I Don’t Want to Hate the Only Body I’ll Ever Have
At 33, I’m finally learning to shed a lifetime of shame
In my small Alabama high school, before I’d ever considered the calories I put into my body, a boy told me I needed to eat more cornbread to get some meat on my bones. He told me I had a flat ass, then said, “But at least you got DSL.” I was 14. I was 14 and I’d never heard of DSL, so I had to ask around to find out what that meant. This was before DSL high-speed internet. Back then, according to another boy who laughed at me when I asked, it meant “dick sucking lips.” I’d never considered that before, either.
A year later, a boy wrapped his arms around my waist. I didn’t want him to, but didn’t know how to tell him that. “Damn, girl. So tiny. So sexy,” he said. I pushed him away when he tried to kiss me, and he told all the football players I was a tease.
When I quit high school, I gained weight rapidly. A whole 20 pounds in a single year. I was no longer on Adderall, was no longer playing sports. When my boyfriend at the time broke up with me, I stood at a payphone, cars buzzing by on a highway, all of them oblivious to the tragedy that was unfolding on the sidewalk. He told me he’d gone to New Orleans and cheated.
