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"So, if you don't see your Heaven
Don't convince yourself you're done
Just 'cause the things around you seem heavy
Doesn't mean you can give up this ground."
-DMB
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Well, its official. Ill be going under the knife on Aug. 30th in San Diego. Im nervous, sure. This is a big deal for someone who has to be held down at the dentists office, but I know its the right decision.
And of course, Ill be documenting every excrutiating second for my readers.
The surgery Im speaking of? A gastric-bypass. Basically, 90% of my stomach is seperated from my body (but kept inside) and my intestines are rearranged. Sounds delightful, doesnt it? I have about a week of recovery in San Diego, and then another week of taking it easy at home. School begins on Sept. 17th so I have no other choice but to go.
Why? Why am I having my insides turned around and sliced and diced? To lose weight. Sounds extreme, I know. Believe me several people I have talked to have pointed out the extemety of the surgery. All to lose weight? What about eating right and excersising? Well, Ill still be incorporating those into my new lifestyle. The surgery is not plastic surgery, I dont come out looking 80lbs lighter. I have to help the process along. Of course, the people who have pointed this out to me are thin. One, Jeremy, was once a big guy, but he lost a lot of weight through excersise (and I have a feeling puberty). The fact of the matter is, they arent me. Walk a mile in my shoes, and then tell me you wouldnt leap at the opportunity to lost 80-100 lbs.
The last week Ive been thinking about what this all means to me. That my body will be changing. Its forced me to put things into perspective. A part of me thinks Ill be able to say good-bye to the past. As I shed the layers of fat, so go the layers of memories, of the saddness I felt for so long.
I have never understood the divine decision that I should be fat and that others get to be thin. Sure, being all knees and elbows has its drawbacks but they hardly even get close to the social disgrace of being a fat person. I am by the standards set by society and the media, ugly. Sure, Ive got a good looking face and nice hair and what-not but society has made the decision that fat is NOT okay. If anything fat is funny, sad, disgraceful. We are the clowns.
Not that Im tooting my own horn, or walking in the pity parade. My issues are no more important than anyone elses. But I want to share with people what exactly it means to be fat. And to show whats being said and done in the media and how that has a far reaching effect on other peoples lives.
Ill start with the latest Gweneth Paltrow movie. I cant remember the name (Shallow John or something like that). In the previews, a very shallow man played by Jim Black is given the power to see peoples true/inner beauty. The joke is that he falls in love with a woman who is quite large, but he sees her as Gweneth Paltrow. From what Ive seen in the previews, the movie is ladden with fat jokes. One, for example, has the large woman (the audience never is shown her face, just various shots of her body) jumping into a pool. Black sees her as the waif Paltrow so thinks nothing of it. However, as the fat woman jumps into the pool, she does a belly-flop and tons of water splash out of a pool. People flee as the water washes away small children. Sounds funny doesnt it? The thing is, this joke, one that plagued even me as a child, has been told so many times that it no longer seems funny. What are the messages being sent from this scene: 1> fat people arent graceful; 2> fat people make belly-flops in the pool 3> fat people are shamefull and disgusting.
Tina, a dear and very very thin friend of mine, said that many reviews of the movie say that it has a positive message. Really? A positive message coated with two hours of fat jokes? Even if I concede that it has a pro-fat message, it fails in two fundemental ways.
1> If Black sees people for their true beauty, than that beauty is portrayed by Gweneth Paltrow. Her body is still promoted as the ultimate beauty. Rather than having a large woman play the inner or true beauty of a fat woman, they have an excdingly thin woman play her. Fat still is shown as ugly, unacceptable, or what have you.
2> Black himself is not thin. Hes a bit thick around the middle. This promotes the double-standard existing in America. That fat men are more acceptable than fat women.
I sat in the audience next to my friend Ronnie (another plump person) and we watched with a look of horror as the preview flashed before us. I heard people laughing and I was simply appalled. I looked over at him, trying very hard to hold back my tears and I said, They can do this? This is acceptable? How can they do this?
Fine, the movie is made by two men notorious for making offensive movies. That isnt an excuse and it doesnt take away from the fact that they are gaining joy out of the continued victimization of people who look a certain way.
Is this a single instance of the media pointing and laughing at fat people. Of course not. The opening ceremonies for the Teen Choice Awards on Fox Television is yet another example of how the media promotes the idea that making fun of fat people is okay. Clad in lingerie matching the costumes of Pink, Mia, Lil Kim and Christina Aguilara four large women lip-synched to Lady Marmalaid. Above their heads was a sign that read, Moulon HUGE. In the audience, Christina Aguilara and David Spade laughed and laughed. Britany Spears giggled away as the three-hundred pound women danced and moved across the stage.
My question: Why is this funny? Because the overweight women look so incredibly different than the singers? Here are celebrities that will say things like, I feel a positive self-image is very important and yet will reap joy out of mocking people of a large body type. How do the chunky teen age girls who idolize Spears feel when they see that?
They feel like Spears is laughing at them. Because thats what I felt as I watched the ceremony. And to the women on stage, I couldnt imagine why they had done that. Why would they allow themselves to become the mocked, the clowns of the show? Do they think this is actually helping?
You might be saying, Sure Chelsea, talk the big talk but when it comes right down to it, you are going to have surgery to become skinny. Isnt that hypocritical? Im not sure if it is or not. At times I feel like I am abandoning the cause, or being disloyal to all the other fat people. Am I succumbing to the societal pressures that I have spent years fighting against? Have I fallen victim to the medias war drum of Thin is inthin is inthin is in? I cant totally tell. Im having the surgery for so many reasons.
First, Im afraid. I AM afraid of becoming like those women on the stage of the Teen Choice Awards. Im afraid of looking like those women on the hilarious cards sold at Spencers Gifts. You know what Im talking aboutthe huge women with folds fat. I dont want to be 300 lbs. I dont want to be sad and alone.
Second, Im tired of fighting. Im tired of the constant dialogue I have to keep with myself to fight against the barrage of messages being sent to me via many different sources. Trying my hardest to convince myself that the media is wrong. The fight to keep my dignity when I sit in an airline seat and my leg is pressed against the person next to me. The inability to walk a flight of stairs without panting like I ran a mile. And I really love walking through the Misses and Juniors departments to find the Womens department located in the back corner of the storethat is if the department store even has a Womens department.
Third, I cant do what I want to do. I cant get what I want. I want to dance without feeling like a fool, or looking like one. I want to hike and swim and kayak and bungee jump and scuba dive and do all those wonderful, adventurous things. Things that either my dignity or my size (usually a combination of both) have prevented me from doing so. I want to wear fun clothes and look good in them. I want to wear skirts without a pair of biking shorts underneath.
Fourth, I just dont like how I look. It comes down to that. As much as Id like to think Ive let the medias messages roll off my back I am a child of the Mtv age. And some of those messages have made their way into my mind. I dont like how I look. And I cant expect others to like how I look if I dont like how I look.
Sigh. And as much as I try to explain it to my friends. I doubt they understand or can even fathom what is going on. The only person I think even can sympathize is Chris because hes gay and faces very similar discrimination. Hes the only person I can talk to that even has the slightest idea what I'm talking about.
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Enough of my ranting. I have good news to report. Mikey and Jen are getting married! November 22 in Vegas. Of course in Vegas. I'm so excited for them...they have this great little life. Makes me so fucking happy.
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Okay, that's enough. This has got to be my angriest journel entry I've ever written. But, it's 22 years of anger. I just wish people paid more attention to what they say and what they do.
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And just incase something bad does happen to me.
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!
Smooches,
Chelsea