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.
