Current mood:	irritated
Entry tags:	faith hope trick - ponderings

Irritated
When I was a teenager, I hated my body.

I never used the term "meat sack", but it's possible I would have if I had heard it at a young-enough age. I loathed it, and saw no purpose to it except to carry around my brain and allow me to read books. Oh, and allow me to sit on the side of the lake in my town and throw rocks into it, thinking about how life was just like rocks being thrown into a lake. I was a very unhappy teenager.

Now that I'm almost done my 30th year, I have entirely different views about my body. It's a lot of fun - with this body, I get to eat fresh baked bread and feel exhausted and sore after a day climbing up on top of really big rocks and feel the brush of my hair along my back and feel all the pleasures of sexuality and I'm quite content with it for the most part.

Except right now, when my body is being very irritating.

Over the past few months I have been slowly replacing my cola consumption with vast amounts of water consumption. I currently can't remember the last time I had a class of coke, but I do know that I drank 2 litres of water today, and that's about average for a day at work for me. And my body, bless it, has noticed that and slowly over the past few months its been dropping inches. Without consulting me at all about it.

This is always so hard to talk about - no one feels sympathy for you when you're losing weight, especially when you're not a tiny person to begin with. I'm a big girl, and the inches I'm losing may be such that no one other than me will notice, but I'm very aware, almost primarily because none of my clothes fit. I bought a belt a while back, but it's not feasible anymore, and today I went to work with my trousers tied up with ribbons. I look at myself in the photos I took this weekend, and I'm very aware that my shirts are hanging off me, far too big to be a happy accident, and I'm irritated.

I'm irritated because I have to go buy new clothes, and there is nothing in this world I hate as much as shopping for clothes.

I still remember being a teenager, trying to cry as quietly as possible because it was obvious from the shops I was in that no other girl in the world had broad shoulders and wide hips, not a single one, because there were no clothes that would fit me. It was mortifying, humiliating and embarrassing. My mother would stand outside the change room and ask in a loud voice "What about that, does that one fit you? Do you need a larger size?" and I'd wish for the earth to swallow me right there because obviously that was the only way I was going to get out of that situation.

As an adult, I favour clothes that don't cling - I hate the feeling of clothing against my skin, shudder every morning at my wardrobe because I don't want to wear anything that's work appropriate. My ideal temp job would be office typing where I could wear t-shirts, because they never cling against my body. It's comfortable and comforting, and I hide as much as I can in work shirts a bit too big for me and blazers that fit my broad shoulders and hide the rest of me underneath.

And here I am, so irritated because I'm going to have to buy new clothes and try on new things and stand in change rooms with bad lighting and feel like I'm 15, 16, 17 all over again, forced to find whatever will fit me and then leave as quickly as possible. Nice clothes are for other girls, but not for me.

I know this isn't true anymore, but the process of shopping is so irritating, the feeling of clothing against my skin so irritating, that I am incredibly irritated with this body, this thing that carries around my brain and allows me to read.

I don't believe this irritation is at all unique to me, or even unique to women with extra weight on. A friend once wrote a journal post about how she can't even eat in public without people staring at her - she's naturally thin, and people assume if she's eating healthy she must only live off 100 calories a day, and if she's eating junk she must run off to purge as soon as she's done eating. Her irritation has made her stop eating in public entirely, and only eats around people she trusts. The same genetics that make my broad shoulders and wide hips make her tiny and we both feel trapped because of it.

I know the stores to go to in Canada, and I know the people to take with me when I shop, all to minimise my irritation, those recollections of being wrongly-sized and feeling humiliated. I know that this is a good thing, my body isn't trying to punish me for no longer hating it. There's nothing wrong with liking the taste of food or the feeling of exertion or sensual movements against my skin.

And yet, still. I am irritated right now.

I hate my body.