Thinking About Body-Shaming: Part 1

Today, I was listening to a podcast. I'll happily admit that it was a woman-centric one. The episode was on the idea of the body shaming epidemic. It wasn't just on fat shaming, but also skinny shaming and even slut shaming.

It started to make me wonder about when I first felt shame about my body. I'm sad to say that the very beginnings of those feelings of "my body's not right" started when I was 8. Think about that for a second: I was 8 years old when I first thought about dieting. That's pre-puberty! I didn't even know how my body would grow and change, I just knew that my entire self was determined by my wrong physical size.

I will say that these thoughts were perpetuated by remarks from my father and grandmother, but I took those thoughts of wrongness and wrapped my mind around them. They were almost a comfort strangely. They were where I also went whenever I was alone with my thoughts.

By age 12, I was replacing meals with a can of diet coke. If I didn't have a diet coke available, you can bet I was going hungry. And, I wasn't the only one. I can remember four of us girls (my friends in starving solidarity) sitting at a middle school lunch table, none of us eating anything. We were all so hungry, pretending not to be. We were holding each other accountable, in this sort of sick and twisted and silent tween girl way.

It makes me so sad that these thoughts belonged to a beautiful little girl who didn't deserve that self-esteem crash.

I challenge you to think about your childhood. When did you first feel shame about your body? Share your stories with me!

#bodyshame #bodyshaming #diet #selfesteem #fatgirl

Tuesday

Don't we all feel a little down some days? I think it's worth it to remind you of your value.
Breathe in. Deeply. Think about all the cells in your body that work their processes to make that breath possible. Isn't that amazing? Our bodies are amazing.
Don't let some trivial matter convince you that you're trivial. You're a messy and wonderful human machine.
Love yourself.

The Stranger

I sat on the bumper at the back of an empty moving truck. Somehow, I had managed to get all of my oddly-shaped belongings into the apartment at the back of this old house in front of me. The empty cabin behind, all dark and stagnant with hot, mixed Texas and Arkansas air felt somewhat womb-like. I sat at the end of it, feeling the sun, and perspiring. Feeling the brief gust of wind blow a few strands of hair over my mouth. Looking out from my bright white and orange truck, I saw a little boy staring at me. His child-sized baseball bat was limp behind him. It was as if his play was halted at my mysterious arrival. The bat, like an apprehensive leg, at his side was cautious like they boy. He stared and I stared back. The dirt on his face and his unkempt hair made me smirk. I guess I had seen a child like him before, but this one had never seen me. I laid back, legs out of the truck, body in the bed of it. I looked up at a swinging handle on the door of the cabin. I thought about how sad moving trucks really are. Nobody gets a moving truck because they want to. Then, a cold nose touched my unseen shin. A stray dog had found something. He sniffed. I sat up as he licked my sweaty leg. I guess I sat up too quickly. He got spooked, looked at me with his brown marble eyes, and ran off in the other direction. I soon realized the backs of my thighs were burning on the hot metal of the bumper. I made an "ow" noise that no one heard. I stood up in the cabin. I mused on the Arkansas air I brought. Was it as uncomfortable as i was? In the right corner of the truck bed, I saw something small and gray. I put my hands on my hips, somehow feeling like this made me a better detective, and stared longer at the circular gray inch. Walking over to it, I noticed it was a furniture coaster. One of those little plastic rounds that keeps your couch's leg from taking revenge on your hardwood floor. I started to imagine my couch's quiet scratching. I picked it up and walked back to the bumper of the cabin. I pulled the door shut with my bodily strength, and I landed on my feet. I landed backwards on the pavement, crushing an empty soda bottle underneath me. It must have moved from the side of the street to underneath the truck when I first pulled up. I gently lifted my foot off the clear plastic bottle, like one lifts his foot to survey gum on the sole of a shoe. I placed my foot back down away from the crushed plastic and crossed my arms. "Am I even welcome here?" I said to no one.

April 2012 #tbt

Okay, so this remained an unpublished draft from April 2012. So, why not publish it now? Haha.

Here goes Mags from the past:

Is it okay to vent via blog? Especially when your blog has always been a setting of intellectual stimulation...you'd hoped...? I'd say it's quite alright, reader, as it's my possession and you can choose to read the following if you'd like. So, be forewarned. Yesterday, I told someone--aloud--that my boyfriend and I had ended things. I don't think I wanted to say it, but it just came out. For all my missing you's, I will also verbalize that I wanted it to be over. Our relationship wasn't quite tangible. It was great on paper, but what is so funny is that our chemistry sometimes lacked. The moments when I realized we weren't quite right were the moments after the sex, when we'd lie in bed and talk. You, definitely not afraid to voice your opinion to a dark room and a girl lying beside you, and me, saying my yes and mmhmm answers in reply. In my head, we'd agreed to disagree. In my heart, I couldn't agree with you, and I wanted to get out of bed and drive away from you and your comfortable apartment.

Mementos of a Relationship

Today is the first day after it's over. It's done. I enjoyed it, and here are some things about it. -----I hated that you don't like Shakespeare. I loved your smell. I liked how you'd make coffee for me, so it'd be ready by the time I got up. I always wanted to correct you when you would call something contemporary "modern." I wish you thought to bring me lunch at work. Why did you use so much of my face wash? The sex was always wonderful. I knew that night we watched Pulp_Fiction_ that it was almost over. Sometimes you made me laugh so hard that my guts hurt. Our first date should have gone differently. Our other dates were characteristically "us." I'm sorry your favorite team lost the Superbowl. I think I was in scrubs more than blue jeans when I was with you. You're clever; I loved that. I loved Saturdays with you.----- Maybe later I'll muster something else, but this is what's on my mind. It's still raw here. So this is what you get, reader.

Daily Sustenance

A lot has happened since that last Georgia post. Since then, my MA in English program fell through. I've moved back to Arkansas, and now I live and work in Little Rock/Central AR.
I don't want to explain why that all fell through, even though that might be the main purpose of a bloggity blog.
Today, I find myself 8 months past that "falling through" with savings in the bank, two jobs, and a different definition of self.
What has always defined me is that "next step." What to tell friends at dinner parties, what deadlines to write down in my planner, what to look forward to every minute of every day, etc. It still defines me. Actions make my heart grow fonder? Grow fuller?
Relying on these actions, these goals, is a lot of how I define myself still.

Eight months ago, I had to halt. Halt this logic, this way of thinking, this definition of self. I spent my birthday packing a UHaul. I moved back to Arkansas over the next two days--my apartment-in-boxes in the back and my car towing behind that. I luckily didn't have to do it by myself. My mother came to help me pack up and drive back. We were two women and a truck; we were trekking our way from Carrollton, Georgia to Central AR. She put up with a lot from me over those few days, as I took my frustrations out on her. She was the ear to my rants. I cried, I slept, I thought about what actions were next, I called no one except my sister, and I yelled. I yelled at the interstate. I yelled at the cars passing us on the interstate. I yelled at the gas pump. I yelled at the heat. I grunted when we were attempting to tow up the car on the back of the truck. I sweat profusely in the hot August, Georgia sun. I yelled when the lights turned yellow and I had to brake. I yelled at the rest stops in Mississippi because they were always being mowed or pooped on by dogs--and it was all so loud.
Nevermind that past, I need to leave it there.
Today, I find myself in my bed, in my home, after a long day at work. I have a good job. I make decent pay. I have a night-time/weekend job that I work after that 8-5 job. The night job is at the mall; I give little effort, but still make a little bit over minimum wage. I move steadily through my day, and I make sure I leave things how they should be. I clean up, I pick up where I left off, I answer calls, I drink my coffee slowly (black with two ice cubes, as I want it not too hot when I drink it), I speak to my co-workers, I joke with a few, I ask questions to my boss, I open the mail, I pay my bills on time, I run errands on my lunch break, I laugh some (but not as much as i'd like to), I work out when I'm not working, and even though I've been accepted to graduate school for the fall, it hasn't hit me yet. It hasn't really sunk in that that's my next action.
My next action is there, waiting. It's almost solidified with just a few more kinks to work out. I think though, that I will not let the next action set in because the last "next step" I had, fell through.
I rely on my daily actions now. It sustains me today.

My Ridiculous Journey of the Day

Today, I made the trek back home, to Arkansas from Georgia, to pick up the rest of my things. This includes: an old chair that I bought at the Beehive for five dollars, a bag full of art prints that will somehow work their way onto my living room walls, a small pink table I found when I was 12 (that will hold my keys), and another bag with some clothes.

I drove from Georgia to Arkansas today...whoa. I should call myself Odyssea. I was a female traveler, weary when I reached home, but quickly refreshed by merriment (friends) and mead (pinot grigio).

On my journey, I didn't exactly see sirens or Charybdis, but I saw something just as interesting. I saw the southern portion of the United States.

When I make this drive, I spend 9-10 hours on various interstates with traffic, too familiar music, and semi trucks that can overwhelm anyone.

I saw the South today.

When driving through Alabama, at around 7am this morning, I saw four posts from the interstate. They were white and standing tall against the backdrop of a short, squatty brown house. These posts were host to birdhouses made of gourds. The gourds were painted white and hung in various spots on the posts. Each post look like a tree made of bone with unwelcome hanging fingers. But yet, this is how Alabama lives...welcoming birds into old, dried gourds.

When driving through Mississippi, at around 9am, I passed a red brick house with four creamy-brown-colored cows shuffling in the front yard. They had blank stares, of course, and I could tell they were making noises at each other. Probably some sort of cow code for "Move!" This image is not too unusual except for what accompanied it. Today, "My Sharona" played as I passed those cows. It seemed so unkind for that goofy song to play while I passed this image, but I reminded myself that I'm not a cow, but a 90s song loving, not-a-lick-of-farming-skill city girl. So, I conceded that that was their world and this was mine.

I landed in Memphis, and drove on into Arkansas, and stood parked on the interstate in two hours of standstill traffic. It was miserable. Now, I am convinced the hot sun has made everyone crazy. Semi truck drivers were yelling profanities at the stalling reason they could not see, and the man in the large, black pick-up truck behind me got out of his vehicle wearing a golfer hat and smoked a cigar. He smoked and looked for the cause of the hold-up. And smoked more. I sat in my car, toasting under the too hot Arkansas summer sun, read my book, and bobbed my head up and down, looking for movement of the cars in front of me. The standstill ended up being five horse-trailers and their grinning-faced owners pulled over on the left side of the interstate. By the time my car tiptoed over the spilled horse straw on the black pavement, I was tired of the bullshit, too. I was ready to get home. It only took more traffic and creeping along the interstate for 40 miles over the time span of an hour and a half to do it.

Alas, I am home.

When driving through town, I screamed profanities at my steering wheel and stopped for a coke at the coffee shop two blocks from my house.