teclo

This is getting into a personal vein, here. Castaway, if you are reading this, please do not. I need feedback on a certain situation, and would prefer if it remained quiet.

Thank you.

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I don't know how many of you have figured this out about me yet, and most likely none of you have. I have had a long-standing issue with body image, weight, phsyical apperance, and mental projection.

I was having a conversation recently with a friend. The sort of friend with whom you walk down the street and let it all hang out (both literally and figuratively), as everyone's eyes will be drawn to her, and not you. She is, most probably, the most beautiful person I think I have ever met. She and her height, her muscles, her thinness, her jawline, everything about her makes you want to fall down on your knees and propose marriage right then and there.

My boyfriend made some crack about having my parents move in with me, and having us watch over my mother in her old age. I shuddered. My mother and I, we get along as if on a tightrope; we walk on eggshells around one another. We are such different people, she and I, and it's very difficult for us to remain civil. Much of this stems back to my childhood, my childhood which was perfectly fine until I realized that other children's mothers did not deny them food; did not make them exercise every day; did not call them fat; did not refuse to buy them clothes due to the current size of their pants.

I don't believe I am overweight or fat. I am a strong woman. Very strong. I can lift 80lbs without blinking or breaking a sweat. I carry myself around my Astanga Yoga practice with ease and contentment. I have a very large bone structure. I am built like a brick shithouse.

My mother, on the other hand, feels differently. I could not bear to have her under my roof and telling me what I can and cannot eat. I don't want her in my house telling me when I must exercise.

For two years of my life, I was a diagnosed anorexic/bulimic. I wouldn't eat, and what I little I did, I immediately purged. For about the ten years previous, I was suffering from something as well. I would exercise for two to four hours a day, every day, and eat almost nothing.

Although I have explained to my mother that my weight in high school and those first two years of college were due to mass malnutrition and over exertion, she won't have it. When I visit her, she complains about the size of my hips, the bulge in my stomach, the "fattness" of my arms.

As I was telling this to my friend, the one you want to propose to on sight, she said "But you aren't that fat."

I was crestfallen. I felt like I'd just been punched right in that bulge of my tummy. Yes, she is thin. Yes, she eats like a horse. Yes, she works out five days a week. But I eat healthfully for the most part. I walk at least two miles a day. I practice yoga two to four times a week. I am no couch potato.

So, I took some nude pictures of myself with my digital camera. I was shocked with how much larger the digital image says I am than the image I see in the mirror.

After about a month of thinking I was gorgeous, I am once again monitoring my food intake; forcing myself to exercise; denying myself nourishment.

I suppose I shot myself in the foot.

One of these days, I will be a stable person.

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My friend who moved to Chicago e-mailed me and told me that she and an old college friend of mine were discussing me the other day. They agreed that I made them understand themselves; that they are better people for having met me.

And that is weight I am happy to carry around.