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How I Finally Killed the Thin Person Inside Me Trying to Escape
It only took four decades.
In Connecticut, where I grew up, the advertising wasn’t subtle. It was stitched onto throw pillows, displayed in place of pride: “You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin.”
The rich part I had no say in. I was a free lunch kid. I shared a bedroom with my stepsister and my stepbrother. I rocked Woolworth kicks — and we’re talking hand-me-down Woolworth kicks. Yeah, I got my ass a paper route when I was nine, but no paper route pays the vig for designer jeans and leather Nikes. I was broke and I looked it.
That left me with option B: get thin.
It was clear from the start I wasn’t about that life. My mother, who earned her paltry living as a church organist-slash-Aerobics in Motion teacher, worshipped at the alter of skinny. Sundays she sat at the feet of a hollow-cheeked Jesus, hanging sadly from his crisscrossed sticks. Weekdays she put her own feet on a scale before each class, confirming her weight remained low enough to teach A.I.M. dance classes. The formula: 100 pounds plus five pounds allowed for every inch over five feet. My mother maxed out at 110; an ounce over that and she got canned. Lord, how she grinned and sang when the scale brought good news. One-oh-four! One-oh-four! How I love thee one-oh-four! One-oh days were rare good…
