Potatoes

The Beginning of The Beginning

Chapter One

I was damned from day one. Born into an overweight and unhealthy family definitely wasn't going to work out for me. Eventually, my mother had surgery to get rid of her fat and my father started losing weight. But I say there unmoved as the scale numbers rushed forward. It was a gradual change, one you wouldn't notice until you tried on the clothes from last summer or had a really good look at yourself in the mirror. You'll notice the way your belly protrudes more than it used to, or how you've added several stretch marks to your collection. Your thighs seemed to overpower one another, rubbing together when you take simple steps. The constant pain of rashes at the top of your thighs just because there is no space between them. Tall boots are too tight for your thick calves. Those pants don't button. Your size number went up since last year while everyone else's stayed the same. Gradual changes that knock you cold once you notice them. I'll take off my shirt and stare at myself in the mirror, only to turn away, disgusted with myself. The wrinkles of fat jiggle when I walk. I can't dance. I can't run. I'm too self-conscious of the way I can feel my body jiggle up and down as I take the simple steps others could do effortlessly. I notice the way my thighs move when I walk and the only thing I can concentrate on is praying to God that no one else notices.

I can't tell you that this story had a happy ending, because the truth is I don't know. This story is just beginning, and not everyone deserves a happy ever after.

***

I wish I could punch you in the face. The way you look at me irks me. You simply looked at me and your gaze landed there for too long, and now I want to either scream or hide in a corner. You may not have been thinking that my shirt was too tight. You might not have been looking at my thighs or my calves or my randomly popping up double chin, but those were all the things I noticed when your eyes landed on me. In that very second I wanted to cry and stay in a whole forever. But I acted like nothing had happened and moved away from you. I set my shoulders back and walked with as much confidence as I could muster-about the size of a mustard seed- to somewhere secluded. Which was nowhere in Target.

Later that night I would throw myself on my bed and huff and cry about nothing and everything, something and nothing. I'd stay like that for hours until I fell asleep, only to wake up the next morning and reap a new mustard seed to hide behind in the shadows of self hatred.