“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

anyone who knows me (and that would include long-time readers of this here blargh) knows that i am not one to be confessional. for the most part i keep my deep, dark nasty bits to myself, though perhaps at times dropping hints or vague intimations or dancing around the various wounds that compose who i am, as if attempting to trace the outline of those concealed portions of self. but recently i read two separate and entirely distinct posts that i've been thinking about a lot: melissa's and patrick's -- both so amazingly brave in their vulnerability that i've since felt kind of haunted by my own reserve and the tenacity with which i cling to *staying in a safe place* here. so, for once, i'm letting go of all my filters and going to attempt something a bit less comfortable but a bit more challenging.

when i was pregnant with M_, i gained something around 60 pounds. for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of pregnancy (and yes, i'm being VERY VERY SARCASTIC when i say that), that's nearly twice what you're “supposed to” gain. during the pregnancy this was less-than-dramatic for me though, convinced as i was that i would rapidly shed this baby weight after giving birth, though i did feel very round and odd and unattractive and not-right-in-my-skin, with increasing intensity, for those 9 months. still, i figured as soon as M_ popped out i would somehow miraculously and effortlessly begin to shrink like a deflating balloon and again be the Me i was happy and comfortable with.

WRONG.

what happened instead is that i held on to a good portion of that extra 60 pounds until very, very recently, meaning i lived for nearly 3 full years in what was, to me, my pregnancy body -- a body i frequently felt i was at war with in all sorts of ways (among other delights, i had sciatica, which during the last 3 months of pregnancy made simply walking an excruciating ordeal). now, having returned to near-normal (i still have 5-10 pounds to lose in order to be *precisely* where i was pre-pregnancy), i'm starting to see what an impact this weight has had on my sense of self for the past several years... nay, upon my actual enjoyment of life on a daily basis. it is terrible to think this and worse to say it, but that extra weight utterly and completely changed my experience of the world every day for the past 3 years, because every day for the past three years i have thought constantly about it. okay, not every waking moment or anything, but it was like a low, soft drum beat always relentlessly pulsing in the background: the knowledge of just how unattractive and uncomfortable i felt all the time, and thus how unhappy i was with myself all the time. thrum, thrum, thrum.

but this is not the story i wanted to tell. at least, not exactly.

when i was about 8 years old my family moved from New Jersey to Colorado (i was entering 3rd grade -- i think that's year 8, right?). prior to the move my memories of childhood are somewhat idyllic: a neighborhood filled with kids who'd grown up together, who shared and played together with little discord, and i remember always feeling at ease and a part of things. but after the move, something changed. my brother and i were both a little geeky and always had been -- we wore thick glasses and clothes that weren't exactly fashionable for the time -- and the kids in our new neighborhood and at school sort of immediately pegged us as oddballs. abruptly, and without explanation, i became the odd girl out, the last one picked for the team, the one who sat alone at lunch... the one who cried to my mother upon returning home from school most afternoons, please, i don't want to go back. i didn't feel that i had changed so much as the kids i was now around had changed, growing up to an age where cliques and popularity contests emerge. not knowing how to play the game or how to respond to their unprovoked cruelty, i withdrew and indeed became odder and odder, if only from being isolated from my peers. i began doing things like hanging out (alone) by a creek near our house, where -- hidden in the outcroppings of reeds that lined the banks -- i'd strip nude and sit in the shallow water, making up stories about fairies and other magical and conveniently invisible beings who were my friends. i created an elaborate fantasy life to sustain me, to bolster my sense of self and keep me safe from what then felt like systematic, crushing daily rejection and abuse.

but in time i would learn to almost revel in my oddness -- perhaps because i had no other choice. by the time i reached high school i'd not only embraced my role as outcast but reinforced it by gaining a ton of weight, thus securing my status as impossibly unlikable. to this i added my budding interest in punk rock, complete with the appropriate bizarre hair and clothing to mark my difference... or heighten it. by this age i did find a small cluster of friends -- other oddballs like myself -- and there was indeed some solace in that. but even in that group -- the freaks --i was the smart, funny fat friend of the pretty girl, the solid, reliable, trustworthy, yet distinctively un-pretty girl who lived vicariously through the wild, youthful abandon of her attractive friends. while they were out running around with boys and breaking curfew, i was at home pouring over 19th century literature and poetry, or alphabetically screening the great B&W films of the first half of the 20th century. later, i took an interest in painting and then photography, and began channeling my energies into those, going so far as to buy enough equipment to set up a complete darkroom in my parent's basement. and yeah, sure, these were worthy pursuits, but they were far from normal. and i missed out on a lot of my youth. and i was almost always lonely.

at 18 i had a nervous breakdown (another story entirely, for another time entirely), which led to some sort of undefinable epiphany that i don't think i can articulate through language... except to say that within 8 months i went from awkward, overweight teenager to skinny, fuck em' all attitude-laden semi-adult. and here's what i learned in the process of going through that transformation: the importance of appearance cannot be underestimated. there i was, essentially the same lonely, odd, outcast girl inside that i had been less than a year before, yet the world's response to me was wholly opposite. boys -- who would never even glance at me before unless it was to hurl some demeaning expletives my way -- literally threw themselves at me, along with looks of desire that i hardly knew how to process let alone respond to. i was suddenly and miraculously appreciated for being not odd or weird, but interesting, and i was no longer a boring brainiac but instead deemed engaging and brilliant. yet rather than revel and delight in my new-found appeal and 'attractiveness', i was fucking angry as hell about it. i mean, did these people think i was some sort of idiot? inside i knew that this revised packaging held the very same person that a year before would've been shunned by my new admirers, and i was tormented by that knowledge. i felt like a fraud, and that i couldn't trust anyone's responses to me anymore. though i of course wanted to be liked -- who doesn't? -- peoples liking of me suddenly felt fake, false, hollow.

it took me quite literally years to work through that (and i am still, despite myself, often reserved and distrustful) -- the struggle in me always boiling down to a desire for acceptance having nothing whatsoever to do with my appearance... that continually, almost perversely, seemed to always hinge precisely on my appearance. its that corny line about wanting to be loved and appreciated for yourself, for who you 'really are,' beyond physicality and appearance. but the truth is that there is no getting beyond physicality and appearance, as unbearable as it is to accept that. my change in appearance affected a change in how people viewed my quirks and interests, and that very superficial change was, relative to other people, more important than any internal work i could've done. the truth is, essentially, a cliche: the popular girls are always the pretty girls, the idols of music and film are beautiful and handsome, and those in society who are admired and emulated are, with rare exception, the beautiful people. i fought this for years, i railed against it, but there is no subverting the programming we are all equipped with -- likely from birth. i see this programming play out even in several separate social clusters i now interact with: invariably there is some sort of hierarchy (though almost always unspoken, it is nonetheless clearly recognized by those within the group), and atop the peak of the pyramid sits someone, well, pretty. and don't get me wrong -- this someone may be lots of other things, too: smart, interesting, funny.... but always, always pretty.

god, i've taken such a long, circuitous route in writing all of this down that i hardly know how to pull all the threads together. but let me clearly state that the primary thread is definitely not intended to be: pretty people end up on top, but rather: i am deeply conflicted about the subjects of identity and self and image and self-representation, but what i know is that i am the sum of these things i've written here, and that as hard as i try to get beyond them they never leave me. as the title above suggests, it seems we move forward in time only to find ourselves again and again back at places we thought -- or hoped -- we'd left behind. and while i have no inner child to contend with, i do have an inner least-popular-girl-in-school, an inner voted most unusual (as my high school year book can attest), an inner sad, overweight teenage version of myself that makes the gaining (and losing) of pregnancy weight an epic psychological/emotional battle it should not have been.

this is how i know that i will always -- in whatever situation i am in, even if it is wholly inappropriate -- feel as though i am the outcast. and how i know that i will always hold those who wield popularity and privilege as a weapon to doM_te or hurt others in contempt. and its why i will always root for the underdog, whatever the odds. the past is too present in me.

Comments

[supa]

1. i really identify with this.
2. powerful writing. my god.
3. more to say. but not here.

[Jenny]

You just wrote the hell out of that, girl.

[joy]

shit. provokative, sweetney. yes, that thrum--i hear it too.
it amazes me how a chance glance in a mirror or a sidewalk window can convert me from feeling self-possessed, confident and just generally *happy* to someone completely different, the person I do not accept. i realize that whenever i sit, i always have my arms folded in front of me to cover myself up. i have way too few photos of me with my son.
is that who i am? a part of me that i do not face up to. she's ugly and not-me. but, as you say, of course she fucking is.

even as i write this, i feel a bit sickened by the self-pity. i am hesitating over that post button. ah fuckit.

[Danielle]

Oh, my goodness. You are just a beautiful person and an amazing writer.

The weird little girl turned weird little adult in me thanks you for this.

[Sami]

What keeps me coming back to this site are the inner workings of You and the way you express that in words. Here it does not matter how your outside appears, it is your inside that we see first.

Your wit and intelligence stagger me. I admire you on so many levels.

I was skinny and pretty in high school (thank you, Eating Disorder), but I was still an outcast, an oddball. I think it's because I'm short. I'm barely at the five foot mark and that made me, no matter what my weight or appearance that I obsessed over, something other than what was popularly accepted.

[Kelly]

I so needed to read this today. Thank you.

[Angela]

Wow. You make me cry, lady. I still, outside of the safety of, like, your livingroom, can't really talk about any of this kind of stuff. You're brave (and brilliant). I second Jenny and Danielle particularly.

Thanks for sharing this. I needed it.

[elaine]

thank you for writing so honestly and beautifully. i've been enjoying everyone's honest, albeit painful posts this week. it is one of the reasons blogs are so important to me. it's difficult to be so clear and honest when you aren't writing. anyway, thanks.

[debbie]

you said it, sister. truly. we like underdogs.

[Belinda]

I have been sitting here, hands poised over the keyboard, thunderstruck, for several minutes. I'm not even sure what I want to tell you, except that I am touched, and moved, and...at home in your story. No, we did not have identical experiences growing up, but the feelings--the feelings.

What in the world can we do to make it easier for our daughters, to help them avoid this quagmire of self-doubt that so many of us seem to have fallen prey to? Does anyone know?

[xine]

thanks for writing this, lovely woman. i love you very much.
-xine

[andrea]

beautifully, beautifully written. so much what you have written here resonates with my own experiences, my unrelenting battle with weight, with outer vs. inner beauty. it wears the hell out of me and it was just so refreshing to read your words.

thank you for that.

[marie]

hey- I know I was around for some of this stuff, but we never really talked about it. That shit takes some processing... like a decade or more... Thanks for writing this. Our inner odd-girl selves can hang out at Denny's in peace.

[ccaruso]

I'd just like to point out that I threw myself at you when you were still fat and odd.

Oh, and while we're stumbling down memory lane here, I ran into Nate Neering the other week (remember him?). He's rapidly going bald, which just proves that there is SOME justice in the world.

[Jenni]

Thank you for leaving your safe place. It gives people like me the courage to face my demons and skeletons and other not-so-friendly faces and places from the past.

There seem to be a lot of us in this boat. I like to think that we've experienced the pain and can now appreciate the pleasure of being ourselves. Coming to terms with who and what I am has never been easy, but it's easier when I don't compare myself to the beautiful people.

I'm a borderline craft-obsessed, so watching HGTV is a major vice. I caught some of Todd Oldham's new show -- its tagline is, "If you love it, it's perfect!" I've adopted it as a new motto for my self, my career, everything. What do you think? Thanks again, Sweetney.

[carl]

fascinating post. what our culture does to women's psyches is abhorrent. i mean its still there for guys, but the effect (at least for straight guys) is more ignorable. just reminded me of my frequent inability to empathize with my wife's feelings of self-loathing based on appearance

[bboop]

WOW. powerful. on so many levels, i don't know where to start. i have NEVER believed people when they tell me i'm pretty...
but someone asked the question, how do we make it better for our daughters? teach them to:
1. take the fashion magazines/models for what they are: ONE aspect of a rich INTERIOR life, that's all
2. treat people the way YOU want to be treated. LISTEN to, don't just look at, others...

[sweetney]

right back atcha all, kids.

and chris: 1. nate neering? my god, now THERE is a perfect example of me-trying-to-work-out-psychological-shit via dating. gah. 2. you were -- are -- a sweetheart. and i didn't deserve you. i mean, christ, I DATED NATE NEERING (among others like him). glutton for punishment, anyone?

[ccaruso]

well, hey, i ALWAYS thought you were one of the coolest people on planet earth, and I still do.

Having said that, it did me good to see ol' Nate -
it looks like rabid monkeys attacked him and tore out big clumps of hair in strategic spots. Schadenfreude anyone?

[Undisclosed]

That was powerful, thank you so much for sharing that. Wow.