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| Preface | xi | ||||
| Acknowledgments | xv | ||||
| In Your Voice | xvii | ||||
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| Afterword | 203 | (1) | |||
| Self-Help Resources | 204 | (14) | |||
| About the Author | 218 |
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Touching Thighs and the Facts of Life
To help you understand the work I do, I should first explain a little about myself. Or, rather, who I was, what I went through, and how it affects who I'm becoming. Because we're all in process and none of us are complete, I believe that we have a chance at every turn to make a new decision and release old patterns that no longer serve us. We all have those defining moments that impart life lessons for us to remember, but it's what we choose to do with the knowledge gained from those lessons that creates our life's journey. Everyone's path looks different-yet so often we hold ours up against another's to measure and compare. I know that for a long time I felt as if I didn't have a story worth telling or the correct language to express what was going on inside of me.
I never looked like anyone else. I had rich, caramel-colored skin; gigantic brown eyes; and hair that had a curly mind of its own-yet my uniqueness was lost on me, for I wanted to be tall, thin, and blonde. When I was 11 years old, I'd pray extra hard that when I woke up in the morning I'd look like Barbie. Every morning I was disappointed.
I sprouted curves earlier than most of my friends. I remember being in the fourth grade and discovering that my chest had grown these two tiny lumps where it used to be soft and flat. I was mortified. Only one other girl had a bra in my fourth-grade class, and you couldn't tell if it was her boobs or her blubber-but people made sure that she was picked on nonetheless. I feared that my new Kmart bra would be discovered and become fodder for the ridiculous boys in my class. I wanted to be noticed because I looked like a little doll, not because I was some fleshy, awkward, developing geek.
Even my teeth disobeyed me. Don't ask me why, but braces were actually coveted in my elementary school, and retainers were considered cool to wear. Once I actually straightened out a paper clip and stuck it to my front teeth to see what I might look like when I finally got a retainer. Going to the orthodontist was a rite of passage. However, my teeth had spaces in between them, and the two front ones were huge. And to make it worse, not all of my adult teeth had come in yet. I was an early bloomer in the breasts and a late bloomer in the teeth. I never seemed to be in sync. (Only later would I realize that this is called puberty .)
I suppose that my dissatisfaction with my body and appearance wasn't unheard of, but at the time I didn't see other girls hate themselves and their appearance like I hated mine. While I was never chubby, I was always soft. My thighs rubbed together when they touched, which was devastation from the start. Later in life, I became obsessed with this fact, carefully noticing the size and shape of thighs around me and the proximity of how close the skin came together. It became a sick distraction and measurement of body ideal. I'd rail against my touching thighs and hold the bulges of flesh in my hands as I raised and lifted my skin apart to see what I might look like with distance between my legs. I'd search through baby photos to see if there was ever a point where my thighs didn't rub together when I walked. Not even as an infant was that the case-in all of those pictures, my thighs still held on to each other. It was just never meant to be....
Katherine St. Claire's thighs didn't touch. When she walked, you could actually see space between her thighs. And she always had the newest Jordache or Sergio Valente jeans to accentuate her long legs and hug her tiny waist. She looked like a Barbie doll-tall and lean and every 11-year-old's idol (well, at least mine). She was also mean, which meant that someday I'd be destroyed by her. Naturally, we became friends.
Never did Katherine appear messy or scattered. Her handwriting was the best in the class, and she had the right combination of smarts and looks to become the teacher's pet. But where I envied her most was in the way boys would talk about her. When I was in school, we weren't nearly as advanced as 11-year-olds are today, but the idea of sex wasn't lost on us either. The cutest boys in our class liked Katherine, and she did what every elementary school hottie did-she remained untouchable and unavailable. She never paired with one guy, which made her all the more desirable.
Now, in all fairness, I'm not sure how aware Katherine was of her looks and what they meant in the ultimate pecking order of grade school. Yet she displayed a sense of entitlement about her status-perhaps she'd never known any other kind of social placement. Regardless, she was lucky not to be awkward at that age. For those of us who weren't so lucky, I tell a tale we all can relate to, of not feeling comfortable in your own skin and always wanting to be someone else.
My school certainly had its share of kids to whom adolescence was quite cruel. They had either a disastrously out-of-date wardrobe or socially suicidal traits such as buckteeth, a stutter, bad breath, and excess saliva that shot out of their mouth when they talked-or a combination of all of the above. Unfortunately, when we're young, we're divided right away into the appropriate groups with other people like us. And they provide comfort and safety. Those who aspire to cross over into more popular groups often spend their years wanting to be anything but who they are and no doubt feel a lot of misery.
I spent most of my early years always flirting with the popular groups but never quite landing at their table. I was smart and very verbal in class, and I was accepted on some levels by just about everyone. I didn't have it as rough as some kids did, and I was aware of that luck. And my heart broke for them each time they were knocked down or humiliated in front of the class. I was also grateful that it wasn't me. That attitude alone-the mantra of "Please oh please let them not pick on me"-is what rules elementary school and junior high. This is what keeps us quiet when we know we should tell, it's what makes us keep dark secrets, and it's what causes us to eventually lash out in complete rage.
My creativity kept me happy in class, and I loved expressing myself in artistic ways. I had teachers who encouraged that expression, so I soon soared within the academic world. That helped take my mind off of the awkwardness of not quite being "in" and not quite being "out." I tried my best to blend in, but I secretly wished that I'd just find my niche.
I discovered my heroes and role models on TV. One of my favorite shows was the estrogen-laden The Facts of Life . Housemother Mrs. Garrett helped to navigate the very different lives of four girls through the most tumultuous times of their lives-adolescence. There was the fat girl, Natalie, who was funny and strong and a good friend to her brace-faced pal, Tootie. Then there was Blair, who embodied all the things I hated at the time: blonde, pretty, and self-absorbed. But out of all the characters on The Facts of Life , I worshiped Jo because she had dark hair and wasn't as thin as a stick. Plus, she said everything that I wanted to say, resisted the ditzy-girl stereotype that Blair seemed to inhabit, didn't wear a lot of makeup, and wasn't always worried if boys thought she was pretty. Jo was tough but sensitive; there certainly weren't many female characters like that on TV at the time. What I admired most was that she got to tell off Blair, my version of Katherine, on a regular basis. I loved that.
I also devoured ABC Afterschool Specials , especially anything that featured storylines where the underdog wins against all odds and sweeps the most popular girl/boy off their feet while maintaining their individuality. (Mind you, these themes would go on to permeate all those great John Hughes movies in the '80s.) My absolute favorite special was when the "nontraditional-looking" female (read: curvy, dark hair, not the best dresser) got screwed over by all the popular girls who had become friends with her on a dare, and then she found retribution by having the most eligible jock in school fall madly in love with her for just being ... herself! After-school Specials actually addressed the social hierarchy of school, peer pressure, and young love; and they offered a voice that wasn't my parents' and wasn't my peers', it was a voice from beyond, from a survivor, someone else going through the exact same things and sharing their story in my language. I would model this voice later on in my work.
Surviving "Weiner" and Broken Birthday Parties
Jane and Michael Weiner, my mother and father, are amazing people. Each time I faced a dilemma, they let me discover the best way to handle it-with just the right amount of help. One of the biggest lessons I learned growing up came on the day of my 11th birthday. I was having a boy/girl party at our house in Miami, Florida, and practically my entire sixth-grade class was invited. At the time I was hanging out a lot with Katherine and her other "doll" friends. I managed to let them talk me into inviting some kids from the junior high school. A girl named Alex, whom I didn't particularly like and everyone was afraid of, was coming to my party, and that somehow made me cool.
Fast-forward to the party. For the first part of the night things went well, and everyone seemed to be enjoying endless pizza and candy and watching movies on TV. Most times at birthday parties you see too much of parents, yet mine were in their bedroom with the door closed that night, and they promised to stay there as long as we behaved ourselves.
The kids had just finished singing "Happy Birthday" to me, when Alex and a few of her pals from junior high arrived. They didn't wish me happy birthday or even anything close to that-they just came in and started eating and bossing people around. Katherine, my supposed friend, and her cronies laughed and egged Alex on. Within minutes they had organized a game of spin the bottle, involving the entire group. Most people played the game and kissed awkwardly, but there was a large group of kids that felt really uncomfortable. And I knew that-after all, I was one of them. I realized that a hurricane of bad kids had just wrecked my party.
There comes a time when you're faced with the decision to take a stand and do something that might not be admired by most. When you're an adult, it's hard enough to do, but when you're a kid, it can be the social kiss of death. My friends Trevor and Jenny, who were fraternal twins, and Mike escaped spin the bottle and found me in the kitchen. "What are you going to do, Jessie?" they implored.
"I'm going to serve the cake-that might take their minds off the game," I brilliantly replied.
"Most of us don't want to play spin the bottle," Jenny said. "We want to go back to watching movies."
"I know," I responded. "Let me handle it."
Jenny, Trevor, and Mike were by all accounts the truest friends I had, and they would certainly prove that to me as the night went on.
I entered my living room to see Katherine locking lips with Brendon, a boy I'd thought bordered on future husband material. This alone made my stomach turn. Then Alex's friend grabbed me and tried to make me kiss Billy Chang, the kid with chronic halitosis at age 11. Since I was holding the birthday cake, I politely refused, desperately trying to maintain being a good host even as I freaked out.
Before I could put the cake down, Alex kidnaped it and began to flick the candles on the floor. They were no longer lit, but the icing was leaving blue and green spots on the carpet. Her friends, who thought that was hysterical, began chasing her with the cake while threatening to shove it in her face.
Hello! I was having a birthday party here! I kept wondering, What would Jo do? I knew that she'd come in with her black leather jacket and bad New York accent, and by just narrowing her eyes, she'd scare Alex to death and make her stop. My daydreams were interrupted by a piece of cake flying by my head and landing on the screen door of my patio-white icing suddenly became spackling for the holes in the black screen. Soon, everyone seemed to join in, and a giant cake fight started up.
Trevor and Jenny suggested that I go tell my parents, but I was in shock. I couldn't believe that within ten minutes my party had been ruined. I hated Katherine for inviting Alex and I hated Alex for being cruel, but I really hated myself for what I did next. I ran up to my parents' bedroom and told them that some kids I didn't invite had come over, taken over the party, made people play kissing games, and were now throwing cake all over the patio. I didn't know what else to do. I felt horrible that my parents trusted me and this is what happened.
My dad responded first and stormed out to see what was going on. My mom said, "Don't worry, we'll take care of it." I told her that I'd asked them to stop, which really wasn't true. I don't think I said anything to Alex-I was so overwhelmed with the bullying and saddened at the dramatic turn my birthday party had taken.
When my parents arrived on the patio, cake was everywhere , and most of the patio furniture had been turned over in an attempt to become shields for the partygoers. Most kids were laughing, and some were screaming, but they were all oblivious to the disrespect and destruction they were creating. My dad grabbed the remainder of the cake out of Alex's hand and said, "That's enough!" in a tone of fierce defense I'd never heard him use before.
My mother said, "Okay, listen-we're not going to let you destroy our home. We invited you to a party, and we expect you to respect us and our rules." In hindsight, they were quite eloquent considering how angry they were.
My father, recognizing Alex as a ringleader, turned to her and commanded, "Get out!" And she said nothing. But as she hit the front door, she turned around and gave him the finger while making sure that she slammed the door on the way out. Her friends followed behind her without having to be asked. That left me with most of the sixth-grade class staring at my parents and me.
My mom said, "I'm very upset with what you've done to my daughter and to our house tonight. Those of you who did it know who you are. I want anyone who doesn't think that they can respect our rules and our home to leave now. For those of you who want to stay and continue celebrating Jessie's birthday with us, you can do that."
I thought this was great. There's always that fine line you walk when you're a kid where you want your parents to help ... but not too much. I was actually proud of how they handled it. It reminded me of the retribution I'd seen in the Afterschool Specials .
Continues...
Excerpted from A VERY HUNGRY GIRL by Jessica Weiner Copyright © 2003 by Jessica Weiner
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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