A Curvy Girl in a Skinny World

Another couple of months have elapsed on my tardy blog site *guilty sigh* but something happened this week that has propelled me to write another blog post. My teenage daughter wrote a story for an English assignment at school on the topic - a 'coming of age' issue and I'd like to share it. It's quite a powerful look at a teenage girl's view and while it isn't autobiographical, it's an eye-opener into the pressure girls feel about their bodies.

Surviving Meal-time

I glare down at my dinner plate, the thin gold outline faded and scratched away in some places. I still remember the day mum bought them, she thought they were elegant, “Ladies eat off fine china, Violet!” I think I was twelve at the time, not knowing that one day I would dread the simple normality that is the typical family dinner scene.

Mum had taken to forcing the family to eat at the table recently, just my luck. She thought it would help us ‘bond’. I must admit I did admire her persistence – the way she would force us to tell everyone about our boring average days - every mundane activity in it, even if the most interesting part of your day was the fact that you found $2 on the footpath! She listened with such great enthusiasm and interest that I realised one of mum’s most endearing qualities was the fact that she did care. More than I thought was possible, maybe even a little too much some times, but I guess that was her job.

Lucas was rattling on about how uni was and all of his assignments and I put in my best effort to look interested. I put on my most captivated face yet everything he said was empty, meaningless to me, blurred by what I was really focusing on.

I found myself staring down at my plate again. I concentrated, strategized the different ways I could get out of my predicament without being exposed. I felt a cool wet nose scrape against my knee, finally! I rejoiced. I sneakily sliced my meat in half and in a heartbeat slipped a piece under the table to my loyal awaiting dog, Max. He at it in just two seconds, so appreciative of food, so simply made happy, I wonder if I will ever be like that again. Just as I brought my hand back up to continue my facade my mother’s head turned to me and she stared at the unusually large amount of food still left on my plate. She gazed at me disapprovingly, puzzled, her eyebrows scrunching.

“Are you feeling alright love, why haven’t you eaten your dinner?” Her voice speaks confusion but her eyes radiate concern and displeasure.

“I’m just not very hungry, maybe I’m coming down with something,” I lie terribly, unconvincingly and she stares, suspicious.

“Maybe just have a few more bites, for me?” she says, batting her eyelids.

I swallow slowly, deeply, dreading what I must do. Of course she would never understand what it’s like, how hard it is to hate every fibre of your being. I breathe steadily, ensuring I don’t reveal myself to her watchful eye. My heart beats fast, hard and uneven. My stomach swells and churns with anxiety. If she knew what I was really trying to do I think she would have apoplexy and send me off to counselling or rehab. She would worry, over-thinking the situation as mums do best.  I give her an empty smirk, giving in unwillingly. The kind of smile that doesn’t reach your eyes, the insincere kind. I pick up my fork and stab a piece of steak and potato and take the plunge. It’s short-lived and over in moments but all I hear in my head is every girl at my school ringing and chanting and bouncing around in my brain,

 “A moment on the lips forever on the hips”, “boys don’t like curvy girls”, “thin is in”!

My head spins, lost in a daze. It’s almost as if I can physically feel the fat cells desperately clutching themselves to my thighs, my hips, my arms, fighting against me, tantalising, torturing me. It feels like worms crawling and squirming under my skin and it makes me want to claw at my skin and rip them out. I stand abruptly my chair scraping against the floorboards awkwardly and abruptly. I do not dare look at any of my family in the eye, for fear they’ll see my eyes swelling up, like the coward I am.

“If you’ll excuse me I don’t feel very well!” I exclaim and storm out of the room. I dare not look back at their confused loving faces.

I slam and lock the bathroom door and let my shaking body sink onto the ice cold tiles, they’re so cold it stings, but that’s okay, the pain distracts and numbs me. I let my head rest on the toilet as clutch to the porcelain bowl.

I wonder if when I was twelve and I was buying dinner plates with my mum I would ever know that I would resort to this, turn into this lifeless girl. Hating yourself should never be an overlooked trait. If the twelve year old me saw me now, she wouldn’t understand. She would think that it would be ridiculous to starve yourself to lose weight. She would say that Violet, everyone has their imperfections and if everyone carried themselves as the lifeless pale sticks that we call perfect she would rather be the version of herself she hated most, than the socially constructed monster that so many girls turn morph into. She would look at you with confused, innocent eyes and say that no one should have to go through that, because no one should.

If the twelve year old me met me now she wouldn’t like me. She wouldn’t understand why I was putting my fingers down my throat right now. She wouldn’t understand any of it. But that’s okay because that’s how I’d like to remember her, uncorrupted, safe.