Weight

Little competes with the jolt of seeing the reflection of one’s naked self in a dressing room mirror.

Alone in a dressing room, I eagerly strip from the waist up to try on a slinky, sparkly blouse, something to cheer me up. I know what I expect to find in the mirror, but I am not prepared for what I see: hips whose extra flesh slightly overhangs my jeans and a belly that hangs like a small sack.

The last time I saw myself fully exposed was during the summer, while I was still suffering through the job that had my stomach tied up in knots. Eating had become impossible. My hip bones jutted out and the indentations between my breast bones were well-defined; my cheekbones were pronounced, my belly and my ass, flat. F. had started calling me skinny; friends were expressing concern. I may have been miserable at work, but I loved the way I looked.

Now that the awful stress of that job is gone, now that I am no longer subsisting on adrenalin and coffee, my metabolism has returned to normal. I am still a petite woman, but I have regained some of the padding that I’d lost: padding that is normal for my body. The problem is that normal isn’t how I like to look; that being as thin as I like requires me to eat barely anything. It triggers my inner anorexic.

At this stage in life, aren’t we entitled to surrender to our fleshier hips and grab-able tummies? Shouldn’t I accept my Hungarian-Jewish heritage, my ethnic predisposition to thighs that rub together when I walk and a belly that rolls over a little?  So, why can’t I do it?

Like many midlife women who came of age during the 60s in the days of Twiggy, I acquired my obsession—and my body self-hatred—from watching my mother. She was always on a diet, always castigating herself for having pounds to lose. She was a little chunky, always. No matter what she wore, she would squeeze herself into a girdle, desperate to compress her fleshiness, sounding like a washboard when she walked.

This is my legacy. I grew up, also a little chunky, hating my body and at war with it. As R. was growing up, I made a point of never discussing weight or calories–mine or anybody’s–so as not to infect her with the cultural pressure to be skinny that has completely distorted my physical self-perception. Still, I continue to watch every morsel I eat and force myself to exercise mercilessly; to burn up every calorie I consume, every single day. Although I am slender and fit, not a day goes by when I don’t take a personal, physical inventory. Sometimes I don’t even recognize that I’m doing it. It is second nature.

Along with the aches and pain and extra pounds of middle age, I hope to discover the capacity for self-acceptance, self-love even. What a concept.