9.15.09
i make the first of my bi-weekly calls to my mom. she’s at work, even after everyone else in her office has left. she works for a non-profit organization for the blind and visually impaired. i ask about her day, how she’s been, what the update is with the new h1n1 sanitizers she’s been hearing about at work. she skimps on details, being that she’s distracted by her never-ending work load and her moderate case of adult ADD. she changes the subject, onto what we believe are more important things; updates on our family. she begins to tell a story.
oh my gosh, sari. did i tell you about grammy? aunt julie and i would have been rollin! grammy met one of her new neighbors, the one that lives above her in richard’s old apartment, remember? she told me, “i met the woman, she’s a CNA.” “yeah”, i replied, “that’s a certified nursing assistant.” “well, i asked her to cut my toenails.” grammy met this woman and asks her, “will you cut my toenails if i pay you?” who does that? isn’t that weird? i guess she asked her cause they do gross stuff. ew! maybe she works in a nursing home and wouldn’t have a problem with it.
after she gives me mini updates on my step-father, younger sister and two dogs, she switches to her other favorite topic: god.
when moses lead the israelites out of the promised land, they wandered in the desert for four years and when they were in one desert, they were bitten by poisonous snakes and started to die. eventually, god said to erect an image of a serpent on a stick and when those that were bitten looked at it, they would be healed. i was reading something that said that god was saying they needed to look at what wounded them in order to be healed; like getting over your fears during therapy. i told this to joann and she said i should expound on it, write about it and i could teach it in church! i really am excited. did you know that the symbol for someone in the medical profession is a snake on a stick? that’s where it comes from.
my mother knows i do not believe in god but chooses to talk of the subject every time we are on the phone. when speaking of my sister and my childhood, she will say that her one regret was that she didn’t keep us in church. i think deep down she knows it wouldn’t have changed anything in me. but maybe it would have kept her from the heavy weight of guilt that has laid upon her since then.
my sister lost a lot of weight recently. she works at a gym and worked out a lot i guess. either way, she obtained an hourglass figure that she and my mother gush over constantly. when sharing pictures of us, my mom gets comments about a_____ ranging from “she looks just like you!” to “oh my god, she’s so beautiful!” mine are more like “do you mind that her hair is that color?” to “well, she does go to a liberal arts school”. i don’t really care that i’m not complemented the same way (or at all) but its an interesting contrast.
i heard once that a mother’s relationship with body image, food and eating habits will be passed onto her female-born children whether they intend to or not. while i see how this “fact” can be used as justification for girls’ insecurity about themselves (everything is always the female parent’s fault, etc.) i do think its true in my case. after my parents divorced when i was nine my mom dated a lot. she was always worrying about looking good for dates/her boyfriends and always asked my sister and i if she looked okay before going out. she was super thin, face all jaunty and bony, and still thought she could “look better” or be in “better shape”, even then. i didn’t know how that was even possible: she was really active, loved to go hiking and just being outdoors, and didn’t really eat sugar. we never had soda or candy in the house when i was growing up anyway.
now, my mom is curvier than she was when i was younger and it really bothers her. she’s constantly buying weight-loss books and magazines and cookbooks and watching tv shows like “cook yourself thin”. all she’s really doing is surrounding herself with more propaganda to make her feel inferior, like she somehow failed as a woman somewhere down the line. that’s what all of that bullshit is about in the media. she also made a posterboard with pictures of emaciated women in bathing suits or jogging outfits pasted next to words like “willpower” and “skinny” and “i lost 30 pounds in 14 weeks!” i understand that my mom wants “motivation” or whatever but i don’t think it’s the proper way to go about it.
all the women on my mom’s side of the family have always been naturally curvy or heavy-set. its fucking genetic and we all know it. my grandmother is obese and has extremely detrimental health problems because of it. i think my mother fears that she will end up like her someday. because of these facts, i have been instilled with ideals of fat phobia. to be fat means being sloppy, poor, unhealthy, unattractive, etc. every time my mom says things like “if only i lost x pounds” or “when i lose x pounds then i’ll be attractive again”, it seems like weight is a black and white issue: fat or thin. there is no in-between for my family. this is affirmed by whether or not my mom says something about my physique whenever i visit on school breaks or weekends. if i look “thin”, she says “oh my god, you look so great/beautiful/pretty, i’m jealous!” or “i wish i could wear that size”. if i look “fat”, she’s more prone to just ask questions about school and how my classes are going. i’ve learned to be extremely conscious about my appearance whenever i visit her because i subconsciously connect my worth to it. yes, even though i am a feminist, i still have these hang ups. i am jealous of the fact that my sister is thinner (read: inherently more attractive and worthy in that aspect) than i am. i am angry that my mother gives her more compliments than she does me. realizing all of this can only lead to overcoming the issues i have and reiterating the fact that thin does not mean healthy, good, beautiful or whatever else.
i’m still really confused about the whole fat being unhealthy issue. yeah, for people like my grandmother, it is really unhealthy. but for a lot of people it isn’t. i see genetic predispositions as affecting health in this regard. naturally thin people are not always healthy and genetically fat people are not always unhealthy. my latest ex-boyfriend equated thinness with health and was unashamed about it. he constantly commented that he didn’t want to get fat and saw it as some kind of death sentence. he had severe body image issues in high school and i don’t think he ever got over them. after bringing up the fact that fat does not equal unhealthy, he retorted “well, it usually does”. here i was, coming from an entire family of heavy-set or fat women and men who for the most part lived long, fulfilling lives and he was telling me that fat mostly means heath problems. he totally projected negative stereotypes on fat people, which made me wonder why he was dating me. i’m not stick thin, but not obese, so where the fuck did i fit in that? and where did he start with the “fat” label anyway? apparently i was just under that line and henceforth in the “healthy” category along side of him. good to know i was on the valued/not stereotyped team.
fat is not a bad word. fat is not a bad thing. everyone has different notions of what weight classifies one as “fat” anyway. to many, i am in between fat and thin. to me, the lines aren’t so distinctively drawn. i have to keep realizing that only my own perception of myself matters. who gives a fuck about body mass, seriously?
