Do men ever have fat days? Do they even know what a fat day is? What a fat day feels like? Or maybe I should be asking – am I the only woman who has fat days? Slovenly, I-am-a-bucket-beyond-all-hope-and-rescue fat days? Days when your hair won’t do what its supposed to. When your skin is blotchy road rash. Days when you look in the mirror and all you see is nasty. Hideous. Completely unloveable. Days when NOTHING fits. And I mean nothing. Except maybe that pair of trackpants you wore when you were nine months pregnant. Which would look SO out of place in the middle of Lucky’s Foodtown on a sweltering Saturday morning. And you try everything on. One after the other. And each one makes you hate life a little bit more. And you want to scream and shout at the (poor) children who have no clue that you are on a self-sabotaging mission of self-loathing. And you want to scream and shout and rage at the man in your life EVEN MORE. Because he JUST DOESN’T GET IT. And he sits there bemused like he’s watching meerkats at the zoo do weird but semi-cute things. While you go through your wardrobe and pull and tug at the clothes that just won’t look like anything like they do when beautiful people wear them. And then after half an hour, he has the nerve to get irritated. And ask you – are you getting changed AGAIN? Why? That dress looked fine. I don’t understand why you have to take so long to get dressed. Why can’t you be like me? I just put on a shirt and shorts and go.
The man has absolutely no clue. Yes I can just ‘put on a shirt and shorts and go’ but I will still be cringing inside and reading every one’s mind…I KNOW what they’re thinking about me – Man, she’s such a slob. What happened to HER? She used to dress so nicely. And she used to be so skinny, remember? And now look at her, that’s what happens when you have 5 children and stay at home and do nothing but eat. I bet that’s all she does….Aaaaargh!
On a fat day I don’t want to leave the house. And I DEFINITELY don’t want to go to town. Which makes life a little tricky if you’re supposed to be doing existentially important things like pay the GST on time so the Inland Revenue doesn’t come hunting you down. Or go watch your child perform in her school talent show. On a fat day, I wish I belonged to a religion where I had to wear a floor length tent. One that covered my fleshy face and horrible hair. One that left only my eyes peering out through a vent. That would be perfect for a fat day. And it would be even more perfect if everyone else had their fat days at the exact same time so we would ALL wear our tent dresses and feel totally at home with ourselves!
On a fat day I look forward to being dead. Because then I won’t have a physical body dragging me down with all its fatness. And even if I have a SPIRIT that is suspiciously blobby – I’ll be dead and so trivialities like skirts that won’t zip up and buttons that bulge – won’t really matter! Ahhh wont that be nice? Not to have to worry anymore what you look like? What you think other people think about what you look like? Actually, when I pursue this thought a bit more and get a bit more serious about it, then I frown. Because I realize that when I’m dead, sitting in wherever it is that bad-tempered mothers go – I bet I will look back on my life and marvel at the amount of time I wasted obsessing about being alternately; too skinny, too fat, too tall, too sweaty, with hair too frizzy or too dry. I will realize that a DISGUSTING number of minutes, and hours were wasted on worrying about what I looked like. And in a world filled with so many more pressing concerns…I am just totally pathetic. Oh…and fat. And then I feel guilty about being so shallow and self-obsessed. Which results in more self-loathing. And usually ends up in baking. Chocolate cake. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Sponge cake trifle. And the man in my life (who has NO clue about fat day suffering) then has the nerve to ask me, “why are you baking when you know you’ll just eat it? I don’t understand, you were just complaining this morning that you were fat?!” And I snap – “Oh, so what you’re saying, is that I AM fat? You think Im fat and ugly. So what if I am huh? It’s my body and I can eat whatever I want.” Like I said, he has NO fat day clues….hasnt he realized by now that nothing he says will be right?
The one good thing about fat days is that they (usually) are just that. A day. The next morning you wake up and you’re not the same person that drowned her sorrows in a bowl of ice cream the night before. You’re suddenly lighter, happier and the mirror tells you – substantially less blemished. Clothes fit you. Hair does it what its told. Hope blossoms. You want to go running. Maybe do a killer class with Anita at Health Attack. And eat broccoli for dinner. With steamed fish. Because today, its actually possible that you can get in shape. Be healthy and happy. Fit and fun. You believe the man in your life when he tells you how beautiful you are and how much he loves you. And you forgive him for not having a clue on fat days. Because he’s just a man and what does he know about it anyway?
And there is eternal happiness in the home. Until about a month later. When you wake up and you’re stricken with the fat day blues. Again.