the infuriating reality of womanhood
The world is not kind to the women who birth it, who tend to it until our skin is raw and our bodies ragged.
Content warning: Mentions of eating disorders, self-harm, and sexual assault.
The reference to “Women” / “Woman” in this article refers to anyone and everyone who allies with or identifies as such.
I was 6 years old when I first became aware that my body could be a problem.
Mid-morning, one meaningless summer day, my step-mom D (always my summer caretaker) stops me on the stair landing before I reach the bottom and says, “Absolutely not.”
“What?!”
“Do you see yourself? You look ridiculous. Go change.”
I’m 6 years old. I’m on my way to our neighbors’ house to play in the woods with their children.
At this point, I’ve already learned to do as D says. I march back upstairs.
It takes 4 more attempts to get D’s approval before I run out of the house, tears streaming down my face.
I have no language for this. I have no understanding of this. All I know is that somehow, I was very, very wrong.
Same timeframe and I’m going into the kitchen to tell D I’m hungry. Ever the risky ask, but I knew I wasn’t allowed to feed myself from her kitchen.
D asks me the same question every time: “Is your mouth hungry or your stomach?”
I would sit there and hem and haw and try to remember which one got me real food and which one got me a stick of gum and the hours until dinnertime
“Mouth,” I muttered tentatively.
“Classic,” D replies as she walks to her purse and pulls out a stick of Polar Ice Extra gum. “Dinner is in 5 hours.”
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Now I’m a little older, sitting at D’s dinner table, and she’s made something disgusting as usual. I’m picking around at it, like I always do, until she snaps.
“Take a bite and get your elbows off the table.” What is it with the whole elbows thing…?
I take my reluctant bite, taste buds and anxiety screaming in protest because what the actual F did I just put in my mouth?
“You get one good meal a week because I know your mom can’t cook. So you’ll eat it, and you’ll like it.” And I’ll claim moral superiority and get high off of my own control… the part she said only to herself. My dad hides behind the screen of his BlackBerry, always devoid of responsibility.
I’m pre-pubescant now, longer and leaner but scawny still. Girls at school are stuffing their bras and starting to mingle with boys.
I have a crush on a boy. We exchange nervous glances in Science class. Friends have told me he likes me back. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I go to a birthday party. Since when were boys invited to a girl's birthday party?
He’s there.
The whole night is comprised of his friends trying to get him to talk to me, and mine trying to get me to talk to him. We’re all in the same room, completely aware of what’s going on. This boy and I, to this day, have never spoken a word to each other.
Now I’m going to sleep away camp for the first time at 12. I’m terrified. The plane lost my carefully packed luggage, so I’m in an uncomfortable, very not-me outfit from the only Target we could find. My mom leaves me with the parting line, “smile, you look like a bitch.”
At camp, the girls feel cooler than I do. They’ve done this before, they’ve kissed boys, they have trendy clothes, and flattering bathing suits. Highlights in their hair and secret cell phones they smuggled into their luggage.
They get camp boyfriends and proclaim them to be the loves of their lives.
I go home and tell all of my school friends, too, that I had my first kiss. I didn’t.
After camp, I’m on vacation with my family. Awkward and insecure as ever. My cousin shows up, she’s one of those cool girls, but only 1 month my senior in life. She’s skinny. She’s praised for it.
“How did you do it?” everyone asks her.
“I don’t know, I guess I just stopped snacking.”
Well shit. I could do that.
It’s 6 months later, December, a few days before my birthday trip to NYC. My mom makes me green eggs (no ham). I ask her what the hell is wrong with the eggs.
She tells me she’s worried about how thin I’ve become.
I snap back at her, out of sheer denial and defense, to make me normal eggs and mind her own business. She cries. I tell my friends she’s being insane. We don’t talk for two weeks.
Meanwhile, I’m exercising in my room for hours a night, skipping meals, and feeling prettier every. damn. day.
It’s a few months later, and I’m on a specific food plan but ignoring it, bitterness in my heart and frailty in my bones. We’re shopping with friends for my 8th-grade graduation dress. Nothing fits me. I catch my mom crying on the car ride home.
I make it to that graduation, but I’m on a day pass from the inpatient hospital I was admitted to just a few months earlier.
I was evicted due to insurance denial at the start of that summer. My parents took my best friend and me on vacation. Everyone loved her, and no one would look at me. Scared of what I had become. I spent the entire vacation desperate and came home suicidal. I went back into the hospital a week later.
This time around, I met a girl there, maybe 17. She seemed like everything I wanted to be. Personable, cool, beautiful, funny. She was the light of that dejected place. I admired her. We played her favorite song on repeat, she drew us pictures, and told us our futures.
Three weeks after being discharged from the hospital, I saw on Facebook that she had died in a car accident. Meaningless and random.
