The majority of my childhood was spent in a major
plastic surgery hub. Per capita it had one of the highest rates for cosmetic
surgeries in all the United States. It also was notorious for being the
anti-depressant capital, had alarming rates for eating disorders and even more
horrifying pornography rates. It is a relatively quaint and small area. Very
few people outside of Utah have ever even heard of this town. In this town, the
most poorly kept secret was that most girls were awarded a boob job upon their
high school graduation. If for some reason they were not granted this
benevolent gift at graduation, it would later be offered to them as an
engagement gift from their betrothed. My intention is not to villainize. I had
a lovely childhood and some of the most saintly, wonderful people I know
inhabit this strange place. Nor am I claiming silicone filled women can’t be
saintly… there are numerous hearts of gold beating behind plastic racks…My
intention in sharing is to explain the place I grew into a young woman and to
illuminate how I came to initiate a full on war with my body…
I was not born in this town. I moved there at eight
years old while my mother was attending law school. If being the daughter of a
single mother in law school didn’t make me an anomaly, my outspokenness, wild
hair and “curvy” body certainly did. Half way through junior high I became
painfully aware that “beauty” was currency…neither my brain nor loud mouth
would buy me anything in this peculiar town. I studied Seventeen magazine
religiously, I exercised like a fiend, I straightened my hair daily, I bleached
out any remnant of color from every strand, I laid out…During the beginning of
high school I was a dedicated athlete. I played tennis, volleyball and
basketball ensuring there was no season I wasn’t moving. Between seasons I was
in intensive conditioning classes. I was in optimal physical condition. It
didn’t matter. No matter how much I exercised or how hard I worked I was still
freakishly tall and 15 pounds overweight. No amount of strength training, hair
bleaching, tanning or running could make me 5’3 and a size 2. Before beginning
my junior year of high school we moved away but the acrylic nails and body
fixation followed me…
If I was angry at my body for its inability to be
5’3 and 125 you can imagine how exasperated I was when the cancer emerged…
However with the cancer came the insight that the tumor in my brain had been
wreaking havoc with my weight for years. Though the tumor was not responsible
for my height or my inability to be a size 2 it was the culprit of my constant
weight fluctuations and those extra 15 pounds… This was glorious news! Once the
tumor was gone I would never battle with an excess of weight… I would be
skinny… As it so happened, removing the tumor did not conquer those extra
pounds. In fact the combination of treatment and stress threw my thyroid and
hypothalamus into complete chaos, so much so that I gained close to 80 pounds
during the course of my treatment. On one occasion a friend even
remarked to me something along the lines of “you’re the only cancer patient I
know to gain weight, I thought cancer patients were supposed to lose it.” I
still haven’t lost those 80 extra pounds…
This year you will not see one of my New Year’s
resolutions including the words “weight” or “lifestyle” (not that you would see
my resolutions anyway figuring I seldom write them down…) This year will be the
first year in almost twenty where one of those words will not appear on my list…While
it may seem a radical choice seeing as I haven’t lost those extra pounds… I am
choosing to write a list or resolutions only including the words: forgiveness,
service and empathy. I honestly wonder what would happen if every woman chose
to stop punishing herself for every flaw real or imagined and focused on
cultivating forgiveness, service and empathy this next year? It would be a
different world. During my undergraduate study I took a class evaluating the
impact of child abuse. The professor for this class said something that has
stuck with me ever since. She stated that warped body image was the
sexual abuse of the masses and was particularly destructive because it was
depriving a whole generation of nurturance. I have reflected upon this
statement often. The war we have declared on the female figure and the worship
of plastic parts has indeed deprived us of our ability to care for others and
ourselves in the most needed ways. Ironically this fixation not only robs us of
our emotional, mental, and spiritual health but most acutely of our physical well-being.
For years I allowed myself to think only of the ways my body had failed me. I
allowed myself to bring a cloud of self-doubt and loathing to a room of women
by being disparaging about my own body or appearance. I allowed myself to miss
opportunities to serve, listen and empathize by living in this fixation. There
are two things I have found are universally true among women: first, most every
woman I know claims the time in her life she both looked and felt her best was
when she fixated on it the least. And second, no matter what, if one woman
begins to be self-deprecating the entire room melts into feeling inadequate.
This year I am grateful for a body that has seen me
through cancer twice, that has allowed me to maintain an eye amongst radiation,
multiple surgeries, and injections. I am grateful for a brain that has had the
ability to recover and rewire. I am grateful for the empathy my physical
limitations have awarded me. This upcoming year I am choosing resolutions
that will bring hope over shame. I am choosing resolutions that will illuminate
and elevate a room. I am choosing resolutions that will make me more
emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically healthy. I am choosing
resolutions that will allow me to contribute a piece of nurturance back into
this plastic world.
No comments:
Post a Comment