Losing Weight, Losing Protection

As of last week, I weigh 224 pounds -- a loss of 119 pounds in a little over one year. At a size 18, I am about fifty pounds away from my goal weight and the national average size of 14 for women, according to Mode magazine. The last time I wore a size 18 I was thirteen years old. I realized this when I tried on my denim jacket from the seventh grade and it was a snug fit, but a fit nonetheless. And I stared at the mirror and started to cry.

I have spent a lifetime being invisible in an obese body, and now that I am merely fat I feel vulnerable and exposed. Granted, at 224 pounds I still can try to make myself "disappear" when I need to. The beloved and I were walking to breakfast today and we approached a shaggy biker on a payphone who was eyeing a confident, trim blond strutting in platforms and tight black jeans ahead of us. I watched how he never took his eyes off her, and how she knew it, liked it, encouraged it with a toss of blond hair and a shake of her tail feathers. "The mating ritual," the beloved murmured.

And I felt my shoulders hunch protectively, my stomach protrude a bit, my walk turn into a waddle, and my head bend, chin to chest. As we walked by Biker Dude, he switched his attention to the passing cars and his phone call.

Why did I fall back into this posture? Why am I afraid to be noticed in this new, strange, shrinking body?

A hundred pounds ago, I wrote about being self-confident and embracing my body. I wrote about posing nude for porno photos, I wrote about going to singles nights for "big, beautiful women and the men who adore them." I wrote fuck you letters to people who treated me as less than a person for being larger than average. I meant every word I wrote, and I still do.

But here on the other side of the looking glass, I see how much I came to depend on my size as a barrier between me and ... everything. I used weight as a hurdle I made others jump before accepting me. When they didn't take my challenge, it was the weight's fault. This way, I was able to make them villains and myself a misunderstood heroine.

The smaller I get, the less protection I have.

I still insist on wearing my clothes from a hundred pounds ago. Not all of them -- some lucky drag queen got my favorite size 28 velvet dresses, and my underwear had to be replaced because it kept falling down around my ankles. But I hide in old sweaters, in a giant pair of jeans that I pin up at the waist. Because I work for a law firm, I had to replace my corporate drag with new dresses and skirts. While I could easily shop at a Strawberry's or a Gap, I still insist on using mail order catalogs from Lane Bryant and Silhouettes, purveyors of plus sized clothes. And I have trouble asking for a size 1x or an 18 -- I inevitably buy size 20's and hide in the extra room. The beloved is amused. "Isn't that new? Why is it so ... roomy?"

"Well, you know. What if I ordered the wrong size?"

"You did order the wrong size, dummy."

"No, I mean a size too small."

A pause, then he smiles. "Then in another month it would fit, wouldn't it?"

The women I work with at the firm also tease me, especially when I wear my hundred pounds ago sweaters with a new, almost the right size skirt. "Looks like you're wearing two skirts, girl. Why don't you buy something form fitting and show off that new figure?"

I have discovered my feet. Now that I can actually see my feet, I buy shoes, get pedicures, and paint my toenails. One hundred pounds ago, I had three pairs of shoes and a pair of sneakers. Now I have twenty. I don't mind splurging on my feet, and I love showing them off in sandals. Mentally, they are the only part of my body that has not betrayed me. They should be rewarded for staying the same while my legs become less elephantine, my breasts less pendulous.