Five Jackets

December 22, 2009

I noticed the other day that I have a lot of coats and the sight of them hanging in row made me cry. Normally, outerwear isn’t a significantly emotional event in my life. I don’t break into tears and snot at the sight of a parka or sob uncontrollably with every windbreaker that passes by. The reason I felt emotional looking at a few jackets and coats hanging in my closet was because I flashed back on all the years of my life when I never had a coat, not because I couldn’t afford one but because I refused to buy one for myself until I lost weight. I lived with the fantasy and endless hope that tomorrow I’d lose weight and I didn’t want to invest money into getting a coat that wouldn’t last all season. The only problem with this plan was I never lost the weight and so I never bought a coat. The spring rains would come and go, the winter chill would settle in and slowly leave and through it all I had no coat. I can’t count the times I ran through the rain from a building to my car getting soaked to the bone or the times I shuffled through freezing temperatures and sleet and snow to get from one place to the other.

I had my reasons, logical reasons or so I thought for not buying a coat but in the end the answer for why I never did is as simple as I never thought I deserved one. I’m not saying that was ever a conscious thought but that’s really what my actions were saying. I was willing to freeze and get drenched in the rain because I was fat and until I wasn’t fat I refused to buy myself an essential piece of clothing that would have protected me and kept me warm against the elements. Had I deprived a child of a coat in winter I would have been called negligent or seen someone freezing in the cold and said, “I’ll get you a coat but only if you do this and that,” I would have been considered cruel, but I had no problem punishing myself year after year by simply not buying a coat for myself.

I doubt I’m the only person in the world who punished, deprived, and mistreated myself because I was obese and thought I deserved no less. Anyone who feels like a failure in one area of their life tends to see their whole life as flawed. If I can’t fix this one thing about myself then nothing else I do well matters. The scales always tip toward our weaknesses rather than our strengths. An obese person who struggles with their weight (I leave room for those round folks who are perfectly content as they are) could find the cure to cancer and in receiving world fame and accolades all through the day, would go to bed at night thinking of themselves, “….if I could just lose the weight….” Enough is never enough as long as the extra pounds remain.

For years I called myself names I would never consider utterly toward another human being. I would never have looked at another person with the kind of disgusted disdain I could muster for myself when gazing in the mirror.

We would never consider calling another person the names we call ourselves. We would never look at another person with the disgusted disdain reflected in our gaze when seeing ourselves in the mirror. I abused my body and jeopardized my health by eating the most unhealthy foods ever conceived in the commercial mass-production marketplace. I ignored the mysterious pains and racing heart. I neglected to get enough rest. I put everyone first in the world before me, not because I was so loving and compassionate and giving but because I felt through and through that no one deserved less than I. Not because I had intentionally tripped a blind person. Not because I had tortured a cat. Not because I had been a disrespectful daughter. Not because I threw trash out my car window when no one was looking. No. I deserved to be considered last and to be cared for least simply because I was obese.

It’s remembering how I once saw myself and treated myself that made me feel emotion over the glimpse of a few coats in our hall closet. That was who I was and how I saw myself and it’s so far from who I now am that I can hardly believe it and at the same time I never want to forget that’s where I came from and that’s where some people still are today; still filled with self-loathing and wrestling with the idea that if they just weigh less they’ll be more worthy of being cared for by themselves and by others. What a tragedy that anyone would waste a single day of their life living under such a lie because that’s all it is. There’s not a soul in this world who deserves any less than any other because beyond our physical appearance or talents or intelligent we are the beloved and you just don’t get more worthy than that.

Posted in body image