Diary of a Not-So-Fat Kid

When I say I’m fat, I mean for me.  I don’t ever compare myself with other people.  I have friends and loved ones of all shapes, sizes, colors, and girths.  I don’t typically use other people to compare myself with or to…as far as body size is concerned.  I tend to use self-deprecating humor when I talk about myself, because you know what “they” say, “It’s better to be laughed with than laughed at.”

I can’t remember a time when I was not aware of my weight.  Thank God for the 80’s when we all wore our shirts eleven sizes too big with that plastic clip holding it in a tail off to the side.  I wore a shirt over my bathing suit at all times, and over leotards for all dance classes.

 As a young adult, who struggled with a bout of bulimia in college, and who yes, went to a campus therapist, I of course blamed my mother for my body issues.  I spent years telling myself that when I had kids, I would never make my children self-conscience about their size, weight, height, shoe size, blah, blah, blah.  Now, as a parent, I understand that my mother was not the horrible weight Nazi that I thought she was….she was terrified.

My daughter is my daughter.  Even though she has inherited my husband’s high cholesterol, she is me through and through (except for her messiness; that’s dads too—see below).  That means that she will be spending her entire life worrying about her weight and trying to keep it under control. And this terrifies me.  I don’t want her to be me.  I want her to be her.

I was always aware of my weight (which by the way was probably about 20 pounds more than I needed to have), but didn’t realize that other people were aware of my weight (except for my mother) until mom bribed me.  She signed me up for Weight Watchers as a ten-year-old and told me that she would pay me a dollar for every pound I lost.  I lost ten pounds, and got my ten bucks.  An old friend of my mother’s stopped my mom in the mall and told me to my face that I looked good, and another ten pounds would be perfect.  I promptly buried my head in the orange plastic pumpkin of Halloween candy that was on top of the refrigerator.  The ten pounds eventually came back.

Fast forward to tenth grade.  I had moved to Singapore, and having found a dislike for the local food, firmly established myself at the local Burger King.  After my tenth grade dance concert, on a HUGE high from the show that I had performed in and was incredibly proud of, this stupid bitch named Rebecca (cannot remember her last name but will never forget her face) came up to me after the show to “let me know” that there were boys in the audience rudely discussing my size during the show.  I went home in tears.  My mom helped me work on my “issue” over the summer.  I ate tuna for two months and worked out every day in the American Club gym, and the scale never budged.  I went back to Burger King.

Fast forward again to college.  By the end of my freshman fifteen, and the start of my sophomore year, I had decided that enough was enough.  Food journaling, dance classes, and a heavy course load combined with my theatre major rehearsals, I finally got to a great point, for the first time in my life.  The next auditions for the department musical came up and I FINALLY got a callback.  When I wasn’t cast, I went to the head of the musical theatre department and asked her what I could do to improve.  She said, straightforward, “You may have lost all of that weight, but you still dance like you’re fat.”  That next summer I had corrective jaw surgery and got to my lowest weight.  And I was TERRIFIED.  I was terrified that I was not going to be able to keep it off.  I finally felt like people looked at me, not through me, I was getting cast regularly, and for the first time in my life, I was dating….real, live, cute boys.  That’s when my spiral began, a spiral that landed me in a counseling office with a grad student who never spoke.  I never really knew that people could be so quiet for an extended period of time. (Remember, I was a theatre major)

I was in a pretty good place, until I had kids.  With my daughter, I had pregnancy-induced hypertension, and looking at food caused me to gain five pounds.  I was NOT a cute pregnant person.  My boobs grew as much as my belly did, so instead of looking pregnant, I looked like a massive barrel.  NO ONE ever asked me when I was due!  Afterwards, I lost twenty pounds on the South Beach Diet.  That lasted until my son was born.

Me in Sydney's nursery

Right after Dylan was born

I started grad school a few years later, and come home to find myself at my heaviest weight EVER.  Completely disgusted, I turned to Alli and food journaling, and within 8 months had lost 45 pounds.  Then the real grad school happened, and now I stare at myself-twenty pounds up.  Oh yes, I’m in denial.  I still stuff myself into my clothes, and try not to look too hard.

I’m tired of fighting this.  I’m tired of worrying.  I’m tired of being worried for my daughter and wondering what she sees when she looks at me.  I’m going to fix it…again.  I have a plan.  I bought a Nutribullet (I swear, I need to be paid for endorsements, I’m raving about this thing), and am FORCING myself to get off my ass and walk around the block.  I have to continue this journey to me.  I think I’ve grown up enough to realize that it might not work forever, but I’m too young to be hiding in my 80’s shirt with the clip.

I may have never met a cheese I didn’t like, and I REALLY love my wine, and ok, anything that’s made into a sandwich or pizza (again with the cheese). I may dance like I’m fat (seriously?), and I may need to take out stock in Spanx (that lady needs the Nobel Prize), but I’m going to remember all of the shitty things that people have said to me, and do my freakin’ best to make sure that my daughter grows up knowing that she’s gorgeous (and she is, if I do say so myself), confident, talented, creative, and incredible so that in twenty years, she doesn’t have to sit down and write her own Diary of a Not-So-Fat Kid.

Pass the fondue, please. Tomorrow morning, we use the Nutribullet, and all will be right with the world...again. ;)

Why I Teach

After the wake of the the most horrific tragedy in Connecticut, and being on vacation while the rest of my family has one week left of school, I've had more time than normal to do nothing but think. For those of you who know me, you know this can be dangerous.  I've been known to come up with my best ideas and creative visions in the bathroom, the one room where I can get more than 30 seconds of quiet.

I've been pensive this week, somewhat stuck in my own brain.  This of course has my husband Thomas a bit concerned.  Where is his road-raged, over-worked, constantly kinetic wife?  "Who is this girl I see, staring straight back at me?"  Yup, I seriously just quoted a Disney princess.  Maybe the Mayans really do have something! (totally kidding)

This week, I have looked at my world differently.  I am trying to be more patient; with the world, with my family, and with my life.  Now, I'm not going to tell you any crazy new epiphanies about how to live your life, hug your kids, leave random gift cards for strangers, and mow your neighbors yard.  Instead, I want to tell you why I do what I do.

Why do I teach?

Somedays, I lie in bed, begging the alarm clock to shut the fuck up, and know that I'm already looking forward to 10pm that night so that I can get back in bed with my extra winter blankets.  Some days are worse than others.  Driving into school, my day can start on a sour note if someone is parked in "my" spot. (we don't have assigned spots, but seriously, I've been there for seven years....figure it out!)  I can see a bratty kid in my line of fire, and the first word out of his mouth to his friends, loudly is, "Yeah I fuckin' hate that bitch." And then I want to kick him in the shins.

Those are the times that I wonder why I do what I do.  Why do I spend more time at school than my own house?  Why do I direct shows that are not in my contract?  Why do I sit up late grading papers, creating presentations, designing shows, emailing parents, fielding texts and emails from students?  It has been made abundantly clear that there are actually people that think that someone like me is overpaid and lazy.

Yup, that's me.  I'm so overpaid that I can afford to live in a neighborhood where I found a shopping cart from the grocery store in my front yard (just yesterday!).  I'm so overpaid that we had to take our kids out of their sport for the next quarter because it had to be paid up-front and in full.  I'm so lazy that I'm at school or working on school-related things over weekends and holidays.

Here's what I've been going over in my head this week.  This is why I teach.

1. I teach because of a teenage girl, let's call her B. She has been in my program for three years now. She was adopted by her aunt as a baby because her young mother couldn't take care of her.  She was just cast for the first time in three years in our up-coming musical.  She came in to tell me that her birth mother, whom she hasn't seen in five years, is flying to CA from NJ to see the show.

2. I teach because of another girl.  She has an absolutely tragic background, one that no child should ever have to endure. I see her smile with her classmates, and see her bust out a 3.8 GPA and being able to write her a college recommendation for her to "get out."

3. I teach because I have faith in the future.  We have the autism program at our school for my district. At our winter sports assembly on Friday, those students were recognized for having competed in a basketball tournament for the Special Olympics.  When they were brought out in front of the entire school, a spontaneous standing ovation occurred, complete with whistles and thunderous applause.  Faculty and staff dissolve into tears.

4. I teach because of two of the above-mentioned autistic students are in my drama class.  I watch the other students show patience, understanding and compassion every single day.  I have watched those two students thrive by learning how to speak to a classroom, how to introduce themselves, and how to interact with others.

5. I teach because some of my students tell me that they are afraid of letting me down.  I honestly don't mind when they slip and call me "mom." I wear it as a badge of honor.

6. I teach because down the line, the emails and Facebook posts from past students show me what remarkable people they are turning out to be.

7. I teach because deep down, regardless of what a politician says, or a helicopter parent who is pissed off about a "C" on a test and yells at me, or my lack of liquid funds, or my long hours in rehearsal, I believe that I can make a difference in just one kid's life.

All of my fellow teachers are on the front-line.  They love their students. They are passionate about their subject matter, or the age-group that they teach.  They believe in the future. They believe that these kids are going to help make the world a better place.

I just have to keep reminding myself of all of this.  Especially when the alarm goes off....or maybe I need to change the radio station on the clock radio.