Small Town Wren

Almost three years in the making, I finally finished The Beauty Myth in the wee hours of the morning. It’s just a shame that the most dated part of the book is the last chapter. It is an artifact of a past that already seems like ancient history.

The Beauty Myth was originally published in 1991, when I was four. The vast majority of my life has been spent in a world where Naomi Wolf’s rallying cry had already been heard. I think I’m much better off for it, too. The way my mother approaches her body and the way I approach mine are in two completely different categories. The biggest feature of note is that my mother flat out refuses to leave the house without any makeup on; it’s an odd day when I leave the house with makeup on.

I never bought into it. I was always part of the rebellious crowd, but somehow the parts of the myth that latched on to my sister and my peers never found its way to me. I don’t know if it’s because I never wanted to feel like anyone but myself, or if it’s because I’ve spent half of my life with some form of overt baldness. It’s hard to feel shame for your looks when all of your shame and self-consciousness is rooted squarely in your hair.

Or maybe it is because I was blessed with a naturally slim figure and a rightly colored face. It was a running joke at my boarding school: I’d devour six plates of food at dinner and the health services ladies would still think I was anorexic. They weighed me constantly, and lectured me on how eating is good for you, thinness isn’t everything. They had no idea I held the candy arsenal in my dormitory or that I routinely won eating contests against the burliest of the burly men on campus.

This isn’t to say weight hasn’t been a big part of my life. My mother had to defend herself when my elementary school thought I wasn’t being fed due to being so underweight. I ate ice cream every night and was part of that dreaded “Clean Plate Club” at dinner. When I shot up to 5′7″, girls began poking at my sides in the locker room and asking me how I did it. I didn’t know. I still don’t know.

A lot of it has to do with my mood. When I am happiest, I tend to weigh more. Depression makes me drop the pounds as if they were nothing. I started this past summer out at 145 pounds. Depression clubbed me over the head in September and by mid October I was hovering at 123. While the sadness has eased its grip again, the new medications I’m on are of the sort that make you lose weight. I’ve lost two more pounds in the past week. I haven’t seen 120 since I was 16.

It frightens me. I don’t like being this skinny. Once you are of a certain thinness, the pressure is on to keep it. People tend to leave you alone though if you’re even 5 pounds heavier than that thin. I’m not anymore, though. My skinny jeans are just straight legs now, and I have to belt them in so tight to keep them up. I eat, but the weight keeps falling.