Differences get more pronounced when you put them against a backdrop of seeming homogeneity. Changes seem more alien when you keep them next to what had once been familiar. I went out with a friend today and when I spoke to her, I realised just how much I had changed from the person I had been. From the smallest things, from the way I held myself to my hairstyle to my way of speaking, everything has changed quite a bit. I view them all as positive changes, I am quite happy with the changes, they are changes I have wanted for a long time and they are finally happening. But I had not been privy to my own change–it sounds extremely dumb, how can I not be privy to things that happen to me? But that’s what it is, I have been quite spectacularly clueless about myself (I still am, but growth curves, they are quite real).
Another uncomfortable thing I realised today was that till date, the biggest compliment that anyone can give me is to say that I have lost weight. I seem to have quite an unhealthy obsession with weight, with wanting to lose it and feeling inordinately pleased when someone says that I have lost weight. It is an extremely insidious thing, I feel, to feel that way about myself, because I end up fat-shaming myself if I don’t lose weight. Possible serious issues that could raise because of this includes eating disorders, and I don’t want that on my plate (okay, that was an unintended pun, but a good one nonetheless). So I am going to actively try to stop myself from this obsession, it is difficult, especially in a family where weight is given a lot of ‘weight,’ where judgments are passed freely for weight, where being shamed for weight is normalised and is actually considered to be a motivator. I am probably at my healthiest right now and my weight should not be dictating my ideas and thoughts like this.
I do concede that just a year back, I had been a lot heavier and a lot less healthy. My weight was adding to my period complications and it was only after I came to Ashoka that I started losing weight. I was also losing weight fast, and a lot of it was also due to unhealthy eating habits. I have lost nearly 10/11 kgs in this one year I have been in college and in numbers, that is quite a mind-boggling thing. But I think this is where I shall draw myself a line, I don’t think I want to be heavier than this but I also am apprehensive of getting lower than this. I am probably still in the overweight BMI scale, but it is pretty skewed and not quite accurate and so I am just trusting what I feel about my own general health and I feel quite positive about (and I pray I am not jinxing that) that.
I also felt weirdly pretty today and just when I was feeling quite happy about myself and my life, I was whistled to on the road and I felt a rage I could not explain. I had been cycling to meet my friend and this man on a motorcycle was travelling the other direction and he just whistled to me in the cinematic hoohoo way. And before I could respond, he was gone and I had to go on my way. At the beach, as I was trying to find a place to park my cycle, I was once again stared and pointed at by a group of men. It all made me extremely angry, I was finally feeling in control of my own body and finally learning to feel confident in my own body and skin and this just pulled me down. And I felt helpless too because it felt like I could not do anything against them. They knew it too, they thrived in the knowledge that nothing would affect them. Well, that was a ruined mood, but I refuse to let it boil for longer than this in my head. I had sambar vadai, I am going to a movie probably tomorrow, and I am excited to do it all. So, I am going to sleep after a tiring day and because of tired hands that cannot type. My break will be good, right?
And that’s my memory for the day.
The Memory Of A Storyteller 