That Voice

 There are moments that define us. That shape us. That determine our futures. Mine was in the dressing room at JC Penny. It was late summer, and time to gather new clothes for school. My mother, correctly, insisted that all pants be tried on. This was especially challenging for yours truly because I was not immediately available to standard sizes on the rack. Inevitably, I was resigned to the bin marked "husky." This served as a nearly constant reminder that I was above average, at least where my waistline was concerned. Which meant that finding a pair of pants that fit would be a struggle, every bit as much as squeezing into them. 

These were the instances that cemented in my head: "Fat Kid." I know as I look back that I was never morbidly obese. But I know that I was round. Which, especially in the 1970's, was not the thing you wanted to be. To be clear: it was not the thing that I wanted to be. It made me a target. For ridicule and other's aggression. Or maybe I made myself a target. My body image was something I wore on my sleeve, and chose to be self-effacing to absurd lengths about it. In sixth grade I used to tell folks that I didn't have ripples in my fat, I had waves. 

Har har har.

Good to have a sense of humor about yourself, but the die was cast. In my head, no matter what my actual physical condition was, I was that round kid shopping in the husky section. By the time I to the ninth grade, I was on the wrestling team, and the track team and even went out for football. Some of what my mother convinced me was "baby fat" started to melt away. High school opened up with that voice in my head warning me that I could at any moment begin to push maximum density. It was only a matter of time. 

I looked at a lot of pictures. I watched my shadow. I avoided stepping on scales whenever possible. I know that some of those pictures got run through a widescreen filter. I know that I spent some years living within my jeans. I did a lot of rationalization once I bounced around middle age for a few years. That voice in my head reasserted itself, as it turns out, with good reason. I had reasserted my huskiness. After I had expended a lot of energy convincing myself that maybe that voice was just never satisfied. 

Or maybe it was all those peanut M&Ms. On top of a fifty-plus year old metabolism. I was back in that changing room at JC Penny. Something had to change because that voice wasn't about to leave me alone. Eight months of exercise and intermittent fasting later, the jeans fit again. The voice is quieted. For now. The one that whispers, "Husky."