OYM Day 67: Quarters & High Cholesterol

“If you can hold a quarter between your thighs, they’re too big.” — a modeling agent I worked with in college.

“If you cut your calories quite drastically now, it’ll keep you from menstruating, which will keep your hips from getting big for child baring.” — a casting scout that stopped me in a mall. I was 16.

“If I ever have to start buying clothing in a size large, I’ll just kill myself.” — Me, somewhere in my 20’s.

My relationship with food has rarely been positive. As a child, I was always hungry, as most children are. My stomach was growling hours before lunch and I could barely make it home from school without hunger pangs electrifying my insides. We had food at home, so that wasn’t necessarily the issue, but most of it required cooking, which I wasn’t great at. I’m sure housing and feeding 4 growing girls was an immense task for my mother. I felt guilty about it. She worked long hours, taking care of the sick and elderly on hospice. She didn’t have financial support from my dad, either. She would come home from work looking tired, sometimes telling us she didn’t have time to sit to pee that day. I didn’t want to be another burden.

I would open a can of fruit cocktail and eat it with a spoon, scraping around the sides of the tin, looking for cherries. I would search the cabinets and freezer, racking my brain for a recipe. To this day, I do the same thing, much to my husbands dismay. For him, cooking is fun. It’s an art. For me, it feels like I’m fixing a fender bender with duct tape, hoping no one will notice. Maybe they won’t notice that dinner is just noodles and canned tomatoes and half a stick of butter with some garlic salt. Maybe they won’t notice that I cook to be full and not for enjoyment. I have tried to remedy this engrained habit with cook books and new ingredients, but it never lasts.

Why? Because I hate food. Even saying the word makes me uneasy. Think of what your mouth looks like when you say it. It’s gross. Plus, it was always a hot commodity in my house when I was young. Especially junk food. Chips would last a few hours, if that, before the empty bag was just a memory lingering in the trash can. Little Debbie cakes and treats? Goners. My step father would lock up these foods in a cabinet in the basement. I learned to pick the lock and would hide in the dark, slowly pulling apart the cellophane, like I was disarming a bomb. I hid food. I hid to eat. I felt ashamed for wanting to eat. I ate quickly and as much as I could. Then I would go about the rest of the day hoping not to be found out.

I would scrape up change for school lunch, buying the most I could for $1 or $1.25. This usually meant a pop tart and a milkshake. They were each 50 cents. Other days there would be no change and I’d tell my friends I wasn’t hungry. I could have asked my mother for lunch money, and she would have opened her purse, but I felt ashamed for needing her. So, I would break the pop tart into pieces and dip it in the milkshake. The cold of the ice cream numbed my stomach and seemed to hold me until 3pm. I was thin. I remember being weighed in the nurses office and she remarked that I was just slightly underweight. She was small and stout, with red framed glasses hanging on a plastic beaded chain around her neck. She reminded me of a turtle. She said I was lucky.

I had abs in high school. Glistening, biscuit top abs. Sometimes my friends would ask to see them. But I never worked out. They were just there.

In college, when I worked at nightclubs and bars, people would ask me how I stayed so thin. I would get back to my apartment at 4am, but first stop at the hot dog stand for fries, a pickle, and a Diet Pepsi. I’d finish it all off before walking the rest of the block to my front door. Then I’d sleep for 10 hours and repeat.

During this same time, I had bloodwork drawn so I could start a new acne medication and the doctor said my cholesterol was sky high. She asked what I had eaten before the blood draw. “A gyro, curly fries, and a chocolate milkshake,” I said. Instead of scolding me for eating a weeks worth of calories in a day, she told me it didn’t matter because I was a “skinny little thing”, with a smile. I had done something bad, but my thin-ness made it go away.

My awful habits didn’t matter, because I was thin. I ate horribly, usually because I was stressed or depressed. But it didn’t show. It was my way of self harming that seemed untraceable (unless I was getting my blood drawn, apparently). And I realized that people wanted something that I had. Friends wanted me to be in their fashion shows and model clothing for their websites, because I could fit the sample size. I was tall and I was skinny and it gave me power. But it didn’t last.

Now in my mid 30s, I’m regular. I’m not underweight or overweight. Sometimes I buy a size large in a T-shirt. Sometimes I don’t fit into something I bought in college. And it kills me. I no longer get the comments about my abs, because I don’t have them. I’m no longer asked to model anything, because I’m older and I’m not thin enough. I eat healthier now, but still, my body has changed and I can’t seem to control it.

And it’s funny. To me, the majority of people I come across strike me as profoundly beautiful. Everyone has a something. Their eyes, their nose, the way their lips twist to the side to smile. Ruby red hair, freckles, long fingers, a doughy upper lip, cheekbones, flecks of gray. There is not a single person in my life that i don’t find breathtaking. You could wear an extra small or a triple XL. I don’t ever notice. I reserve all of my judgement for a girl that’s been very bad. Me.

I go see my doctor every 6 months to renew my prescriptions, the prescriptions I waited years to succumb to in fear of the dreaded side effect: weight gain. Before every appointment I call the office and speak to the nurse. I tell her I’m coming in shortly and that I will not get on the scale and that she shouldn’t even bring it up. She still brings it up, though. She tells me it’s possible my insurance won’t cover the visit without all my vitals. I tell her I don’t care. She looks me up and down each time and throws her hands up like she doesn’t understand. It’s because she doesn’t.

I used food to self medicate. I still do. When I was in my late 20s, I would binge on sweets and then purge, all while telling myself that if people could truly see how disgusting I am, they’d ignore me like a beggar asking for change. I was so good at hiding my monster and it was my little secret to keep. It wasn’t something I did often, but the thought was usually hanging around in my periphery, tipping her hat in my direction. Nowadays, it’s the occasional hidden bag of candy in the coat closet or waking up at 3am to sneak downstairs for a breakfast bar. It’s also a lot of dark, inner monologue.

I have seen a therapist. I have talked about my issues. But it’s not something that heals. It just lays dormant. I get busy with holidays, obsessing over my child, my house, my friends, and more recently my writing. I look in the mirror and do not hate what I see on a daily basis. It’s just that some days things happen. Brownies are made or an innocent look is given to my second serving of dinner and I feel myself noticing the space I take up in a room. The way my thigh spreads like a water balloon on the dining room chair.

I worry I will pass this on to my daughter, but I know myself. I am so good at taking care of others over myself. Even at 2, my kid can eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She tries new foods almost weekly and if she wants cookies before dinner, I oblige. This has never stopped her from eating her squash. I am naked around her all the time. I want her to know what bodies look like. I am not a parenting expert and I know what I feel now may change, but she is perfect to me. She always will be.

I still get compliments. I still get remarks under the breath of creepy old men. But none of it matters, because I still have plenty of days where I could never believe I’m anything to look at. A good friend reminds me that I’m only as young and beautiful as I am today. Sometimes repeating that to myself works, other days I think about loose coins. A quarter can barely make it through my thighs now. I keep all of the household change in a big jar in the very back of a cabinet. And there it will live until it can hold no more and I’ll cash it all in for something tiny, powerful, and temporary.