I woke up one day with a new body and it wasn’t the first time.
The earliest memory of my first body was when I asked my father, “if I cut myself and then bleed out, will I get smaller?” He laughed and said that it doesn’t work like that. I remember having thought long and hard before asking him this question because at 6 years old, it just made sense. Perhaps that was the first time I got a new body. Surely I had one before but I didn’t notice it but this new one I saw was too much. Too much of what exactly, I wasn’t sure yet but I knew I hoped it would shrink some to make me feel better. I kept that body for a while, probably until 8th grade right before I went to high school. Throughout that time I began to realize what I didn’t at six. That this body was too big. I was always the tallest person amongst my peers and sometimes I was the fattest too. In middle school I found a way to cope with these feelings of taking up too much space by making that body the punch line in jokes. I saw how others who had bodies like mine were treated and figured it was better to be the one to take charge of my own disparagement rather than be on the receiving end. When we learned about whales having blubber in science class, some students started naming classmates who had “blubber” (i.e. were fat) and I quickly decided that it would be funny to call the fat on my arms blubber and I would shake it to make my friends laugh. For me, it was better for that body to be laughing, not crying even though it felt the same inside.
I got a new body the day I was helping my older sister move into her college dorm and she commented on the size of my butt. I was confused because we all knew to have a big butt meant you were sexy and attractive and everything this body was not. I was suddenly aware that the body didn’t look the same as when I was six but was somehow the exact same. It seemed that the body I gained that day had new forms. It was still Ugly but…? I kept that one until I was 19 years old. I grew to accept the polarizing experiences I had in that body. That body got catcalled while playing volleyball because of the spandex we wore but also was stared out because of how it looked compared to the white, thin girls who dominate the sport. I could go a day with it being the last thing anyone wanted to be around and later that same day it could be the object of someone’s desire. That desire was typically sexual and the person was likely older than me. I always thought that this body had potential but…… At 19, I hated that body. I saw myself going back to the ways of my youth by saying to people, “I’m so ugly. Aren’t I ugly? Tell my the truth, I’m ugly right?” Initially I got the responses I likely was looking for, denying my assertions and telling me no. Then one day after I went through the whole act with my sister she sighed, exasperated and said “Yes!” I think that was something I wanted to hear too. I needed validation for my feelings of hatred towards the body so many other people told me was not the ugly I saw in the mirror.
Since 19, that body changed shape a few more times but really it’s still the same. What’s really changed is how I view it. I enjoy being in this body despite constantly working to change it. This body likely has an eating disorder (LOL) but I don’t remember a time when I didn’t avoid mirrors or taking selfies so I wouldn’t have to look at it so I’m taking that as a net positive. I haven’t decided whether or not my body is my own. I thought I was getting a new body (it’s always either a “good” one or a “bad” one) every time I realized there were different ways that people were perceiving it. In reality, this body may have grown taller, changed shape, or lost and gained weight but it was the same fat Black feminine body in an anti-Black, anti-fat, and misogynistic world. This world both fetishizes and disposes of people with bodies like mine and it’s always confusing to be on the receiving end of such differing responses to it. A question that has always stuck with me in regards to our bodies and positionalities is “How can I live differently in the same world that harmed my parents when I look just like them?”
“Yes, and the body has memory. The physical carriage hauls
Claudia Rankine, “Citizen”
more than its weight. The body is the threshold across which
each objectionable call passes into consciousness— all
the unintimidated, unblinking, and unflappable resilience
does not erase the moments lived through, even as we
are eternally stupid or everlastingly optimistic, so ready to
be inside, among, a part of the games.”
How is this body my own when it holds the history of my ancestors’ first body in a new world? How can I get rid of the negative thoughts that always linger? This current body has never changed but becomes new whenever its beholder has a new use for it.
I’m hoping for just one more body but I want to see it in a new life.
Unruly Bodies 