body thought

this is a combination of stuff i wrote a long while back and stuff i wrote today.

thoughts on my body:

it's the same one that i've had, more or less, since even before puberty.

i remember seeing a photograph of a prepubescent me at the beach in my bathing suit and thinking i looked like an uprighted rectangular block propped up by two sticks (those would be my legs).

no curves, no waist, just hips upon which the rest of my body was evenly stacked.

and i vaguely remember thinking that my body would eventually undergo a foretold womanly transformation.

i'm here today to tell you that i own that same body in that picture.

yes, i've undergone a transformation -- there's more fat here and there -- but there's only so far one can deviate from genetic predetermination. no amount of dieting or exercising will shrink my pelvic cavity, for example. i could lose all the fat and muscle in my body and from the side look as thin as a piece of paper but the moment that you turn the perspective and view from straight-on, there would be those same childbearing hips.

having seen bodybuilders on TV and studied the shape variations of the same muscle in different bodies - muscles that have been trained to look their absolute best - looking distinctly different from person to person has lead me to trust that genetics has more to do with determining our looks, such as the shape of our hind ends, than diet and exercise do. in fact, the frequent stair climbing and dancing that i do has done something incredible to my butt ~ it put a muscle inside it. not just any muscle, but a big butt muscle. and that butt muscle is looking exactly as it genetically should, whether i like the way it looks or not. my but is big because it was born that way.

i don't know how or when or why i became so very butt-obsessed, but i am. i am terribly self-conscious about the size and shape of my rear end. i never leave the house or any bathroom without checking to see if there is any way i can fix my clothes to try to minimize its appearance. i think all clothing manufacturers have conspired against my butt too, making clothes that do not give me enough room back there to sit or bend without pulling in material from all other directions. i have even paid a therapist to talk with me about my big butt. and after she realized how futile her anti-big-butt-statements were she let the pendulum swing the opposite direction, accepted my way of thinking and suggested that i appreciate the benefits of my big butt, such as having a better chance of avoiding hip fracture at an elderly age and living longer. that day my therapist also mentioned another client of hers who was so desperately in fear of anyone seeing her in her bathing suit that it was holding her back from living a normal life. so her assignment was to go over to a neighbor's house, in her bathing suit, and ask for some sugar. and she did it. and her life went on. and this debunked her unfounded fears that life would end if people saw her in her bathing suit so she was able to drop her distorted view of her body and carry on as a normal functioning person of society who plays with her kids at the pool in the summer. although i'm no where near ready to serve up a platter of my butt to my nearest neighbor, i'm always trying to reason with myself that my butt is exactly as it is supposed to be. it's taking me a long time to get it.

the irony of coming to a country where i knew and expected to be unfortunately bigger than most other women my age is that when i stood naked in front of a room full of korean woman of various ages (at the public bath houses) well of course most of the time i got the full on stares of wonder and unapologetic curiosity -- and /that/ takes discomfort to a-whole-nother level; being naked and stared at like you're an alien that has landed from outer space, but there is just so very little variation of shapes, sizes, colors between the people of korea that if you throw in one slight variation it must stand out like a sore thumb to them -- but anyway, in some cases i got multiple (as in, not once, not twice, but several) compliments (on several different occasions at several different places) such as, "ooooh, S-line" and "너무 예뻐요" (so beautiful).

what? this body doesn't look like an uprighted rectangular box to you? please, do go on ...

it wasn't until it just kept happening that i began to see myself through the eyes of these other women. the first time it happened was actually in Thailand. i was in my bikini out next to the pool and a bunch of korean woman walked by and started talking about/to me in korean saying these things. they see an S-line. i see a box. hummmmm, why the disconnect? i suppose this being a country of walking sticks it's quite rare to see my kind of hips on a person in real life which they may have only ever seen in Baroque art. i may not be able to find clothes that fit me in this country but i have never had a korean ajumma look at my naked body and tell me i need to eat more kimchi and vegetables. which, believe you me, if they think you're fat, they will tell you. they will say, "you fat. you eat more vegetables. korean food number one. make you skinny. eat korean food." i know this because i have heard this brutally honest opinion delivered on a number of occasions.

~~~

regardless of how well i have convinced myself that a skinnier-sue would be a happier-sue, which is something that i've been telling myself for about as long as i have been aware of my body, i have finally debunked this myth.

it's those damn days when you feel uncomfortable in your clothes and can't find things to fit your shape well (tight in the thighs and loose in the waist or fine in the waist and not enough coverage in the rear), or when you have to unbutton your clothes after you eat or when you can see in the mirror that tire bulging out from under your clothes, or when your clothes ride-up most uncomfortably in between (the front of) your legs, or when you wear something nice and then get up from sitting and all the creases that have been made in the fabric that has gathered up and been pressed in the swallowing fold created where your legs bend at your well-fed waist making you look like a fool in ill fitting clothes ... because of all of those damn days filled with those damn reasons, i just can't help but to think that comfort and ease and beauty and happiness are linked up with body weight.

yes, i want to be able to squat or sit with folded legs in my lap without feeling like i'm squeezing sausage out of it's skin. is that too much to ask? i want to bend over and pick up something i dropped without feeling like i'm about to sever my body in half. i want to be able to kneel without the back of my pants being yanked down exposing my underwear. skinny people have the luxury of not ever needing to want these things, so it seems to me.

here it is, the lesson that has taken too long to learn and which will undoubtedly be too easy to forget: skinny does not equal happy.

do you want to know how i know this for a fact? i was skinner last year than i am now, yet i was not any happier than i am now. i was no more satisfied with my body then, than i am now.

i used to be so disciplined about what i put in my mouth but that was before i started working full time. after i started this job i gained about 6 pounds. sitting around for 9 hours a day and killing time by drinking calories is just a "deskies" way of life. i hate this way of life. i hate it, i do. i really enjoy the work but i hate living on someone else's schedule. in this way i know i could never, without great sacrifice, adjust to having a baby or even a husband as the simple fact of eating when i'm not hungry, or not eating when i am hungry, feels so suffocating.

regardless, the skinny=happy theorem doesn't demonstrate to be true, and i'm not sure that it ever has. my own thoughts have been lying to me for so very long. what's going on here? when i see skinny i think happy. why? and why don't i see skinny when i look at myself? and how do i achieve that feeling of body satisfaction and happiness that i was so sure would come to me once some magical amount of my weight was lost: find better fitting clothes? walk around naked? destroy all mirrors? have a double hip-replacement? get butt reduction surgery? never drop anything or if i do, buy another one to replace it? the answer is still unknown to me. in the meantime i think i need to let it sink in that skinny does not equal happy, that Natalie Merchant's "these are the days" is true, and that Baz Luhrmann's "you're not as fat as you imagine" is right.