Spiritual Sisters
Spiritual Healing Serene Salad
Spiritual Voices Creativity Bakery
The Dunking Booth I hate being fat;
It’s like sitting in a dunking booth with people standing around me
trying to get me down with comments being thrown at my heart-shaped target.
Gosh, I wish they’d stop because sooner or later I’ll fall.
-drb
Written when I was a sophomore in high school
I was always a chubby child. I was what some people called “big-boned.” I would eat all the time, trying to fill up on food what I wasn’t getting in love and attention from my mother. In Mama’s eyes I could do no wrong—I could not eat too much. I was beautiful because I was me no matter how heavy I was. I guess I was broken hearted when I realized that no one else in the world held me in such high regard.
Relatives would always tell her to slow down on what she fed me and the amount that she fed me. She would get angry and say, “Leave her alone! Let her eat what she wants!” This developed into a pattern that still remains.
I remember wearing a size eighteen in the sixth grade. The weight just kept on piling on. It did not help my weight that that very same year I was diagnosed with Osgood Slater’s disease. This illness strikes adolescents. From what I understand, the thigh grows faster than the foreleg exerting pressure and pain on the knee. Due to this condition, I got a get-out-of-gym free card. I had to sit out of gym from sixth grade all the way through high school. This developed into a pattern of a sedentary lifestyle that made it easier to gain weight. Before the onset of this condition, I used to enjoy riding bikes, or doing my Nadia Comenici impression, even though I was a chubby child, I was and am still quite limber. But after that diagnoses, my weight ballooned out of control. Mama’s and Jackie’s deaths did not make my attempts at weight loss easier. I was on a program when they died. I was doing great. They died and the diet went out the window. I had always eaten to comfort myself when I was younger. After the tragedies, I ate more because I hurt more. Somehow I must have figured—more food equals more comfort.
Some of my fondest memories of Mama revolved around food. In a lot of ways I equated food with Mama. Although she was gone, food was still here. It was a link to her. It was a link to becoming close to her. If I wanted to be with Mama, I would eat something. It was like Mama putting her arms around me when I was lonely, scared, hurt, or whatever. She was there because the food was there.
© 2005 Denise R. Black