me how much she weighed.

My heart stopped.

A body image problem it turns out is inherited and I just about bequeathed mine to  my beloved granddaughter.

The thing is my number has always been large even when I wasn’t. In the throws of bulimia, when the vertebrae on my back stuck out like a mountain range and my ribs could be counted with ease, I weighed 145 pounds. Miss America that year was the same height as me and weighed 125 – I still had twenty pounds to lose.

I’ve been obsessed with my number my whole damn life – I sure as hell don’t want my sweet little grandchild to feel like she has to hide her number too.  I decided I had to own it.

I re-wrote 180 on the mirror – she’d already seen it anyway. I’m old now and it doesn’t matter anymore. I wonder if it ever really did, it is only a number after all.