Not to brag, but I used to get complimented a lot. What mascara do you wear, those can’t be your natural lashes. Your hair is incredible, what do you use on it? How is your skin so soft? I did have good eyelashes, hair, and skin back then, but none of those things have really changed. What has changed is that I am four stone heavier now, and nobody tells me how shiny my hair is.
I now weigh around 13 stone. As someone who is only 5ft 2in, this is heavy. Obese, say the charts. Fat, says the media, fat, say the trolls online. Fat, says the little voice in my head who never got beyond being a teenage girl. This is alien to me. I look around and see people who look like me all the time. How can I be considered fat? In fact, a quick Google suggests that the average dress size for an adult woman in the UK is a size 20-22; far larger than my 16-18. How can I, and all these other people, be fat?
Why do people think I’m not as smart now? My features are not as sharp but my wits are steel. Why do they think I am clumsy now? I have always been clumsy. Why do they think I have no moral centre? Eating is not a crime.
The pandemic took so much from so many, and my connection to my body is what I lost. Complicated a thousand-fold by being genderqueer; society demands androgyny, and that means skinny. Why is it my job to change society with my body? Why are there social norms and why must I challenge them?
I used to like to sit with my knees tucked up under my chin; I can’t do that anymore; my stomach gets in the way. I like to sleep on my front. Now I have to rearrange my breasts so I am not squishing them painfully. The way I relate to the space I take up has not caught up with my body. I’m sure I can get through that gap (I definitely could have a few years ago…). Oops, did I bump into you? So sorry.
2020 saw me go from a successful professional data analyst to someone I hardly recognised. I was made redundant, the world fell apart around me, and I turned thirty. I never got into habitual exercise, but I walked everywhere all the time. Living on the fourth floor, a whopping 90 stairs from street to home, meant even although I didn’t exercise, I didn’t need to. In the pandemic, my daily life changed entirely and the exercise I was getting evaporated. My metabolism slowed immensely between 29 and 31. I also turned to food for comfort – I didn’t know how to make myself feel better so anything that provided even a smidgeon of dopamine became an automatic yes. I refuse to judge myself for this.
But the disconnection from my body, the societal expectations, and the change in how I am perceived; are all things I cannot escape. I understand how the human body works and how unlikely it is to successfully lose weight. I know that my body will look like this for the rest of my life. My head and my heart are just taking some time to catch up with that fact. But I will. I have stopped trying to fit into my old clothes – I’ve even stopped holding on to them. This was the first part of letting go of my old body and learning to love my new body. What the next step is, I don’t know, but I trust my body will get me there.
Featured Image Source: Spirit of Photography
Student journalist & freelance writer. Check out Quick Play, where I review video games that are 10 hours or less.
