Too Much, Not Enough, Fed the F*ck Up

The wood-panelled walls were warm, scratching some primal itch for feeling nature inside buildings. Light streamed through the skylight, the sky crisp blue, punctuated with clouds.

I was looking at his face, at his body. His shoulders pointed away from mine. Eyes downcast and forehead creased with some invisible consternation. Something heavy pressing down.

I was looking at him, this flawed human person with flaws less prominent when I see him, looking as I do through a lens of love. The flaws are part of the overall narrative, and the plot would be so much less dense and rich without them. What a bore it would be, to be with someone flawless. What a devoid and empty story.

“I have doubts,” he said, in that voice like a dart, piercing flesh. A phrase I was rather accustomed to hearing whenever the future came into the conversation. And so I pressed — what doubts? What is being left unsaid?

The summer blue sky above me, I was there, thinking — maybe it’s that time I cried. Maybe it’s that I don’t know how to name my emotions — I am trying. Maybe it’s that time I said something spiteful in a flush of anger, or that time I was less than understanding.

“Tell me,” I pressed.

“OK — but you need to remember that you asked me to,” he said.

There were birds calling and a gentle breeze gliding over my neck, and these wooden walls with their sweet smell in the damp summer heat.

He looked into my eyes, his hands shaking. He looked into my eyes, inhaled deeply, and said in a voice high and strained with tension, monotone:

“I don’t find you physically attractive. I hate your breasts. I don’t like seeing your loose skin. I don’t like the way you dress, or the way you look next to me in pictures. When you walk into a room with me, I want the other people there to feel jealous.”

I don’t hear the birds anymore. I don’t smell the wood or notice the bulbous clouds floating in the perfect summer sky. A silence fills my ears as the air leaves the room. A silence fills me, until I hear the sound of my own voice.

“So… why are you with me? I mean… it has been almost a year. Is this something recent?”

“I never found you physically attractive. The first time I saw you naked, I felt disappointed, not sure if I could have sex with you.”

“I don’t want to break up with you — I love you for your mind, for your ambition, you’re amazing at sex, I feel comfortable with you, I feel a closeness.”

In that wooden room, inside a building surrounded by green fields alive with a riot of wildflowers, I thought to myself:

Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Not this same bullshit. Again.

I thought to myself, as the scab over this old scar on my soul was violently torn off, and 1,000 demons began to tear at it, wild glee across their faces as they plunged the knives in, singing playground taunts as they poured salt into that deeply tortured place.

I’ve lost track of all of these moments — moments where earnest faces, young faces, old faces, male face, female faces, mean faces, kind faces — where all these faces have looked directly into mine and uttered those words:

“You’d be pretty if you lost 50lbs.”

“Fat people are so stupid.”

“At least you have a nice face.”

“You should be happy anyone spends anytime around you at all.”

“Work hard in school, develop your personality. You can be smarter than them, at least you can control that.”

“I don’t want my friends to know that I am fucking you, and I mean I really like fucking you, it’s just...”

I thought for the longest time — if only I were thin, then the bullies would stop, I would be taken seriously, and life would get infintely easier.

So, I lost 47kg. That’s 103lbs. Nearly a whole person worth of weight. My golden ticket. My salvation. Perhaps now, after a decade of struggle and strife, I will have finally earned my place at the table. I will have finally been declared worthy in the court of public opinion.

For a glimmering, shining moment, it felt like it was happening. New friends were sprouting up like so many seedlings. Invitations began to pour in. The place I’d been waiting for at the table opened up. I talked and people listened. Love showed up — an intelligent, intreaguing, beautiful love. Life felt like it was bursting. It was amazing.

And, in an instant, looking into those green eyes ringed with gold, looking into that face that I’ve stared into so many times, that face that brings so much emotion, so many orgasms, so much love— in an instant, I was impaled. Eviserated and placed on a stake. Left in the hot sun to die slowly, as this insiduous rot that I’d been scrubbing at for years found a new foothold.

Too much. Not enough. Too fat, too loud, too talkative, too opinionated, too ugly, too embarassing, too shameful. Breasts not perky enough. Face not smooth enough. Stomach not flat enough. Arms too flabby, not photogenic enough.

Thoughts, an avalanche of thoughts, old thoughts, a familiar and painful script in my mind, almost unbidden — I don’t need to eat. I can do my hair and make up. I can dress this way. Surgery — yes, yes! Let’s cut off all of these bits of me that are too much, let’s pad out and smooth down these places that are not enough. This skin, this flesh — let’s make it worthy. Maybe that’s all I need to do — just a little bit more, or maybe just a little bit less — and then I’ll be worthy. Then I’ll be taken seriously. Then I’ll be loved.

This ancient thinking, these teenaged ruminations, these things I assumed long dead suddenly rising up in me. Not gone, as I’d thought. Not grown out of. Not shrunken away from. This mob had only gone dormant. These old thoughts familiar and comfortable the way a too tight corset becomes comfortable.

“If you woke up tomorrow, exactly as you are, and also stunningly beautiful, I wouldn’t have any doubts about you at all.”

Not the crying or the strong emotions. Not the moments of spite during the flashes of anger. Not any of the character flaws or the lack of names for the feelings. Not any of the things I saw in myself that need work, that I had been working on since I first felt the presence of that which was unsaid. Only one thing, the unchangeable, the immutable, the ever present and oppressive, my Achilles Heel.

“I’m not physically attracted to you.”

Basically — great personality, great mind, extraordinary ambition, caring, loving loyal… but what a shame about how you look.

Basically — you are not worthy of me.

Too much. Not enough. And I am just so fucking fed up.

So I sit here, under a different summer sky, this one laced through with a golden and glowing twilight. Unlike every other night, where I’ve sat and thought since my lover looked into my eyes and spoke, I am writing. I am writing down this story, this unending, ever-present story. This fucking story that a decade of work and years of therapy didn’t solve. This annoying, petty pick-your-own-adventure story that tricks you, all paths leading to the same conclusion, and that conclusion is this:

It is impossible to measure up to beauty standards. And it always will be. Because no one is meant to.

The constant pressure on appearance is an extraordinarily effective mechanism of control. It limits access to power. It strips dignity. It makes it ok to put people down, because they’re not worthy — not fully human. It limits access to love and infuses relationships with shame. It creates a preoccupation with solutions to an unsolveable problem and so distracts attention and resources from bettering life and caring for each other.

None of the lines you are sold will solve this, either. No surgery, no pill, no diet plan or fitness regimen. No amount of pain, of willpower, of hours spent running, of calorie reduction. No cream, no foundation, no compression garment.

That is because beauty doesn’t make us worthy. A flat stomach doesn’t make us worthy. A flawless complexion doesn’t make us worthy.

Worthiness doesn’t need to be earned — we are born with it.

We are born whole, and all of these fucking assholes can go get bent.

Sitting under a golden evening summer sky and I wonder what to do about it. I sink into the ache, this well-salted stinging wound, red raw and glistening with platelette-rich plasma. I wonder what to do about the gold ringed green eyes of my lover — I wonder what they see when they look at me. I wonder about whatever internal torment they hide, whatever internal conflict they mask. I wonder how that torment and conflict came about in the first place. I wonder what they are waiting for.

I wonder if my life is somewhat wasted, being born female, with these genes, living this life that has taken me to this place. For a few moments, I take my fingers and dig into this raw place, asking myself why I consistently cannot match up. I ask myself what was the point of all of that effort and trial and struggle. I self loathe and luxuriate briefly in the pity of it all. I cry. I feel frustrated and angry and powerless.

The most damning, infuriating part of it all is that I don’t see it. If I stand in front of a mirror and look at myself, all I see is victory. I see the triumph of my story. I see eyes full of mischief, a collarbone so prominent and a neck laced with lines and angles. I see the outline of muscles forged in patient practice, biceps like sleeping pathers, powerful and sleek. I see legs that many miles have shaped. I see a torso with curves and folds and skin so soft.

I really like my body and I really like who I am.

I have a lot of questions, and I don’t really have answers. I have a lot of feeling and nowhere for it to go, apart from out of my fingertips and onto this page. I have saddness, I have grief, I have betrayal. Simmering away underneath it all, I have an anger so white hot that anger doesn’t really seem like the right word. I have a fire burning inside, growing, taking shape at the back of my mind. It is the harbinger of change, even if I don’t know what the change will be yet.

My name is Rachael.

I am too much. I am not enough.

And I am fed the fuck up.