Nuns, Potatoes, and Body Image: The Musical! (Not really, but I'd so see that musical)

Tonight, while meditating on life in general as I enjoyed a nightly cigarette, a memory came whooshing back into my mind with a fervor that could not be ignored. Of course, I feel the need to blog about it for two reasons. One, I feel like it was significant, and I have something to say about it. Two, my blog has been frightfully neglected lately, and I like to jump at a chance to write something that may have some small amount of substance.

When I was a young girl, my grandmother had a relative who was a nun. I'm not sure about the specifics, like what order she was in or what have you because my father had converted to the Baptist faith after marrying my mother. We never really learned much about the Catholic faith, needless to say, other than the easy things like how to say the Hail Marys of the rosary for funerals. To be candid, I don't even recall her name.

This particular nun found quite a bit of favor with my grandmother and her two sisters. They were all devout Catholics. They volunteered regularly at their local parish and attended services very regularly. In the event that they could not attend mass, they watched the mass which was broadcast on local television. Because of their devotion to their faith, they often had the sister over for dinner.

I remember one particular dinner. I must have been around eight years old, I imagine. I was old enough to know I'd been insulted, to be hurt, without being so old that I had the guts to say anything back. My grandmother had made some sort of meat, of course, but the best part of the meal were the roasted potatoes that she made (mostly because, like all delicious and terrible for you foods, they were DROWNED in butter). My grandmother's potatoes were wonderful. We all loved them, and they always went quickly. I must have been eating them with particular vigor, however, because I recall the sister looking at me and saying, "You like those potatoes, don't you?"

Of course, trying to be polite, I nodded and replied, "Yes." Mostly, my responses to the sister were monosyllabic because she was older and made me uncomfortable, as all old people did when I was young.

Her answer to my reply shocked me into submission. With all the cruelty she could muster, she said, "That's why you're fat."

To be perfectly honest, I have been fat basically all my life. You can chalk it up to whatever you want. I'm working out, I'm eating much more healthily, I've reduced portion sizes. I'm still fat. I'm probably always going to be fat. I know this. What perplexes me is not that she pointed out that I was fat. Let's be honest, everyone with eyes knows that I'm fat. Why cover what you can't hide? What perplexes me is why she would so cruelly point it out in front of other people when I was but a child.

Now, I could launch into a tirade about how inappropriate it is to say that to a child. I could mention that nuns are supposed to live their lives as manifestations of God's love on Earth. Neither of these things are the centrality of why my memory struck me as so terribly important. I'd been called fat in school before. This, however, was the first time that I'd been confronted as being undesirable for being fat by someone who was related to me. It was the first time a relative made me feel terrible for my body.

Don't get me wrong, family has made me feel terrible for personal choices or what-have-you many times since then. Feeling terrible has not been in short supply in my life. Yet, this was the first time that I'd been made to feel terrible about my body, the very beginning of all my real struggles with body image. I've hated my body for so long. I've never embraced my body. I always think, "If only this were smaller," or "If only those were bigger," or "If only I wasn't so fat!" All my life, I've always thought that I'd be more desirable, more lovable if only I were just a little less fat.

Here's the problem: being less fat won't make me less of a bitch. It won't mean that I'll suddenly start to trust people. It won't make me stop pushing people away when they say things I disagree with. Being less fat won't mean that I'll be nice to people. Being less fat won't make me stop saying terrible things to anyone that gives me a sideways glance or mistakenly finds themselves on my bad side. Turning into a skinny, gorgeous little thing won't turn me into Mother Theresa. It probably won't make me happy. It certainly won't provide me with the direction that my life is lacking.

The most important part of the memory is the part that I almost always forget. I get so wrapped up in the cruel words of the sister I forget the really important part of what happened that night: the look of abject horror and shock on my grandmother's face. I always forget that, after the sister left for the evening, my grandmother and her two sisters, my great aunts, sat at that table and told me how wrong she was. I forget the huddle of glorious, loving, motherly women who tried to tell me how much they loved me by telling me how beautiful I was. I forget how offended my mother was when they related the story to her, how she reacted in agreeance with what my grandmother and great aunts were telling me at that table. That's the part of that memory that counts.

People will always be ready to strike you at the core of the most obvious faults you bring. Fat. Skinny. Pimples. Whatever it is, they'll always be ready to call you out to make themselves feel better by making you feel worse. The important thing is the support that we get from the people who really love us. Personally, I just hope that all the little fat girls out there who have their feelings hurt by other people trying to tear them down, whose body image issues will begin at a young age and continue to be a terrible struggle, have a gaggle of loving women ready to tell them how wrong those other people were. I hope that, like my grandmother, someone will react as though they themselves had been personally insulted. I hope those little fat girls have the kind of love that I did because that's what really counts.

Body image continues to be a struggle for me. I'm going to try a lot harder to believe it when people tell me that I look good. I'm going to try to believe it when people tell me that I'm pretty or that I have sex appeal, even if I can't see it in myself. Just do me a favor: if you ever see someone that doesn't believe the compliments they're getting, smack them upside the head for me. Sometimes, we need it.

The Neglectful Author

Oh, long neglected blog, I pine! Well, that's a lie. I don't really pine. At least, I don't really pine for blogging. I do pine for the creative gumption to get around to writing something that isn't trite and stupid, but I don't think that counts as pining for blogging per se. I can happily report, however, that I'm so busy keeping my resolutions that I've been unable to think for myself--or, at least, that's what I'm going to claim.

Clearly, I'm not keeping all of my resolutions. After all, here we are at almost 6 AM, and I find myself blogging. Needless to say, some will be harder to crack than others. I can cheerfully report that I've had earrings in my ears every single day since that last post. I've put on make up more than just once since that post as well. I finished one book and started another. I've been varying my music tastes. I've been committed to trying to listen to the little voice in my head that feeds me nothing but quiet degradations--because, let's be honest, I really do need to listen to that little voice that tells me that I can't sing worth a damn and should shut up. (If you've heard my singing, you'll agree with that.) It's an uphill battle, but I am at least still making the effort. I'm also happy to report that I have not cried drunkenly since my last post!

My turkey slaughtering holiday found itself appropriately thankful, as the title would seem to require. It's funny, though, that spending time with my family mostly just makes me yearn for my roommate and our apartment. It makes me long for a place where no one screams at me for little-to-no reason. It makes me want the peace and quiet that comes in the night there. It makes me crave the friendship and the solitude--though I do recognize that those are conflicting ideas, I have them both in a lovely balance back at school. It makes me wonder what will happen to my poor mental state when the Christmas break comes. I'm fairly certain I'll lose my mind.

My room here in Delta is so terribly boring now. All I have is my laptop and the bed. I don't even have a TV in here anymore because it's in our living room at school. In lieu of any other form of watchable entertainment, I turned to Netflix tonight. There's a movie that I've recently fallen in love with that I opted to watch again called Teenage Dirtbag. It's an independent film, and it would be impossible for me to describe it without giving too much away. The best part about it is how deeply it makes you feel. The emotion is so subtle, but so palpable and real. It leaves me feeling gloriously empty, sad to the core.

Strangely, sadness is an emotion that I have always embraced--much to the chagrin of others around me, I think. Many people don't seem to understand it, and it bothers them. I think sadness is an integral part of the human experience. We have to understand our own pain, embrace it, in order to be able to empathize with the pain of others. We have to examine our pain to be able to move through it, make it a part of ourselves. Of course, that's an idea that I've always embraced. Pain is part of life. Sadness can be painful, but that doesn't mean we can shove it under the rug and ignore it. We have to see it, to acknowledge it. Sometimes, we have to live in it for a while. Too many people let it overwhelm them, suck them in, because they've never tried to walk in it.

Apologies, sparse readers. My mind is trailing off because of the late hour and because of my own distraction. My thin attempts at depth are failing me, indeed. As a result, I think I shall call this entry off.

Resolutions Without the New Year

Time has been harsh with me lately. It seems that I never have enough. It passes so quickly that I feel as though I cannot manage to catch my breath. Circumstances have been so cruel lately.

To begin with, AW no longer wishes to be friends with me. He claims he will keep in touch, but this seems a moot point now. JJ has been terribly demanding as of late, even necessitating at one point that I call the Indiana police to get him. This is a little bit complicated because I live in Ohio. I'm still very angry with him for putting me through that. I feel like it's been incredibly difficult for me to talk to him even though he needs me because my fury hasn't faded yet. I feel as though he hangs things over my head in an attempt to make me love him, but what really ends up happening is that he can't even comprehend how much it makes me resent him.

Yesterday, after going to the club with my group of friends, I made a fool of myself. In an attempt to further preserve what little dignity I happen to have left, I will simply say that the high school crush that I wrote of before is well aware of what I think of him now. This, of course, wouldn't have been a complete humiliation if it hadn't been for the drunken crying. Thankfully, this happened back at the apartments and not in public. I'm pretty sure that it will be best if I simply wallow in my embarrassment for a while so that I get a complete reminder of why I don't speak to males. "Hi, my name is Jessica, and I'm incompetent." Oh, if only there were a support group for that!

I've decided that, in spite of my recent cluster of faux pas, I'm going to make a few little resolutions here for my life. They may seem silly, but I think they're important, so here they are:

• Wear earrings more often. What's the point of having the holes if I'm not using them? (Please, control yourself and stifle the "that's what she said" response that we all know is rolling around your brain right now.)
• Try to put on make-up every now and again. It actually does look good on me and it really doesn't take all that long to put on.
• Read more. I have some time right now, and I ought to be making use of it, dammit.
• Keep working out. This is a good thing! It must continue!
• Enjoy more R&B instead of immediately judging it. Vary your tastes, Jessica! DO IT!
• Drink less. Nothing good ever comes of it, and I don't know how to keep my mouth shut when I do it.
• Lie to myself more often and tell myself the brutal truth. Seriously. I need to stop living in the scenarios that play out beautifully in my head. What I need to hear more of is that I don't have feelings or prospects. It would be great if someone could tell me no. It would also be great if I started to believe that little voice in my head that says things like, "You look stupid when you dance" or "He doesn't like you!" or "Please stop talking."
• Go to bed earlier. This 5 and 6 AM shit isn't working anymore.

We'll see how much of these things that I can manage. Hopefully, more than I thought I could.

For the time being, I'm in the middle of a cynical patch. I really just need to chill for a while. I need to wallow in it for a day or so. I need to stay in bed and do next to nothing, drift in and out of a comfortable sleep. Oddly, I'm very comfortable with my cynicism. This is like putting on a favorite shirt from high school that you forgot you had. You're surprised at how well it still fits, how much you forgot that you sort of enjoyed it, how it feels against your skin. I remember this cynicism well. I just forgot about how good I am at it.