Dark Hearts Love Too: gratitude

Thursday, November 23, 2023

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving by Kit Ishimatsu on Unsplash

thankful for loved ones

thankful for recovery

thankful I'm still here

notes

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/2023-november-pad-chapbook-challenge-day-23

Write an appreciation poem.

There have been many times in my life where I thought it would be impossible to ever write words like these. I've been down about as low as I can go. I'm glad I'm able to feel this way today.

This is not toxic positivity. This is not me telling you that you must feel the way I do. It took me 58 years to get to this point. I am not completely healed, nor will I ever be. I still have lots of days where I wish the asteroid would just hit already. But today, I feel like this. I never thought it would happen.

There are those I wish were still with me, both human and animal companions. I miss them and always will.

I know bodies like mine are reviled. I will keep fighting that prejudice and stigma. It's ridiculous and sad that people are made to feel like they deserve to be treated poorly simply because they're big. Everyone deserves to be treated with basic decency and dignity.

I hate selfies. I don't take good ones. I can't be arsed to learn the technique for taking the perfect selfie. I'm not trying to make anyone think I'm beautiful.

I wasn't actually on the verge of tears when I took this. I didn't retouch the image at all. My rosacea was flaring up a bit and I hadn't even brushed my hair yet.

I rescued the unicorn behind me from a dumpster. I hate people sometimes. They're so damn wasteful and treat everything as disposable. If you don't want your plushies anymore, take them to a thrift store.

So, will I ever win any beauty contests?

No, and I don't care.

Do I want people to tell me I'm beautiful?

No. I really don't care what people think about my looks. I'd rather someone compliment my writing, my cooking, or some aspect of my horribly flawed personality than my appearance, which I think is a trivial attribute in the scheme of things. As the late Carrie Fisher said, youth and beauty are not accomplishments, they are accidents of time and DNA.

Being slender is also much more an accident of DNA than an actual accomplishment. I will never compliment someone on weight loss. I don't give a flying fuck how many hours they spent at the gym, and I definitely won't praise disordered eating. I missed a lot of time with my son when he was little in pursuit of unrealistic slimness. I'm just grateful I didn't inadvertently instill my own disordered eating patterns in him. I was deeply indoctrinated in diet culture during the early part of his life.

I first dipped my toe in the diet culture pool when I was about six years old and saw advertisements for miracle weight loss solutions in my mother's magazines. I dove into the deep end of the diet culture pool at twelve, becoming bulimic. I didn't emerge from the diet culture pool until I was forty-six. Orthorexia hadn't worked to make me thin, and the combination of weight cycling and underlying endocrine problems had colluded to make me become the thing I was taught to fear most: fat.

I've learned a great deal about the problems caused by diet culture and the obsession with thinness since then. It really hurts a lot of people. Everyone expresses shock and sympathy when the struggles of someone like Eugenia Cooney are made public. Of course we should have sympathy for Eugenia and others struggling with anorexia. However, people refuse to understand that living in a society that reviles larger people reinforces the potentially deadly disordered eating patterns that young women starving themselves engage in.

Free use image by Christian Dom on Pixabay

The above image is meant to convey the distorted impression that young women living with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia have of their bodies, but I've always felt it conveys another message as well. Nothing is wrong with either of these bodies. They are simply variations on the scale of physical expression.

I would like to offer a suggestion for this year's New Year's resolutions.

Stop bullying and concern trolling larger people. You don't know what they eat or how much. You don't know how much they exercise. You don't know what health conditions they may have. You don't know what medications they are taking. You don't know if they may be dealing with food insecurity. You don't know shit, so secure your shit.

Also, the next time you find yourself bemoaning the fact that young women are starving themselves to death, think about why this is happening. What messages are sent to girls from the time they are born? You need to be delicate, pretty, and tiny. Fat is the worst thing anyone can possibly be. Do you really wonder why some girls and women starve themselves or purge everything they eat?

Third, do yourself a favor and don't go on the annual Disappointment Diet, which only benefits the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. Read this book instead.

Cactus Clem, Ghost Town Grover, Hangry Wyrm, and Ornery Owl are going to have a great day working on projects and eating what we want when we want. If we exercise, it will be because we want to exercise, not because we are punishing ourselves for enjoying food.

Look out below for the Thanksgiving sticker from Ornery Owl's Underground!