I was suicidally fat. It depressed me. I hated it and I felt that the feeling was mutual. I wished it would just vanish one morning when I woke up, but there I was struggling to get into my size 10 jeans at 8.30am, running late for work. None of my wardrobe wanted to fit me – combat trousers either needed washing or had tight waistbands. A girl who’d been on a diet of chips in Majorca was thinner than me. The pregnant girl at work was skinnier than me. I wanted a large scythe to slice my bulge off with, and watch the guts spew out. I wanted liposuction, so I could see the gross blubber being extracted from me. I wanted to grab the squeltchy handfuls of fat with my own bare hands and sharp nails and rip out chunks of flesh and fat and feed it to the starving people of Ethiopia to fatten them up a bit.
I wore large baggy shirts, but it still didn’t cover the fact up. Walking before me like a completely separate entity, it floundered around on it’s own lose lead. My belly wouldn’t hold in and ran off like a disobedient dog. I wondered if muscles would ever grow there, or if it would just be to garden of ever increasing weeds pushing on a flabby skin jacket.
Cutting down on eating was proving to be difficult, dieting was for suckers and losers who were willing to waste money to be slim for a day. Chocolate had suddenly grown the capacity to be almost human in it’s lovingness, as it caressed my throat and hugged my stomach. The thought of substituting fruit for chocolate was sacrilegious. Pill popping had sprung into my mind for a while, with tempting diet pills that soaked up all of your insides and disposed of them in a tidy manner that were a good idea, but were not in the brochure, and those that were probably gave you facial hair or some other disturbing side effect that I really didn’t need right now. The idea of a gym with stick insects working out on pieces of iron and weights just sickened me. Aerobics and Squash were for the fit minority.
I tried to seek out fat in other people just to make myself feel better. The fatter they were in my eyes, the more comfortable I felt with my huge tummy. Though a tiny double chin on a waif made me feel satisfaction. I was so self-conscious of my body. I’d have fantasies of wild passionate sex, and then think about the bump that would come between us, and how unlike in the movies it was, and it kind of dampened my dreams. A bizarre, kinky thought of handcuffs and rope was made repulsive with the thought of my body in there.
A large lady at work made me feel better every morning, I’d look at the way her fat rolled over her back, and ballooned out at the sides. I sometimes wondered how the large lady’s husband didn’t suffocate under her, as he was such a small man. I’d breath a sigh of relief that I wasn’t that fat, but then I’d see some skinny girl who disappeared when she turned sideways, and my high moral would come smashing down.
And my butt was far too big. ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ is now a phrase I would most definitely use. I’d stand and stare in the mirror at the hideous curves that were definitely not Cindy Crawford curves. More like the fat slags. On holiday in America I’d keep trying to find the population of obese people that I’d heard so much about on the television, but instead I was surrounded by The Beautiful People. The ones who felt comfortable talking about their facial routine with a woman at Clinique in a department store. Who’s hidden all the plump and rounded rotund people with sagging breasts and dimples in their legs? The ones I’d look thin standing next to.
I wondered if my cousins were bulimic. Something that could have been sick or oat body scrub had clung to the bathroom tiles. But they’d only stayed at my place for 2 days. It was hard to tell. One of them was very picky about her food. Kept playing with it in a way I wish I had the patience to do. I just scoffed everything down. I had seconds, while they sat in front of half empty plates, claiming to be full. They were the ones who would be able to carry off bikinis and sundresses, while I, like a whale on the side of the pool would wear my all-in-one swimsuit, and the shorts with a bulge over the top. This was one of the reasons why I didn’t particularly like my cousins much.
When I tried to diet, the food would call to me. And after a morning of bran flakes and an attempt to fill myself up with a banana and a tiny box of raisins, I gave in by lunchtime, and went for the iced bun and the packet of crisps or the chips. The afternoon gave way to doughnuts, cakes, and biscuits. I could feel it all lining my stomach, and sitting there like an evil troll.
Was Anna putting weight on? She looked like she was. Was that a tiny bulge over her jeans, hiding behind her red t-shirt? Maybe she was pregnant. Now that would be some gossip.
I was stunningly beautiful, and perfection personified. Yeah right.
