I used to believe that I was ugly and unlovable. I remember being less than 10 years old and thinking this. My older sister and my younger sister had the love and attention of the only other women in our small family besides our mother..my aunt and my grandmother.I was the ubiquitous third wheel of the world. Looking back I remember taking a small tape deck outside to the Strawberry Shortcake swing set we had and listening and singing along to Neil Diamond, alone. I remember playing with my sisters, but I also remember being at my Grandma's with them and not feeling like I belonged. When our aunt would drive us around in the golf cart and play "school bus" or Charlie's Angels, I remember feeling like the last person picked...
I saw a young girl today maybe 8 or 9 years old at a bridal shop. She was a chunky girl, and when she came out of the dressing room wearing a too small dress, our eyes met and I smiled at her. I saw her embarrassment. I saw her but I also saw me. Being told I just had baby fat at the age of 10. Wearing the basketball jersey with the number 0 on it, the biggest size they had, and it fitting so tight I could barely get it off. Feeling like I must have been much fatter than I thought I was because they wouldn't even tell me the truth. Trying not to hurt my feelings, it made my self-esteem crumble. It wasn't much later when I came out of the dressing room, in a dress that wouldn't zip, I wished she was still there, because I knew she would understand. Standing in front of that mirror, asking my mom to zip me and feeling it wasn't going to, I shrank into a 10 year old little girl. I felt the pit of shame rising up. All I wanted to do was get it off.. quickly. No I didn't want to hear about why they couldn't alter it, it had to come off then and there. My mother, meaning well, had brought a dress to me that she thought I would like. I knew it wouldn't fit. I had looked at the tag and so did she, she then said "A 12, really?" This comment was made in surprise that I was bigger than a size 12. Which is a compliment.
I won't say that I wasn't embarrassed. I was. Once again, I was too big, but, again, I never felt so small, and so undeserving. The 4 other dresses that fit just fine did not even stand out, it was the one's that were too small. It was a wound that really hadn't been opened in the last few years. I had stopped living life worried about being the right size, weight, or hair length. I have gone years, living just out of reach of people. I've talked before about vulnerability and my strong aversion to it. I see now, where this aversion has been rooted. It was in the numbers. The size of my clothing. The weight on the scale. The number of calories I had eaten. The ideal weight that I would see when I followed my age and my height to the middle of the graph. The decade of logged measurements, trending my abdomen, hips, thighs, and pounds. The self hatred in those numbers. I stopped that sabotage. I stopped thinking that I was just the total of these numbers and nothing else.
But on days like today, the young girl I was reaches out and asks to be accepted. And I'm proud of her for being so vulnerable. So I closed my eyes, and said to her "I'm sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Thank You."
I saw a young girl today maybe 8 or 9 years old at a bridal shop. She was a chunky girl, and when she came out of the dressing room wearing a too small dress, our eyes met and I smiled at her. I saw her embarrassment. I saw her but I also saw me. Being told I just had baby fat at the age of 10. Wearing the basketball jersey with the number 0 on it, the biggest size they had, and it fitting so tight I could barely get it off. Feeling like I must have been much fatter than I thought I was because they wouldn't even tell me the truth. Trying not to hurt my feelings, it made my self-esteem crumble. It wasn't much later when I came out of the dressing room, in a dress that wouldn't zip, I wished she was still there, because I knew she would understand. Standing in front of that mirror, asking my mom to zip me and feeling it wasn't going to, I shrank into a 10 year old little girl. I felt the pit of shame rising up. All I wanted to do was get it off.. quickly. No I didn't want to hear about why they couldn't alter it, it had to come off then and there. My mother, meaning well, had brought a dress to me that she thought I would like. I knew it wouldn't fit. I had looked at the tag and so did she, she then said "A 12, really?" This comment was made in surprise that I was bigger than a size 12. Which is a compliment.
I won't say that I wasn't embarrassed. I was. Once again, I was too big, but, again, I never felt so small, and so undeserving. The 4 other dresses that fit just fine did not even stand out, it was the one's that were too small. It was a wound that really hadn't been opened in the last few years. I had stopped living life worried about being the right size, weight, or hair length. I have gone years, living just out of reach of people. I've talked before about vulnerability and my strong aversion to it. I see now, where this aversion has been rooted. It was in the numbers. The size of my clothing. The weight on the scale. The number of calories I had eaten. The ideal weight that I would see when I followed my age and my height to the middle of the graph. The decade of logged measurements, trending my abdomen, hips, thighs, and pounds. The self hatred in those numbers. I stopped that sabotage. I stopped thinking that I was just the total of these numbers and nothing else.
But on days like today, the young girl I was reaches out and asks to be accepted. And I'm proud of her for being so vulnerable. So I closed my eyes, and said to her "I'm sorry. I love you. Please forgive me. Thank You."
