Personal Essays
weighty matters
In ninth grade, Miss Brown lined up all the girls. We wore snap-down, short, piss-yellow gym dresses with bulbous matching bloomers, which had the same skinny elastic at the waist and legs. The only thing that harmed your self-esteem more than catching a glimpse of yourself in your gym uniform was being weighed by Miss Brown.
I don’t remember whether she shouted out our numbers to a girl with a pad or whether she let us suffer a private humiliation, but I cried when I heard my number. 132. I was more than ten pounds heavier than my mother when she got married, and I wasn’t even in high school yet. One of the coolest girls in the whole school, Dawn, came over to me and consoled me by telling me that she weighed 138 pounds, and that it was OK because we looked good. (She and I got our periods together in sixth grade; I think we were the only ones that year.) Dawn was an athlete. She was three inches taller with long, slender legs.
We hardly ever talked before or after that moment, but I never forgot her. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me in grade school.
What I wouldn’t give to weigh 130 pounds now! I’ve probably tried to get there 130 times in my life. I’ve made it within a few pounds several times, even as recently as my 40th birthday. I looked and felt great—my back didn’t hurt, I could run faster, I didn’t get heartburn or migraines. But whatever skinny friend I had at the time always told me I looked sick. Because the job of the skinny friend is to be the skinny friend. If you take that away, you take away everything.
I don’t remember whether she shouted out our numbers to a girl with a pad or whether she let us suffer a private humiliation, but I cried when I heard my number. 132. I was more than ten pounds heavier than my mother when she got married, and I wasn’t even in high school yet. One of the coolest girls in the whole school, Dawn, came over to me and consoled me by telling me that she weighed 138 pounds, and that it was OK because we looked good. (She and I got our periods together in sixth grade; I think we were the only ones that year.) Dawn was an athlete. She was three inches taller with long, slender legs.
We hardly ever talked before or after that moment, but I never forgot her. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me in grade school.
What I wouldn’t give to weigh 130 pounds now! I’ve probably tried to get there 130 times in my life. I’ve made it within a few pounds several times, even as recently as my 40th birthday. I looked and felt great—my back didn’t hurt, I could run faster, I didn’t get heartburn or migraines. But whatever skinny friend I had at the time always told me I looked sick. Because the job of the skinny friend is to be the skinny friend. If you take that away, you take away everything.