From Sabrina Dropkick, Chicago IL; favorite food: baked goods
“Playing With Myself”
I must have been three or four the first time I played with myself. Yeah, three or four, because by the time I was five we had already fled our cockroach infested, duct tape windowed apartment – the one perfectly adjacent to the same boulevard that later found two spots on the “Deadliest Intersections” list (congrats, guys, we snatched up spots three and one!) I think it was summer because my chubby thighs sprouted from nylon shorts as I lay sprawled across a dingy brown couch (probably trash picked or hand-me-downed). I may have been home alone, or maybe my mom’s boyfriend-at-the-time-current-stepfather was hibernating under pillows and comforters in the back room. Anyway, I remember being alone while playing with my belly, pulling and pushing at the piece of flab, watching in amazement as it rippled when retracting to its natural state. I then reached my legs to the ceiling and they seemed to dangle in the sky. I prodded my thigh with a finger, still amused by the rippling effect my fat could make. Prodding went to slapping, and I became way too occupied by the fact that my flesh could tremble.
I was startled when my Mom body slammed her way through the door (because if you didn’t push hard enough that god damn door just wouldn’t budge). My instincts told me to lie still, flat as a board, as if I would be punished for exploring my body – but it was way too obvious that I was up to something prior to my mother’s entrance. She shot a look in my direction, her eyes interrogating me.
“What were you doing now?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Bullshit. What were you doing?”
The anticipation suffocated my three-or-four-year-old attention span. I barely made it three seconds without succumbing to mouth diarrhea.
“Oh my god, Mom, okay, look. Mom, you gotta see this, it’s so cool. Ready? Okay, look. Wait, hold on.”
I stretched my legs to the ceiling again.
“Okay, Mom, are you ready? Mom, you’re not looking. Look, Mom! Okay, ready for this?”
Her tired just-worked-an-overnight-shift eyes barely gazed in my direction.
“Yes, Bree, I’m ready.”
“Okay, okay, look!”
I slapped my leg, the fat rippling once again. My mother was not amused.
“Mom – I can jiggle! Isn’t that cool?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes it is.”
“No – it’s not.”
She retreated to the back of the apartment.
“You’re not supposed to jiggle.”
Sixteen or seventeen years later and that day still protrudes from my memory. Beyond the torments of elementary school boys, beyond the fact that my insecurities never allowed me to “love” until a thirty-something-year-old drug addict decided to make my sixteen-year-old self his plaything, beyond my struggles with every single fucking diet and every single Richard Simmons VHS – my mother’s harmless, only half conscious words were branded into my conscience, marking the moment I became aware of my weight. I’m pretty sure my mom could never recall that conversation, but it remains the defining moment of my first self-defined identity – the fat kid.
In elementary school I tried masking my weight with my vocabulary. I littered my conversations with obscenities (though I’m sure I spouted nonsensical lyrics along the lines of “I hate that teacher fucking she always gives fucking me detentions because I say fucking bad words and fuck.”) My super secret plan was to blind my peers with the debris of F-bombs, forcing the site of my size out of their vision. But by the end of third grade I dropped the act when Randy Fernandez wouldn’t go out with me. He said I was too fat.
Middle school brought on a new wardrobe. I found myself drowning in oversized black Metallica t-shirts, baggy black pants and even bigger black boots. Beyond the obvious cloth barrier I created for my figure, I also adopted a further defined identity – the funnyfat kid. I stalled most classes with practical jokes – stupid shit like hiding the teacher’s chalk or making fart sounds in between science and math lessons. I basked in my classmate’s laughter, almost forgetting that my doctor had officially coined me “obese”. Oh yeah, that was until Sam Hankin wouldn’t go out with me. He said I was too fat, too.
* * *
Sitting in the back of a station wagon, my childhood best friend analyzed my arm. She poked at the golden streaks that marked my skin.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, they’re stretch marks. My doctor says I grow too fast.”
My friend peered at me with jealousy. Although we were BFFs 4 Life we were very competitive friends. Who has the most CDs? Who has the longer hair? Who could hold their breath the longest? I finally had something she could never attain and it would be the first and only time a skinny bitch would watch my body with envy.
Though my friend’s envy didn’t erase my insecurities, it definitely poked a hole in it. I realized that yes, I’m different, but it’s not always a wretched thing to be different. Slowly the hole in my self-consciousness grew into a giant gap, and after something like ten years I’m finally finding comfort in my size (thus slowly relieving my hatred of skinny bitches.) I’m sure South Beach diets and ten minute workouts will forever phase in and out of my life, but I’m also sure that I can live contently with myself regardless of my weight. And, if nothing else, at least I can jiggle and – ha ha, I bet half of you can’t.
