Tags
Body Image, Bullying, Essays, Feminism, Flying Purple People Eater, Leprosy, Nonfiction, Rashes, Self-Confidence, Self-Love, Skin Diseases, Sweet's Syndrome, Women
I had leprosy once. Or, rather, I had what I’ve jokingly come to refer to as leprosy…but at the time, it was no laughing matter.
Midway through my freshman year of college, I looked down at the back of my hand one evening and noticed some spots. They looked just like hives—nothing more—and, guessing that I was having an allergic reaction to something, I took Benadryl and didn’t think more about the incident.
But the next morning, I woke up to find that these hives were spreading across both my arms. And my legs. And my chest. And my face. And, soon enough, these bumps weren’t even individual hives anymore: they became raised, purple lumps, and then the patches grew together. (And, worst of all, a rug burn I’d gotten on my elbow a few weeks before became infected and started to ooze. I looked like the flying purple people eater.)
After several hurried visits to the doctor, I was diagnosed with a rare skin condition called Sweet’s syndrome. This unpleasant reaction, in my case, was trigged by a head cold I had. (However, Sweet’s syndrome most commonly affects middle-aged pregnant women…two categories I certainly didn’t fall into at the time!) I was put on steroids and given some creams, and my so-called leprosy died down over the next week…but not before I toured a show to Kentucky and danced in two more performances back home. Being a lumpy, bumpy monster onstage is an ego-crushing experience.
Now, several years later, I still have a small scar on my wrist from the biopsy my dermatologist performed. (I also have an understandable fear of every skin ailment from poison ivy to acne.) However, my skin is otherwise cleared up, normal. But I have learned just how quickly beauty can leave you.
Growing up, I was always underweight. I was tall for my age, lanky: a tangle of long limbs and insecurity. When I turned 12, I waited for the big boobs and shapely figure I was promised puberty would send me—but these big boobs must have gotten wrongly addressed at the heavenly UPS center. They were mailed back in a box marked “return to sender,” and lord knows I’m still waiting on their delivery.
Instead, for most of my life, I was scrawny. Friends and family would occasionally remark how jealous they were that I could eat whatever I wanted without gaining a pound, but more often, I’d be called twiggy, or bony, or skeletal, or anorexic. These remarks didn’t damage me as much they have others, but for that, I’m lucky.
And my few other bullies needn’t have bothered: between my unruly hair, acne-ridden face, and insistence on wearing chokers long after they stopped being cool, I did all right with shaming myself, thank you very much.
I didn’t grow up hating my body, but I didn’t think I was pretty, either.
And I don’t remember, exactly, when my self-opinion began to change. Somewhere along the line, I simply stopped worrying so much. I began to take stock of my good qualities. I began exercising—loving my body for its strength as well as for its shape. And I ditched my straightener (which I’d never had the courage to actually use, anyway), bought some frizz control products, and let my hair keep its curl.
Today, my body still has its faults. Lord knows I’ll have acne until the day I die. My stomach will never entirely flatten, plank for hours though I may. I could gain a thousand pounds, and my wrists would still be bony. I will never have a button nose. And if I don’t monitor my eyebrows, they will grow across my face and probably onto yours.
And, dear puberty, will you hurry up and bring me those goddamn boobs already?
I could spend pages listing my dissatisfactions, but I don’t see the point. I can’t change my genes, and I won’t sell my soul to gain eternal youth. Shit happens in this life—bodies get kicked around and fall apart and spontaneously break out in rashes. The purpose of a body is to carry you through the days; nowhere in the contract were we guaranteed an hourglass shape.
But oh, I can be as vain as they come, despite all of my talk. I like the attention boys pay me; I like shopping for clothes and looking at myself naked and flexing and primping and flaunting. I figure that, in a world where women are taught to hate themselves, where we are put down and conditioned to never be satisfied with what we look like, my unabashed self-love can be a form of joyful protest…but this reasoning can also be my rationalization for narcissism.
I suppose time will test my character as well as my body. How will I react when I find my first gray hair? How will it make me feel when I age out of the tight, short, summery clothes I now like to wear? When my butt loses its perk, I may well change my tune.
But I hope not. I hope I’ll always keep in mind that a body is only a vessel. I hope that, when I hit middle age, I’ll never feel the urge to strap down a pretty young thing and force-feed her cheeseburgers until her flat little stomach pops.
If I fail at these ideals, though, and end up loathing my own body like everyone else does theirs…well, then at least I’ll have plenty of company.