Cursing my curves

*poke*

I sigh as my stomach, stretched and flabby and soft, wiggles and jiggles in the mirror.  Standing up straight, I suck in my gut and push my chest out, turning to see the effect. 

“If you just do this all the time,” I muse, “you’ll pass as skinny.”

*poke*

Flab and skin rush back out as I can no longer hold my breath and I go to pick out something to wear that won’t make me look as hideous as I feel.

Settling on my bikini and a dress, I observe myself in the mirror again.  Flabby.  Belly paunch.  Disgusting.

I look at my calorie App on my phone, reading over my previous two days.  I never exceed 800 calories, although there isn’t anything on there that’s “bad.”  As I’m calculating my meals for the day, I feel my chest tighten as I read the reminder that pops up on my phone.

“Playdate, sprinkler 10:30AM”

Oh no.

I’m having a friend over, a friend who is as svelte as one can be, and we’re supposed to sunbathe while our kids play in the sprinkler.

And I only have a bikini.

Visions of my flab and fat come screaming back into my brain as I look at myself in the mirror in horror.  I have to let someone I see socially see me in a bikini.  I’m going to die.

The panic attack was swift and violent, I couldn’t breathe and my words were incoherent as I called my husband and tried to articulate how despite eating only salads and protein shakes, I was bloated and disgusting.  I got my kids up and went to the kitchen to feed them. 

As I was on the phone declaring to my husband that I was a fat cow, I pulled out a little container of yogurt and put a tablespoon on granola in it.  I plopped the spoon in and stared at it.  The longer I stared at it, the more I could see the creamy yogurt turning into the fat that would settle right on my stomach.  I may as well just smear it on there directly. 

The idea of eating it was as disgusting to me as the idea of eating Crisco.  I took a picture of it, shared my lament with my online friends and threw it away.

I sipped water as I stared at the clock, dreading every minute that brought me closer to the play date.

I could feel my arms getting fatter as I sat there, my stomach atrophying as I was idly wasting precious crunches time and I could feel myself bloating as the seconds ticked by.

My six year old daughter walked up to me timidly, jolting me from my self-loathing.

“Mommy?  I don’t think you look like a cow.”

I stared at her, not wanting to comprehend the damage my self hatred and fat-shaming was doing to my very impressionable six year old daughter, the one who had told me last month she needed make up so she could be pretty. 

I thought about what it was like, growing up hearing my father tell my mother she was fat, how I couldn’t understand how my mother’s shape was a bad thing.  My mother always only looked beautiful and perfect to me, and hearing that she should be ashamed for her looks was upsetting.  It was more upsetting to me to hear him say that about my mother than it was when he started in on my own weight.

My daughter, my sweet little beautiful girl, with her skinned knees and freckles and round face and mile-long legs.  My heart broke realizing that I had just planted that seed of doubt in my own child, that this would be the beginning of a long battle with her self image because her view of beauty began with me.

And if Mommy isn’t beautiful, then why should she think she is?

I wrapped my arms around her, my flabby, soft arms and pulled her into me.  I felt her snuggle into my belly and chest and realized that she loved my body the way it is because my body loves her.  It’s soft and squishy and safe.  My arms are always there to hug her, my belly jiggles when I dance badly around the kitchen, my hips and chest curve like hers will and I want her to be in love with her body.

Like I hope to be one day too.

“Do we take care of our bodies?”  “Yes, Mommy, by eating healthy foods and running fast and playing.”  “Are our bodies special?”  “Yes, they’re a gift and we should take care of them, that’s what makes them beautiful.”

I felt some relief in the hopes that this mantra would stick more soundly in her mind than her mom freaking out over a tiny container of yogurt.  As she skipped off to find a towel, I stood up and walked to the fridge.  I was frigging hungry.