intensity of revelation
Jul. 31st, 2006 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightlotusmoonRealizations, ideas, conceptions, and intentions fall suddenly, sometimes, absolutely no warning or preparation.
Last night, I was sorting through the drawer that holds my underwear and bras. I realized that some of my bras (34B) seemed tight around the band, and some of the extra small panties were tight around the hips; and that this had been going on for weeks. I got the measuring tape. I knew I was an or two larger, but I hadn't understood, not until I finally measured my chest.
I am a full band size larger.
Stunned, I quickly measured my waist and hips. Then I measured my bust again. Then my hips. Then I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote the numbers down and stared and stared and stared.
36. 24. 36.
A perfect hourglass figure.
My initial reaction was not one of joy or pride or smugness, hooray I have the apparently ideal body. No. It was confusion. Intense puzzlement. Suddenly I was outside my body. I was not me anymore, but me outside of me. Thinking, when did this happen? Why did this happen? Who am I? What is this body? Why do I feel so strange? Is this me? Is it?
I stripped naked and stood in front of the mirror. I took note of how my bust curved gently into my waist, which dipped inward and flared out to my hips. I turned sideways. Somehow, my butt didn't seem so big anymore. It was round and full but... just right. Just curvy enough. It wasn't sticking out like I had always seen it do. I measured yet again, all over, just to force my brain to believe my eyes.
Then I cried, a little.
The realization was this: I was supposed to have this body. As an adult -- as a woman -- this was how my genetics and my biology worked. My father is full Sicilian, and all the women in his family have petite curvy hourglass figures. My mother is Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, and German, and all the women in her family have petite tiny slender frames. It wouldn't make sense to be very skinny in that combination. It would make sense to be slender and curvacious both.
It took me how long to understand this?
During the peak of my anorexia, I shrank my body down to skeletal proportions, but the parts of my body that were genetically predisposed to curviness stayed curvy. Through the eyes of body dysmorphic disorder, I saw my hips and my butt as being too big for my body. Because at the time, they were. Those parts were normal sized. The rest of me was too small.
Children grow into their bodies. Limbs are too long, hands and feet and head are too big. Things seem disproportionate. I feel as though I am a child growing into a body that has been pushed down, ignored, rejected and neglected for too long.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, my body had not yet caught up with its own feminine ideal. At 21 I had started forcing it into a life of illness and depravation. No chance to grow. I ignored the screaming inside me, the desperation to be free and to blossom. Once I began recovering, over time, my body started to wake up. The food and the nourishment was nectar in a dying flower. And over the course of a year and a half, I ripened. I grew. Parts finally began fitting together. Curves fleshed out in the way they were always meant to be in this adult woman's body.
Part of me, the part that may never break free of the disorder, looks at it all with a muted sense of confusion, thinking that the body must not get any bigger, could even stand to be just a little smaller, just a little. But the other part, the healthy part, says that it has nothing to do with big or small. This is how it is.
I am still only a size four. I still have what my fashion illustrator artist mother calls a miniature waistline. I am still petite. That is still tiny. I am still tiny. But I am no longer so skinny, no longer hidden.
I am a woman now.
I am a woman.
I am.
Now.
Last night, I was sorting through the drawer that holds my underwear and bras. I realized that some of my bras (34B) seemed tight around the band, and some of the extra small panties were tight around the hips; and that this had been going on for weeks. I got the measuring tape. I knew I was an or two larger, but I hadn't understood, not until I finally measured my chest.
I am a full band size larger.
Stunned, I quickly measured my waist and hips. Then I measured my bust again. Then my hips. Then I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote the numbers down and stared and stared and stared.
36. 24. 36.
A perfect hourglass figure.
My initial reaction was not one of joy or pride or smugness, hooray I have the apparently ideal body. No. It was confusion. Intense puzzlement. Suddenly I was outside my body. I was not me anymore, but me outside of me. Thinking, when did this happen? Why did this happen? Who am I? What is this body? Why do I feel so strange? Is this me? Is it?
I stripped naked and stood in front of the mirror. I took note of how my bust curved gently into my waist, which dipped inward and flared out to my hips. I turned sideways. Somehow, my butt didn't seem so big anymore. It was round and full but... just right. Just curvy enough. It wasn't sticking out like I had always seen it do. I measured yet again, all over, just to force my brain to believe my eyes.
Then I cried, a little.
The realization was this: I was supposed to have this body. As an adult -- as a woman -- this was how my genetics and my biology worked. My father is full Sicilian, and all the women in his family have petite curvy hourglass figures. My mother is Russian, Romanian, Hungarian, and German, and all the women in her family have petite tiny slender frames. It wouldn't make sense to be very skinny in that combination. It would make sense to be slender and curvacious both.
It took me how long to understand this?
During the peak of my anorexia, I shrank my body down to skeletal proportions, but the parts of my body that were genetically predisposed to curviness stayed curvy. Through the eyes of body dysmorphic disorder, I saw my hips and my butt as being too big for my body. Because at the time, they were. Those parts were normal sized. The rest of me was too small.
Children grow into their bodies. Limbs are too long, hands and feet and head are too big. Things seem disproportionate. I feel as though I am a child growing into a body that has been pushed down, ignored, rejected and neglected for too long.
When I was in my late teens and early twenties, my body had not yet caught up with its own feminine ideal. At 21 I had started forcing it into a life of illness and depravation. No chance to grow. I ignored the screaming inside me, the desperation to be free and to blossom. Once I began recovering, over time, my body started to wake up. The food and the nourishment was nectar in a dying flower. And over the course of a year and a half, I ripened. I grew. Parts finally began fitting together. Curves fleshed out in the way they were always meant to be in this adult woman's body.
Part of me, the part that may never break free of the disorder, looks at it all with a muted sense of confusion, thinking that the body must not get any bigger, could even stand to be just a little smaller, just a little. But the other part, the healthy part, says that it has nothing to do with big or small. This is how it is.
I am still only a size four. I still have what my fashion illustrator artist mother calls a miniature waistline. I am still petite. That is still tiny. I am still tiny. But I am no longer so skinny, no longer hidden.
I am a woman now.
I am a woman.
I am.
Now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 06:19 pm (UTC)It's a wonderful feeling isn't it? Days like this are amazing, it's how we should feel on a daily basis. And it gives us a GOOD excuse to get a new wardrobe. ;) It sucks realizing most of your old garments don't fit any more, but getting new clothing that enhances the new curves is a huge reward. =D Now... if only I could get the girls to gain clevage. =P
no subject
Date: 2006-07-31 06:32 pm (UTC)It feels odd because I achieved that figure from the other end of the spectrum -- I gained weight to look like that but it wasn't a goal. Most women who want that sort of body are trying to lose weight and here I am and all I had to do was gain... and yet I feel so weird and alien. Does that make sense??