A Big Girl

I have always been the overweight girl, the fat girl, the one with the pretty face, the thick girl, the big girl. My height peeked in 5th grade to a tall 5'6 and then it stopped. I remember being in a gymnastics class when I was 11 years old and my teachers calling me the big girl. They were teaching us handstands to fall back on our feet so that we looked like upside down turtles. I remember I could never get my feet quite under me and I would fall !SPLAT! on my back which would make a loud noise in the gym, as well as knocking the breath out of me. I would walk to the end of the line feeling embarrassed of the loud noise my body would make in falling on the mat and feeling very unlike the other 10-11 year old girls. I was probably 140 lbs.

I went to a Catholic school grade school and remember tugging at my green uniform jumper over my big belly and then when I passed to 7th and 8th grade our uniform changed since we were the older girls. Our uniforms changed to a green skirt with a white button up shirt. My shirt never lay flat over my body like my other classmates, it curved to the weight of my growing breasts and thick waist and belly. Since I felt uncomfortable with how I looked and how I was perceived by others, I read a lot. It was my saving grace to duck into a book and not think about the life I was living or rather not living.

For high school, I was sent to an all girls Catholic high school which didn't really help my social skills. I went more inward and thought less and less about living. I was really struggling during this time. Looking back on the pictures I am surprised how I don't look so different than the other girls. I was heavier but only by about 20 lbs. It's interesting to me that those 20 lbs felt like the Grand Canyon for me. I was probably 170 lbs.

I was able to talk my parents into letting me switch to a public school and I started my first ever public school my second semester Sophomore year. Since I had been wearing uniforms my entire life and not really living a whole lot outside my house I didn't have school clothes. My first semester there I wore lots of sweats. Sweats that were lime green and orange sherbet...clothes should never be made of these colors. Thankfully, I kind of figured things out and the start of my Junior year I was a little more prepared. My mom has never been able to help me with clothes, make-up or dressing like a girl because she has had her own weight issues and I believe, didn't know how to help me.

Things brightened up for me in my Junior and Senior year. I gained a best friend which I still have today. Since I had been going to private schools my whole life I realized very quickly that I was better behaved and much more prepared for class work which helped to ease off any pressure that I had been feeling of not being able to keep up in school. I was able to meet friends and participate in extracurricular activities that I never could at my previous school such as swimming, field hockey, Powder Puff, and singing with the Madrigals choir. I worked at Little Caesar's Pizza those two years with my best friend and our boyfriends. It was a fun and easy time. I graduated high school and I probably weighed 180 lbs.