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The more things change, the more they stay the same


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.”

And then I instagrammed a photo of myself in the fitting room.
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