A
lot has happened since my last post, and yet little has changed. My body still
feels…alien to me in a way it hasn’t
since my mid-twenties; I still haven’t seen a doctor (I actually did try, a lot, but it seems that
post-GB follow-up is not something bariatric doctors are willing to do with
people they haven’t sliced open personally); and I’m still struggling to find
the balance between making healthy choices, like getting more cardio in, and
making my peace with the changes in my body.
One
thing that has changed is my state of unemployment. Since we moved to
Washington I’ve been in a kind of limbo where my career is concerned – you
can read more about the writing side of that over on the author blog, but
besides that I’ve been unsure what to do about a day job. The ultimate goal is
teaching at the college level, but while I work on that I’ve been living off
savings, and as I’m sure you can imagine that is unsustainable.
So I
picked up part-time work at David’s Bridal. Yeah, really. It’s minimum wage, with
a shitty dress code, and stressful/physically exhausting, but I actually really
like most of the customers and the women I work with are great – as I said to
my fiancé, it’s like I get paid to be extroverted two days a week – and I got a
discount on my wedding dress in the bargain. So overall it’s not a bad gig, but
there’s one thing that is consistently difficult for me, on a personal level:
I’m surrounded by bad body talk.
It
comes from customers, who are often plus-size and nearly always quick to assure
me they plan to lose 20-60 pounds before their event. It comes from the other
women I work with, young, attractive women who have nearly all struggled with
their weight to varying degrees and who absolutely blame their bodies over
society for all the shame they feel about lumps and bumps. It comes from the
corporation, which is so much more size-inclusive than most retailers (their
wedding/bridesmaid dresses go up to a 30) but which nonetheless limits the
options for special occasion dresses and only stocks our store with bridesmaid
styles in sizes up to a 26 (more often a 22 or 24).
It’s
constant. I can’t go an hour without hearing somebody encourage somebody else
to lose weight – and they mean it in the most loving way, but as someone
who’s actively trying to disengage from diet culture it is beyond frustrating.
I spend my shifts trying to non-preachily convince customers that their bodies
aren’t a problem to be overcome, and especially that ordering a dress two sizes
smaller than their current size ‘as motivation’ is a recipe for disaster. I
overhear my objectively-slender coworkers talking about how fat their arms are,
or how they shouldn’t have eaten a burrito for lunch because they haven’t
worked out in two days, and I want to scream.
It’s
especially frustrating because multiple coworkers have had weight loss surgery
or otherwise managed to lose a significant amount of weight in recent years, so
in some very deep ways I feel connected to them and relate to their struggles.
But at the same time I feel so far ahead of them in the emotional and mental
journey – or maybe just on a completely different path. Maybe not everyone
will eventually open her eyes to diet culture and capitalism and the patriarchy
– maybe not everyone wants to learn
about that stuff. But I do, and I have been, and I feel like the odd woman out
now that I don’t live in the Bay Area anymore.
I don’t
have any sort of conclusion to share here. This isn’t a cohesive essay; I just
came here to say that I’m struggling, internally and with my external
surroundings as well. But I’m working on it – today I even bought a new
swimsuit in a style I’ve never worn, and when I tried it on I forced myself to
look at the squidgy bits of my body, the rolls and lumps and bumps the suit
emphasized and created, and just…let it exist. And when I went out to the
register and the store employee asked if everything went well I said: “I think
it fits, so I’m going to take it, and now I just have to get used to the way it
makes my body look and feel. I’m working on accepting the squish.”
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