I'm Not Like This

"I wasn't always like this." Thus spake Gilbert's mother in the great 90's classic What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The scene, should your memory need a refresher, was the one in which Gilbert Grape - a young broody Johnny Depp - introduces his new girlfriend - a young and gloriously weird Juliette Lewis - to his morbidly obese mother. In what is perhaps one of my favorite movie scenes ever, Miss Lewis' character - young, slender, offbeat and sweet - responds, "Well, I wasn't always like this, either."

I love that scene.

None of us 'was always' as we are now.

I had a clear flashback this morning to an incident - a moment, really - that took place some twenty-five years ago in a bar. On this particular night, the bar had exotic dancers early, then just became a regular dance club later. My friend and I arrived just as the 'entertainment' portion of the evening was wrapping up. I went to the ladies' room and one of the dancers was in there changing into her street clothes. She had changed into jeans and sneakers and was throwing a flannel shirt over breasts still adorned with pasties when I walked in. She turned to hide herself, ashamed of the nakedness we both knew she'd been flaunting moments earlier on the stage. As she pulled her hair into a ponytail she looked at me for the first time. Her look conveyed, more clearly than any words ever could have, "I'm not always like this."

I spend a lot of time trying to convince people I'm not what my appearance conveys.

I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself I'm not what my appearance conveys.

When I was in college, I had a serious boyfriend. We dated for four years. After the third year, we got engaged. His mother was against it - not because of our tender age, but because (and I quote - because you don't quickly forget being told something like this) "we might date people like that, but we don't marry them." At the time I thought she must be referring to religious differences because, superficially, that was all I could see. We had the same socio-economic status. Our education levels were identical. Yes, I told myself, it's the religion thing. That explanation worked for me until he married a girl a year or two later - with his mother's full blessing - who shared my religious background. Something else, then. But what?

Je ne sais quoi. Something. Some thing defines class, culture, breeding. It isn't money alone, although money helps. We all know (or know of) people with plenty of money and no class. Perhaps we also know people with no money and miles of class. So money isn't the single defining characteristic.

I look in the mirror and see a heavy middle-aged woman with a stringy non-hairdo and bad clothes. I see the sort of woman who could incite ridicule and judgment based entirely upon her appearance. I see a woman who doesn't go to Walmart - ostensibly for politically valid reasons, but also, just a little bit, because she's afraid if she goes to Walmart looking like she does, it will only be a matter of time before she is immortalized as a 'People of..."

I tell myself I'm not that woman. Clearly I don't think I am - I used the third person to describe 'her'. That's not me - that's someone else. Someone who, from time to time, shows up in pictures next to my husband and kids.

And sometimes I think I'd just be happier if I stopped fighting it. March - or waddle - into Walmart, buy myself an oversized Tweety T-shirt, some leggings, and a pack of Marlboro's and call a spade a spade.

Now. As I am not as stupid as I might look, I can almost hear you saying, "Get over yourself! Get yourself a nice haircut and some nice clothes and - while you're at it - get yourself some exercise! Hair, clothes and weight are issues we have some control over!" True words, to an extent. Money does make a difference with the clothes and - in my case - the hair. As for the weight - ugh - I don't feel like rehashing all of that. It all sounds like rationalizing - even to me - but it is a hard truth. Dieting and exercise have failed me miserably and completely. I have wasted enough of my life being obsessed with them.

So.

Do I deny my reality, like the stripper, or try to explain it away, like Gilbert's mother? I've tried each of those tactics and have been wildly unsuccessful with both. Obviously acceptance is the key. But how can I accept something that feels so false?

Today is my adoption day. Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed - today - with figuring out who I am. What is nature and what is nurture and what just is?

Do you guys need me to continue my blogging hiatus until I'm in a better mood?