The Straight Skinny on Living Large
If you’'re fat and have no sense of humor, you’'re doubly doomed; you will encounter nastiness and instant judgments daily, just as surely as you realize that you'’ll never be able to cram your caboose into a standard theater seat... If you can'’t laugh at ignorant comments and outlandish reactions to your heft, you just may end up being convicted of manslaughter, whiling away the hours in prison by taking part in mandatory anger management classes, all the while straightjacketed into an impossibly binding, ill-fitting set of prison togs; usually a molten-steel orange hue. The thinnest person on the planet can'’t get away with wearing orange. So, you’'re back to where you started; only the food choices ain'’t so appetizing on the chow line.... and the bunks! Yeah, you’re doomed, alright. Fat people just don'’t fit in anywhere they go. I was lucky; I drew the long straw. I was born laughing, or so my mama said. I'’ve seen the knee jerk reactions and attendant incongruity that rears its ugly head in many a human situation and always feel compelled to make the requisite and diffusing joke. When has crying ever helped? Being fat is no job for sissies. And it’'s a damned good thing I could see the humor, especially back then. Most people looking into my world reacted to my presence in one of several ways; I should know... I lived it. I heard it... I sure as hell felt it. A small minority would say, “Oh, the poor thing... how does she cope!?” The larger segment would stand for a moment, imperiously gawking, sniggering to their companions as they continued walking by, only to have one or two of them turn around a few feet off for an additional glimpse of Barnum & Bailey so as to be able to later relate in graphic terms, the remarkable and deplorable “spectacle” they’'d encountered at the mall. I’'ve experienced another type of person as well; these react to the sight of the obese by ignoring them, even when facing them as the admissions nurse at a hospital, at the customer service counter in the grocery store or at the post office. If they don'’t make direct eye contact and only mutter an obligatory response to the earnest question being asked, they somehow negate the fact of the fat person'’s existence. Maybe they felt my corpulence would rub off on them. Better safe than sorry. I’'ve had people plaster themselves against the bricks as if gale force winds had suddenly invaded the building when they saw me coming along a fifteen foot wide corridor in my double-wide wheelchair. And I’'ve had them refuse to get on an elevator with me: I was in the hospital, being transported from the 8th to 4th floor to have some tests performed; the doors opened before my attendant and I reached our destination. Four women stood there with jaws dropped. “Come on in, ladies... the water'’s fine!” I entreated. “No thanks, my dear... we'’ll wait for the next one.” I ask you, who looks like the idiot here? The women who feared snapping cables and plunging down the elevator shaft with the human leviathan aboard, or the fat chick in the wheelchair, riding on an elevator with a plaque prominently displayed; weight limit: 4,000 pounds? Is it any wonder so many isolate themselves from the very thing that we all need to thrive, to heal, to feel complete? Companionship and acceptance are vital, but who with a brain, with any sense of dignity, would willingly subject themselves to the instant ridicule and disdain of their fellow man? Locked away in self-imposed isolation, the unexpected gift of a computer opened up a world that had all but denied me its membership. The machine was only a catalyst, but in the anonymity of the internet, others had my off-putting corporeal veil lifted to expose the lively spirit and mind that lay beneath. And bit by bit, letter after letter, month after month, faceless strangers from across the globe infused my withered self-worth; I welcomed it like drought-parched crops greet a sudden drenching rain. People I had never met had unwittingly helped in bringing a modern day Lazarus back from the dead. Fat chance indeed. I’'ve finally merited society'’s stamp of approval, though I never asked for it in the first place. From my top weight of 703 pounds, I'’ve now shed 530 pounds of that excess cargo, and naturally; no doctor’'s monitoring, no surgeries, pills or potions. The exterior that had for so long branded me as unacceptable, inconsequential and unworthy to strangers has melted away. I'd like to suggest that we could do more good for the world we all inhabit, by looking beneath our meaningless exteriors, the shells that inevitably age and corrupt, and instead spend more time digging deeper, to the core, the marrow, to the very thing that binds us; our humanity. We'’re all the same beneath the skin, distended or not. People seek me out now; they come up and introduce themselves. I've been asked by the guy packing my groceries if I need help getting them to my car. They smile and smile and smile... Funny, I always did; never stopped...not once. A lady walks in to a tavern with a duck on her shoulder and bellies up to the bar........... Yeah, smile more. None of us are getting out of this thing alive.
Nancy
Makin
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