Living with Life after Weight Loss
Disarmed :-
People are disarmed by my beauty.
Ok…
What does that statement say to you…
- In general
2. Coming from me..
Disarmed….It’s an accurate statement…in the sense that men seem caught off guard…second glances..double takes.
I have little to no vanity….
In fact, I bought a vanity 6mths ago and have yet to sit at it.
Its all decked out.
All organized…my various (3) Chanel perfume bottles are on display in front of an oval mirror and a pull out drawer.
I have wanted a vanity since I was ten, but I can’t bring myself to sit in front of it.
I sit 5 ft away on my bed, able to see myself but in no detail….
People are disarmed by my beauty.
Since my surgery ridiculously excellerated change has occurred.
From fitting in my bathtub….to being able to walk easily between two cars..
An ability to paint my toes without getting out of breath….or moving through a crowded room without physically touching everyone…
I lost my breasts….I lost my hips…..I lost my hair…
I gained a working skeleton that allows a freedom of movement I’ve never had on land.
I walk freely……and with purpose…because I can.
For the first time, as an adult….. I’m finally like everybody I’ve ever envied navigating daily life.
What was it like for them?
As I lumbered home under the pain and depression of my own weight…they would strut by….passing me like an obstacle.
Now I do that.
I am constantly aware of every size I have inhabited… in all the mirrors of the everyday . I am not them anymore….I am the others.
I miss somewhat, the solidarity of recognizing a fellow human in the moment, hindered by their body for what ever reason, just getting on a bus can be a battle, that shared experience.
As it was my experience for so very long.
I have no idea how to walk this world as the others……
They are disarmed by my beauty.
I have lived in the same space for 17 or so years. My corner store is one that doesn’t have a 4 way stop despite its endless traffic. It is the source of many accidents and marked by small memorials…so I am acutely aware of the danger.
In my former frame, I worried every time I crossed that street.
Because even if I was half way , I would get honked at, shouted at, or driven around.
I was in the way…..I was not of an ilk allowed to walk in a slow manner… despite it was all I could manage..
Now….from 20 feet away, day more than night…..they slow down.
They wave me through….they make eye contact…they smile…..they acknowledge me. They turn their heads as I walk by….engaging in my humanity, a gesture of chivalry, of manners.
Every single time they slow down I am unprepared for it.
I have risked life and lumpy limb on this corner for 15yrs.
I have had “Fat Bitch” screamed from a moving car of teenage boys on the very same corner.
In these new moments which are too frequent to process….I get angry…for her. For what she had to endure….for so many years… just to try and cross the street to buy a Coke.
Who I am to the world now, displays a different set of rules.
Rules I’d heard of.
Opening doors for example…
Literally, I can’t count the number of times a man has opened a door for a woman in front of me and walked in after her….essentially closing the door in my face for me to open myself…
To be well on the other side of 40, and in a shape I’ve craved for as far back as I can remember, it does not bring, the automatic joy thinness formally promised.
Yet here it is.
These new ways of being treated.
These new rules.
Instinctively, protectively, primarily I feel resentment and anger.
They don’t know.
They are acting out of impulse.
I am just used to more violent and dismissive mannerisms….impulses.
I know I am lucky, very lucky to have this new body.
My health on many fronts were at risk.
I am also “lucky” that at first glance I do not present the obvious signs of significant weight loss.
This huge transformation I went through…my former overweight self doesn’t automatically present itself..
Which begs a certain general reaction from the world…..that I…. should some how be used to this kind of attention by now….
Like I have spent my life in this skin…
But I haven’t.
It’s so new, its so new… moment to moment.
Going from being invisible to visible has been a shock to the system of the mind.
The random rejection and consistency of being ignored is a hard pattern to re-draw.
It’s engrained in me. Its muscle memory.
“Don’t try to cross the street yet!!!…they may not stop!”
The prism of new experiences are vast and ever growing, and with it I must learn a new set of responses.
For they know not what they do.
They don’t know who I was.
They don’t know who I am now.
They are disarmed by my beauty.
And I am just disarmed.
