On that day, I was forced to use the bike I hate the most—the one closest to the entrance to the cardio/weight room, so that my sweating and huffing and puffing and personal tics would be on display for each and every person coming and going through the adjacent doors. I settled in, programmed the machine for sixty minutes, knowing I would stop at forty but giving myself some room to push myself if I wasn’t dying by then. I glanced over at the girl next to me. She had been on the bike for about two minutes longer. When forty minutes passed, my legs were burning fiercely. I looked at my neighbor and she looked back at me. She had been eyeing me the entire time, wondering just how long I was going to last.
After forty-five minutes, I locked eyes with my neighbor/nemesis again and saw a glint in her eyes. I knew what was going on. She was challenging me. She was letting me know that however long I lasted, she would last longer. She would not be bested by a fat ass. At fifty minutes, I was certain that a heart attack was imminent. I was dizzy, faint, legs trembling, but death was preferable to losing to that young upstart, that hussy. At fifty-three minutes, she glared at me, leaned forward, and grabbed the handles of the bike. I turned up the volume on my music and started bobbing my head to the beat. At fifty-four minutes, she grunted and tried to stare through me. Finally, she stopped and I heard her say, “I can’t believe she’s still on there.” Her friends nodded in agreement. At sixty minutes, I calmly stopped pedaling, peeled my shirt away from my skin, wiped the bike down, and slowly exited the room because my legs were rubbery and weak. I was trying to project poise and strength.
I knew she was watching. I was smug and temporarily triumphant. Then I stepped into the bathroom and threw up, ignoring the bitter taste at the back of my throat as I embraced a hollow victory.
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I have many athletic friends, and because I am active on social media, I often see them posting pictures of their physical accomplishments. They wear their shorts and Under Armour shirts, molded to their incredibly fit bodies; their hair, damp with sweat, is plastered to their faces. They hold race numbers triumphantly in the air. They proudly display medals from finishing 5Ks and 10Ks and half marathons and whole marathons and sometimes races that are even more absurd, like Tough Mudders and triathlons and ultramarathons. They use apps that post athletic progress to Facebook and Twitter: “I ran 6.24 miles.” “I biked 24.5 miles.” Or they personally post a little update: “Just climbed a mountain and enjoyed a picnic from the summit.” The pictures accompanying these updates reveal people glowing with health and vigor.
They are, rightly, proud of what they have done with their bodies, but when I am at my pettiest, which is often, it feels like gloating. Or, if I am being honest, they are bragging about something I might never know, that kind of personal satisfaction with and sense of accomplishment provided by my body. I get angry as I see these updates because these people are doing things I cannot. They are doing things I hope, so very much want, to someday be able to do in theory, even if I won’t actually do them given that I am not at all interested in sports or the outdoors. I am not angry. I am jealous. I am seething with jealousy.
I want to be part of the active world. I want it so very badly. There are so many things I hunger for.
49
I am self-conscious beyond measure. I am intensely and constantly preoccupied with my body in the world because I know what people think and what they see when they look at me. I know that I am breaking the unspoken rules of what a woman should look like.
I am hyperconscious of how I take up space. As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not supposed to take up space. And yet, as a feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can take up space. I live in a contradictory space where I should try to take up space but not too much of it, and not in the wrong way, where the wrong way is any way where my body is concerned. Whenever I am near other people, I try to fold into myself so that my body doesn’t disrupt the space of others. I take this to extremes. I will spend five-hour flights tucked against the window, my arm tucked into the seat belt, as if trying to create absence where there is excessive presence. I walk at the edge of sidewalks. In buildings I hug the walls. I try to walk as quickly as I can when I feel someone behind me so I don’t get in their way, as if I have less of a right to be in the world than anyone else.
I am hyperconscious of how I take up space and I resent having to be this way, so when people around me aren’t mindful of how they take up space, I feel pure rage. I am seething with jealousy. I hate that they don’t have to consider how they take up space. They can walk at any speed they want. Their limbs can spill over armrests. They can dawdle and stretch and shrug, no matter where they are. I rage that they don’t have to second-guess themselves or give a moment’s thought to the space they fill. The ease with which they take up space feels spiteful and personal.
I am, perhaps, self-obsessed beyond measure. No matter where I am, I wonder about where I stand and how I look. I think, I am the fattest person in this apartment building. I am the fattest person in this class. I am the fattest person at this university. I am the fattest person in this theater. I am the fattest person on this airplane. I am the fattest person in this airport. I am the fattest person on this interstate. I am the fattest person in this city. I am the fattest person at this event. I am the fattest person at this conference. I am the fattest person in this restaurant. I am the fattest person in this shopping mall. I am the fattest person on this panel. I am the fattest person in this casino.
I am the fattest person.
This is a constant, destructive refrain and I cannot escape it.
50
I am terrified of other people. I am terrified of the way they are likely to look at me, stare, talk about me or say cruel things to me. I am terrified of children, their guilelessness and brutal honesty and willingness to gawk at me, to talk loudly about me, to ask their parents or, sometimes, even me, “Why are you so big?” I am terrified of the awkward pause of those children’s parents as they try to respond appropriately.
I do not have an answer to that question, or I do and there simply isn’t enough time or grace in the world to offer that answer up.
And so I am terrified of other people. I hear the rude comments whispered. I see the stares and laughs and snickering. I see the thinly veiled or open disgust. I pretend I don’t see it. I block it out as often as I can so I can live and breathe with some semblance of peace. The list of bullshit I deal with, by virtue of my body, is long and boring, and I am, frankly, bored with it. This is the world we live in. Looks matter, and we can say, “But but but . . .” But no. Looks matter. Bodies matter.
I could easily become a shut-in, hiding from the cruelty of the world. Most days it takes all my strength and no small amount of courage to get dressed and leave the house. If I don’t have to teach or travel for work, I spend most of my time talking myself out of leaving my house. I can order something in. I can make do with what I have. Tomorrow, I promise myself. Tomorrow I will face the world. If it’s late in the week, there are several tomorrows until Monday. There are several tomorrows when I can lie to myself, when I can hope to build stronger defenses for facing the world that so cruelly faces me.
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