My WoMan-I-Festo: Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones...

...but words can break my spirit


I've been thinking a lot lately about words and language, how we use them and the effects they can have on other people.  We use words to express ourselves in good situations and bad ones, to share feelings of love and affirmation, to vent anger.  And, unfortunately, sometimes we use our words to hurt people, either intentionally or not.

I have been noticing the words people are using to describe the changes in my appearance since my shrinkage started to become really noticeable.  Affirming, positive and sometimes humorous words and phrases are coming at me from all kinds of people.

"I can't get over the transformation."

"You look like a different person."

"You're wasting away to nothing!"

"You're becoming a skinny-minnie."

Even my father, The Fatophobe, jokingly called me a "bag of bones" at Christmas, and that was 10 pounds ago!

All of these are wonderful affirmations of my progress, and I am grateful for them.  I'm grateful to have had the chance to pursue the weight loss surgery that is already improving the quality of my life even before I've reached my goal weight.  I'm grateful that God uses doctors and technology to improve people's health and that He has used them to improve mine.

But I can't help thinking about the other times when words have been hurtful and insensitive, simply because of what I looked like.  Every fat girl has heard the lament from some well-meaning friend or relative, "You have such a pretty face...", the implication being that the rest of us is somehow unacceptable because of our size.  Every fat girl has experienced the embarrassment of ridicule from peers and classmates who make jokes at her expense.  Every fat girl has gotten the message loud and clear, at one time or another, that she is unpresentable, unworthy, unacceptable because of her fatness.

Our culture is relentless in the way it hammers away at women's self-esteem, chiseling and chipping off pieces of our confidence by bombarding us with images of pencil-thin, anemic-looking supermodels and portraying their protruding bones and angular bodies as the ideal of feminine loveliness.  In a world where countless millions of people are starving to death through no fault of their own because they have no food, droves of American women are choosing either to starve themselves, or to eat and then force themselves to vomit after every meal, in hopes of achieving some unrealistic picture of what female beauty is supposed to be.  Even in the plus-size catalogs I receive, the models displaying the clothing have very few curves to their bodies.  Can anyone besides me appreciate the absurdity of all this?

A friend and I spoke last week and she said something about me getting skinny.  I responded that I'll never be skinny.  I have way too many boobs and hips to ever be skinny!  Becoming less large has been a blessing, and I am so thankful for the journey.  And yes, if I am being honest, in most ways I do think I look better (although as I shrink, some lines, wrinkles and crinkles are showing up that aren't making me happy).  The changes in appearance are secondary to the fact that I feel better and I am becoming a healthier person.  But I will not apologize for the way I used to be, or rather, used to look.  It is all a part of what makes me me, my history and the journey of becoming who I am ultimately going to be.  I view my life as a work in progress;  I am in a constant state of becoming.

This is my WoMan-I-Festo.  I will be who I am  becoming, whatever size and shape that happens to be, and I will not be ashamed.  I will affirm other women and encourage them in whatever state they find themselves.  I will be an advocate for the broadening of our definitions of physical beauty, as well as an increased emphasis on the importance of non-physical beauty.  I will focus on wholeness and health in my body, mind and spirit, as I strive to nurture the bodies, minds and spirits of the people around me.