Fat in 2014

The first time I remember thinking of myself as fat I was between six and eight. I noticed that I had a child belly, which probably wasn’t one at all. I told my mum I needed to diet. She told me I was silly. The next time I remember thinking of myself as fat was in the fourth grade. I was in that small private school, and the kids there had no shortage of things to mock me for. Third grade had been a disaster, and in fourth grade, I decided to try to change things. I got new clothes, with an older girl (a whole grade older!) coming with me to Marshall’s to help me choose new shoes. I got a watch like the cool boys had. I even tried to like Star Trek. It didn’t work. But I do remember that there was one boy who was also a bit fat. So I’d constantly talk about how fat either he was or how fat we were. Deflection and all that. My mother told me that there was nothing to worry about. Little boys grew out, then they grew up.

I never grew up.

Sums up my life pretty well.

The other memories that stand out come from a bit after that. I remember wearing my white, attempted tie dye shirt into the pool for our class swim party. Eventually, having fun, I tried to take it off and ended up more or less water boarding myself with my failure to do so (while in the pool). I know that at some of the various science camps I went to, when it came time to swim in the lake, I wore a shirt. If memory serves, it was often that one (it was a truly horrible shirt. I made it at the end of 5th grade in art class, along with everybody else, to wear in the school pageant). Still, it was something that bothered me, but was a fact of life that I dealt with. I tried to make it a part of my identity. The first time I remember being not embarrassed, but ashamed, about my weight was at my Grandma’s house. For whatever reason, my cousins and I were running in the woods. Something happened and my shirt came off or fell down, or something. Anyway, my cousin yelled out, “He’s got boobs!” and everybody ran away laughing. There was no malice in it. There was no attempt to hurt. I’m sure that nobody else remembers that day or anything from it. We were kids playing in the woods, and making jokes, and running around pretending to be horrified by things, as kids were wont to do in those days. But it hurt. And it’s something that I still have with me to this day. The day I fell underneath the merry-go-round and had half of my face bashed in is now a pleasant story to tell people. Having an infected cyst cut out of my neck without any anesthesia is now my go to badass boast. My Chinese toe surgery is just another thing to laugh off when I’m with friends. But that comment, everything about it, still hurts.

So, I was fat.

Well, it hurt, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t really know what to do, though. I didn’t really eat too much, at least as far as I knew. And it was hard to change my diet habits because I was such a picky eater. We didn’t really snack much in my house, so that wasn’t even an option. I suppose I ought to have been more physically active, but that never seemed to do anything either. Well, I thought, there are worse things in life. And, wouldn’t you know it, I was right.

The October of eighth grade, I was up north with that same cousin’s family, as well as my own, and my grandparents. The trailer campground was going to have a Halloween celebration, and I’d decided to be The Phantom of the Opera, which was my new found obsession due to my eighth grade crush. For whatever reason, the night before the festivities (trick or treating during the day, dance at night) I was out in my costume, and a few people my age were sitting around a fire. They invited me over, and I talked and talked and talked and ended up impressing all of them. Especially one girl. I asked her to the dance for the following night, and she very happily (and publicly) agreed. Though concerned that this was somehow being untrue to my 8th grade crush (who wasn’t interested in me anyway, and I knew it), I decided that it was better to go for a certainty than to hold out for an ideal, a belief that I’ve generally applied to women and little else in life. Perhaps I should change that. At any rate, the next day, I found the group, and they had trouble recognizing me. Well, that made sense. I’d had a mask the night before, and I’d been wearing a tux. Well, I noticed, over time, that the girl whom I’d asked out kept avoiding me more and more and more. Eventually, it was made clear to me that she didn’t want to go with me to the dance. When I pressed to find out why, I was told that she’d said I was too ugly.

And she hadn’t even seen me swim.

This hurt. A lot. Obviously. Later on, in eighth grade, I ended up dating a girl as unattractive as I was. It made sense. I told myself that I’d never do any better. She was willing, and near. Two qualities I’ve always looked for in a woman. Eventually, I’d grow tired of her, and we’d break up. We kept things going a bit after the breakup, if I remember correctly. That tends to be how I do things. At a swimming party that year, or possibly the year after, I ended up verbally romancing some girls from a friend’s church. But, in the end, after the night of me being clever, and smart, and witty, and charming, nothing happened. If memory serves, it was because I was with an Emily. The problem is, there was one in 7th grade too, and I don’t remember which this overlapped with. Fidelity has never come easily to me. Amazingly enough, I met those girls at a swimming party. And I don’t think I had even been wearing my hideous shirt.

A lot of this ties in with my earlier entry about the internet. I was finding myself uglier and uglier on the outside, and I was frequently reminded of it. When I was able to talk to people, especially suitably covered, I could make them think or feel anything. Especially one on one. One on one, I could talk away what I looked like. Then friends came. And women generally see what their friends see. And they saw a short, fat, funny looking kid making high pitched noises in the general direction of their friend. Which is what she than saw. Online, I could talk and talk and the whole world went away. I drew deeper and deeper into the security of the internet. I could exist there in a world where fat and ugly meant nothing. As long as I could type.

I believe that it was in about eighth grade where I first started letting my weight define me. I think if any single thing defines me, and shapes my psyche, it’s my weight. The internet allowed me to flee the world of my ample flesh, and interested me in that Platonic dichotomy between body and brain. My body was a gross, disgusting, filthy thing to be shunned and scorned by me (everybody else did it anyway). My brain was a glorious beacon of light that needed to shine out and be admired by all. The internet was my lighthouse, raising me up, that I could cut through the darkness and guide people to the proper path. Rescuing those in danger. Doing much good. But physically, cut off. Physically alone. When I left my small private school and left for my large public one, within five months, I had an honest-to-goodness flesh and blood real live girl interested in me. It certainly soured things with my internet girlfriend of three months’ time. I found that with the boon of a group of admiring friends and hangers on, I could attract women. And I was good at it! Suddenly, when I had a reputation and an entourage, I was a lot more attractive. I could talk away my appearance much more quickly. A girl sees what she thinks her friends see. To me, it was a great joke. I knew the reality. I was a short, fat, awkward, high pitched sophomore with little to no experience with women. I knew myself to be worthless (though I also believed myself to be amazing as well). To romance these women was fun because it was playing the world a joke. Those beautiful girls who had not wanted me after their friends had seen me, that girl who hadn’t wanted me when she’d seen my face, the girls who would confess everything to me online, and scorn me in person, they had the right idea. They knew what I was. But these girls? Ha! Didn’t they know the order of things? Didn’t they know how things worked? They were idiots. More than that, they, and the whole situation, was unnatural. There I was, I defying the laws of the universe that said a boy like me did not get girls like that. That’s a boost to the ol’ self-esteem, if I do say so myself.

I think it was my first college girlfriend who made me feel good about my body. She’s the last person, but one, who ever made me feel good about my body. And the but one was only for a brief time when I came back from Japan looking gorgeous.
Many women have wanted me. Many women have cared for me. Many have even claimed that they loved me. Only one lusted for me. Only one wanted me in a purely carnal, animal, uncivilized, kind of way. She was the only one who made me feel, for brief flashes of time, that, yes; maybe I was beautiful. And I felt it. I started to enjoy it. I found a world of physicality and sensuality that I hadn’t known before. This was partly caused by me breaking every law in my code of conduct (but one) for her. No. Not for her. With her. It wasn’t for her sake. It was for mine. Not even ours. Just me. And, it felt good. Kind of. There was shame. There was guilt. There was regret. I swore we’d never do these things ever again every time we finished. Eventually, it was nearly a routine. But she made me feel good. And she made me feel beautiful. And she made me feel like I ought to feel good, and that I had always been beautiful.

My weight stayed pretty steady from high school until 2007. I lost a great deal then, when I was in Japan. I didn’t have money for food, and I spent the money I did have on extra classes. I biked everywhere, I trained for the big race, and I exercised regularly. I lost thirty or forty pounds, it’s hard to say exactly. In three months. I came home only 20 pounds above the weight I’d always dreamed of. That weight was also probably unreachable with the muscles I’d developed during that time. This brief window was the second time I was ever lusted after.

My weight started climbing again about five months after my return. It tapered off again, then rose ten lbs. the next year. It’s kept going up since. One of the greatest shames in my life, and one of the reasons why I’ve lost so much confidence is that I have gradually changed how I’ve looked at my weight. And the problems that it presents, and represents, are getting harder to ignore with each new belt. I have no self-control where food or women are concerned. These are not some outer trivial defects to be excused by being a corrupt body in a corrupted world. They are indications of serious failings. They are proof that I do not have the ability to manage myself, to control my desires, or to put my long term happiness over my immediate need for gratification. Even now, when I have, to some extent, medical excuses that somewhat forgive my lack of control, these medical problems are almost certainly caused by how fat I was to begin with. I’m depressed because I’m fat, and I’m fat because I’m depressed. I’m sick because I’m fat, and I’m fat because I’m sick. It all keeps turning in on itself, and it’s tangled up in a mess. It’s more difficult to fix things than it used to be, which is really REALLY unfortunate because now it’s much more important that I do so. My failings are not a millstone around my neck, they’re a hanging from me in layers upon layers of fat.

This is one of the things that worries me so much about going home. I don’t want people to see me like this, but going home, and having the time and resources needed to do anything, really is my best chance. At the same time, will I? The fact that I need this implies that I probably won't do anything about it, and this infuriates me. My tiny little grating failures, multiplied over time, have come to dominate me, and my whole life now needs to be derailed to fix it. But can I? Is it too late? It's so easy, in theory. Just do it. And I hate myself for the struggle. Why can't I just do it? Why can't I make it happen? Why can't I just be responsible and do what's best for my body and my health and my mind? It's disgusting and frustrating, and I sound like any other moaning cow that can't put down the ice cream.

So in a lot of ways, this is it. Do or die. Get fit, or give up. I've got one last chance. Just bought my ticket. Let's see if I finally, finally, get something right.