Newton’s First Law of Motion posits that bodies at rest tend to stay at rest, and bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. My body’s normal state is the former. The activities I am naturally drawn to (reading, watching TV, sleeping all fucking day) have made me a Sedentary Sally.
There have been attempts at athleticism throughout my life. When I was little I took ballet. I was good at it too. I loved wearing pale pink leotards and matching tights. I loved the smell of brand new Capezio slippers. I loved arranging my hair in a tight bun with loads of bobby pins. When I danced I felt lithe and dainty like a little gazelle even though I was reminded constantly that I was more like a wart hog. “Instead of a tutu, we’ll have to get you a four-four,” my dad teased one night after I helped myself to seconds during dinner. When my ballet instructor, a grown woman with a child on the way, made a disparaging comment about my soft little pre-pubescent body, I repeated my mother’s words, excusing it as “baby fat.” “No, this is baby fat,” she remarked, pointing to her pregnant belly. “That,” she motioned to my torso, “is too many Twinkies.” I didn’t even like Twinkies! After class in the dressing room, a group of girls cornered me. “Do you think you’re fat, Megan?” they asked. Honestly, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind until it was hammered into my head by everyone else. After that it consumed me.
All of these unsolicited opinions about my body poisoned my love for dancing. Instead of feeling scrutinized for my dancing technique, I felt gaped at for having a problem body. When I failed to pass the Nutcracker audition (passing the audition= fitting in the costume) I quit, retreating to my stacks of Nancy Drew mysteries and Sweet Valley High.
During middle school and junior high, the onslaught of insults about my body was constant. Like the accusation in a game of Clue, each insult is purloined in my brain with the name of the perpetrator, what they said, and where it happened. Instead of “Col. Mustard with the wrench in the billiard room,” it’s “Tommy O’Meara with ‘Oompa Loompa’ in Mrs. Schmidt’s art class” or “Emily Berger with ‘boar’ in the cafeteria at Camp Oakledge” or “Kevin Wrenn with ‘Kirby Puckett’ in gym class” or “Kevin Wrenn with ‘jelly roll’ in Mr. Donnelly’s math class.” That last one still smarts. Every time I hear “Dirty Boots,” I cringe.
I was learning that my body was a problem. But it wasn’t my problem. These were other people’s hang-ups, I comforted myself between bites of processed cheese. Their words bothered me, but I never let them see that. I learned that from Tracy Turnblad, who never let Amber Von Tussle’s jibes get to her. Tracy remains my patron saint. Still, I didn’t understand what drove a person to hurt someone else just for the sake of hurting them, especially when that someone else (me) did nothing to compel them. Except for daring to breathe the same air as them while being overweight.
When someone is fat, why is their fatness their sole signifier? Like that’s the only thing that matters about them? If I were to make a list about the things that define me, “being fat” is way down that list, despite years of being distilled to just that by school bullies, snooty ballerinas, mouthy strangers on the street. And was my shape really so horrendous it could not exist without comment? Was I really so grotesque? Did I have the Challenger disaster of bodies? Every summer break I’d fantasize about losing weight and coming back to school totally skinny and therefore totally beautiful and the Emily Bergers and the Kevin Wrenns would grovel at my feet, gnash their teeth, curse their hubris, and beg for my forgiveness. But losing weight would have taken discipline and sacrifice. Those words weren’t in my vocabulary, so it never happened.
The fat jabs continued in high school, but with less frequency. Instead of “fat,” boys called me “lesbo.” On occasion it was “fat lesbo.” But being a punk rock alterna-girl whose nascent misandry was rapidly festering, I took it as a compliment.
In my twenties, things got really complicated. For the first time in my life, men started paying attention to me. I was indoctrinated to think that my body was gross therefore I was gross ergo I would be a permavirgin. But men, mostly bass players, made moves that convinced me otherwise. Sort of. Thus began a decade of debasement, soaked in Miller High Life, tinged with regret. Delving into this cesspool of sexual discovery is another blog entry for another time, just know that it was the early aughts and I had a really warped idea of what feminism was thanks to Maxim magazine, Girls Gone Wild, and only skimming third-wave literature on sex positivity, skipping over the entries dedicated to stuff like bodily autonomy and sexual agency.
I eventually got around to reading more feminist theory about stuff like bodily autonomy and sexual agency, but I’ve only just recently come to understand that my body belongs to me, not purely on an intellectual level but on an emotional one. It’s not something that’s ingrained in young girls nearly enough and it is shameful that it often has to take some kind of violence for a woman to regard her body as her own.
Despite the cruel, uninvited words and actions my body has endured from others, it is my body. Mine. And it is my problem. Not in the sense that it’s a problem body, which it is, as I’m often reminded by some of the more outspoken children with very bad manners who I babysit for. It’s my problem as in it’s the only one I’ve got, and, if I want to live out the rest of my days happy and healthy on this weird, dirty little planet with its mixed-up priorities, I need to move my body. Until it gets all sweaty and tired. Every single day.
I need to move my body until it gets all sweaty and tired every single day. Not to become totally skinny and therefore totally beautiful to shut up the Emily Bergers and the Kevin Wrenns of the world. The Emily Bergers and the Kevin Wrenns of the world will never shut up because they are empty inside and they think putting others down will fill them up. Besides, totally skinny=totally beautiful is a myth perpetrated by the heteronormative male gaze and my nascent teenaged misandry has since become full-blown middle-aged misandry, thankyouverymuch. I need to move my body until it gets all sweaty and tired every single day because it’s good for my mental and physical well-being. While it doesn’t always feel like it, it’s a self-kindness, which is, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, an act of political warfare. And fuuuuuuck Trump.
The words “discipline” and “sacrifice” are still foreign tongue, but I’m working on it. I ran today. I ran yesterday. And I ran the day before that. Not very fast, and not very far, but I did it. And it made me sweaty and tired and that’s all that matters. I’m going to run tomorrow. And the day after that. And so on. And maybe this habit I have of not making habits stick will finally be in my rearview mirror and I can keep moving forward, someday faster and someday farther. And maybe someday I might even take a ballet class again. So long as four-fours are welcome.