Tara Mayer
Refraction
2008
You look into the mirror. You see yourself. All of yourself. Every pore, blemish, flaw, every tiny detail. White, lumpy skin covers your short frame. Rolls cascade down your sides and bunch over your panties. Little indents in your flesh are sprinkled down your legs and ass like the tufts on your mother’s thirty-year-old couch. You stare at them, willing them to burn away with invisible beams you project from your eyes. You know you’re supposed to just pretend these little things are okay. You think about how others feel when they look in the mirror. Do they do this too? Do they spend hours looking at their reflection, willing it to blow away like dust? Do they, too, long to disappear?
No. Of course not. Other people love themselves. They eat without calculating every calorie and gram of fat. You remind yourself that it’s all a lie. You’re sure there isn’t a time when any of them can say they love every little blemish or extra bit of fat. Or maybe it isn’t a lie, and you are crazy. Maybe they just don’t think about it the way you do. Looking at the person in the glass, you don’t see why people compliment you, why they call you beautiful or say you look nice. No, all you can see is fat. Fat on your thighs, fat on your stomach and arms and face. Fat hanging from every bone on your body like water balloons growing beneath your skin. You want it to go away. You want to tear at it until it’s completely disappeared, and you’re left with slender limbs and curves. You want to stand over an open flame and watch it slowly turn to liquid and drip down your sides like melting wax.
A face stares back at you, and you glare at the traitor who shares your name. It can’t truly be you. How can it be when it feels so foreign to meet her eyes? Your hands cover your face, and you want to scrub at it until it’s not so sad and sorry-looking. Better yet, you wish you could sand it down until it’s completely smooth and expressionless. Faceless. If you don’t have eyes, you can’t see the flaws, right?
2009
You’re at your mirror again. It’s not uncommon now. You find yourself in your room most mornings, putting on this dress and that top and those pants until finally settling on a mediocre outfit that you deem fit to leave the house in. Usually, it’s anything that hugs the smallest part of your waist. Without the cinch, you can’t hide how big and round your body is.
You spend your days with your few close friends and typically try to take up less space than your body will allow. This is currently displayed by how you’re sitting on your best friend’s couch: knees pressed tightly to your breasts, arms circled around your legs, holding them in place. It’s quite uncomfortable, but you don’t let it show.
A conversation prompts you to research what happens to food when you eat it. It fucks you up. The dissolving, the calorie absorption, the chemical change from food to fat. By the time you realize what effect this will have on you, it’s too late.
2010
You’re in the cafeteria of Cooper City High School. It’s much like any other cafeteria. Kids sit at tables, talking, eating. They all look so happy stuffing their faces. The chatter fills the room and it’s all you can hear. Voices over voices. An announcement about your upcoming graduation ceremony in a few weeks. How can anyone hear themselves think in here?
You look down at the sandwich in your hands. The problem now is that all you can think of while looking at this sandwich is the process. When that sandwich goes down your throat, it will dissolve and break down, and calories will be absorbed, and energy will become sugar and fat and pounds, and it will contribute to the pounds of fat you already have. It will be dissolved by acids and transfer to other areas and remain a piece of your body forever. You could try to burn through it with exercise, but there isn’t enough time. Not nearly enough hours in the day to get rid of all the fat that sits on your body. If you really want to get rid of the fat, you have no other choice. You throw out the sandwich.
2011
Your eating habits have started to change. You’ve been dieting and trying to lose weight. You eat less and less every day, though it’s too small a change to acknowledge at first. Almost subconscious. Soon the change begins to lose its subtlety: a skipped breakfast here, a snack thrown away there.
Then you start counting the calories. You do all the research, figure out the math. You find that if you keep your calories down to fourteen hundred a day, with exercise, you could lose almost 2 pounds a week. You think that’s fine. It’s enough. The less you consume, the less fat remains on your body. The more you’ll begin to melt away.
Thinner. You will be thinner.
2012
After following your new diet for some time, you weigh yourself. You step onto the scale, no clothes on, no food in your stomach. Completely empty. You look down at the numbers. They haven’t changed. The number is the same. The number is the fucking same. It’s been over a week, and it hasn’t even gone down a pound. This must be a mistake. You must have lost something. You’ve changed all your eating habits, eating less and less. Why? Why why why has the number not changed?
You don’t know you’ve stepped off the scale or sat down for that matter, but suddenly you are seated on the cool tile floor. Your hands tremble, palms sweat. Breath comes in deep shallow puffs.
Is fourteen hundred calories too much? Should you be eating less? Yes. Yes, less is good. Less means less fat. Less fat means thinner. Twelve hundred calories a day, then? You can do that. It will all be just fine.
2013
You’re sitting outside the Broward College food court. You can’t bear all the noise and the movement in there. You need calm. You see a young girl walk out of the cafeteria. She’s just slightly overweight, wearing some very plain clothes. She seems sad and out of place like she doesn’t want to be here. She glances at you and, suddenly, you’re the fattest kid in 7th grade again. You remember walking around in your Walmart clothes and listening to all the girls snicker. You remember watching them stare as you walked down the hallway.
She’s so ugly.
What does that girl eat?
Her mom needs to stop feeding her Twinkies.
You weren’t a lazy kid. You didn’t eat any more than any other kid your age. You just hadn’t grown into yourself yet. But words heard often enough eventually become the truth.
Everyone is out of high school now. You’ve moved on with your lives, gone to college, separated. But the distance doesn’t matter when you can still hear their taunts echoing in your head. You have to make sure they won’t ever call you fat again.
2014
You’re weighing almonds now. You started this a few weeks ago. The cup measures aren’t enough anymore; they’re untrustworthy. You stare at the scale’s dial as you plunk the almonds in one by one. Half an ounce. Perfect. You spill the almonds back into your hand, grab an apple from the fridge, and go into your room to eat. You’ve been able to pick up lots of new little habits like this since you moved to your apartment. Four hours away from your family means they won’t be watching your every move. No weekend outing meals to be present for, no mother nagging to make sure you’ve eaten dinner every night. It’s liberating.
You’ve lost some weight now. Not much, just thirty pounds or so. Nowhere near your ultimate goal. It’s good though, it’s getting better. Weighing yourself has now become your favorite part of the morning. You love seeing the needle inch to the left a bit every day. It’s the only thing you get out of bed for these days.
2015
You’ve eaten too much. If you had taken a moment to realize what was happening, maybe you could have stopped it, but it’s far too late now. The calories are consumed, and you are way over your calorie limit for the day. You realize you’re shaking as you walk into your bedroom. You put your hand up on the wall and try to steady yourself, but it isn’t working. You take a deep breath, but your heart doesn’t stop pounding.
You slip off your shoes and walk into the bathroom. You think you can feel the calories floating inside your stomach. Circulating. Absorbing. You have to get rid of them.
You feel the cool tile under your feet and feel an odd sense of calm. You think about all the movies and tv shows you’ve seen where the sad girl makes herself puke. But the forums you go on have taught you that no one actually gets on their knees. Gravity works against you if you’re on the ground. The media only portrays it that way because it’s a more graceful position, a way to glorify ugliness.
Your fingers are down your throat before you can think it through. Suddenly those calories are being pushed out of your body and unattractively plopping into the toilet. A voice at the back of your brain quietly reminds you that another line is being crossed. You ignore it. The process repeats until there is nothing left.
On shaky legs, you stand upright. You wash your hands and face in the sink, trying to avoid the mirror. You grab a towel and dry yourself off, but when you look up and finally gaze into the glass, the girl staring back isn’t what you expect. Tears and mascara are running down her cheeks. Her face is blotchy and red, and her eyes are bloodshot. What’s most unfamiliar is the utterly satisfied look on her face. You think you could spend a lifetime trying to recreate the feeling. In fact, you just might.
Bio
Tara Mayer is a writer and editor, specializing in essay and memoir. Her work grapples with queerness, femininity, mental health, and the body through atypical perspectives. She recently completed her MFA at the University of Central Florida, and is currently working on a collection of essays intersecting body image and sexuality. Find her at TaraMayer.com.
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