Pretty Weird: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome and Other Oddly Empowering Lessons by Marissa Miller

Author:Marissa Miller [Miller, Marissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self-Help, Personal Growth, Happiness, Humor, Form, essays, Literary Collections, Eating Disorders & Body Image
ISBN: 9781683584018
Google: B_UDEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-05-25T23:34:31.133928+00:00

Chapter 6

SOMETHING’S WEIGHING ON ME

I can’t eat past seven in the evening. I’ll gain weight.”

“I’m so fucking fat today.”

“Bagels are fattening. Are bananas?”

“Sugar is the devil. Fat used to be, but it depends what kind.”

“I gained a pound last week so order without me.”

“Stop making me eat bread.”

“I tore my ankle on the treadmill and now I don’t know how to get my cardio.”

I wish these were sound bites from brunch with my friends. Alas, they were mantras my father said on loop in our home growing up. He theorized that unless he restricted entire food groups and fixated on calories, he’d gain back all ninety pounds he had lost in his thirties when his blood pressure results worried his physician.

When most people picture their dads, they see a pair of sturdy legs dotted in camel-colored steel-toe boots peeking out from beneath a car as he tinkers with its tires, or maybe a loosened collar and tie slung around broad shoulders. Sure, my dad has embodied those heteronormative tropes on several occasions. But when I think of him, which is every time I need reassurance that, yes, I am allowed to eat these cookies as long as I work out afterward, I see puppy dog eyes rife with worry and guilt, his concave cheeks chomping down on roasted unsalted almonds.

“Calories don’t count if you’re standing up,” he said with one hand funneling tasteless nutrients into his mouth, the other gripping onto a love handle like he was wringing out a dish towel. I knew he was joking, but as the man who is competent enough to remember how much in taxes I owe down to the decimal, and who has a track record of only making stellar life decisions (like, hello, his wife is a snack), I accepted everything he said as gospel.

Growing up, I saw my dad’s relationship with food as completely normal, and nothing noteworthy enough to define him. To me, he was always the baseball fanatic, the accountant, the comedian, everyone’s friend. But if my dad could routinely ball handfuls of loose flesh into his fists, complain about what he felt and saw, and still lead a seemingly normal—if not admirable—life, surely self-deprecation was my ticket to being just like him.

I was three years old when I noticed my thighs touch for the first time. I didn’t have the language to complain out loud like my dad did, but his mind-set made so much sense to me that I adopted it as my own. I couldn’t be the baseball-slinging son he’d always wanted, but I could be something else he never knew he wished for. I could be his confidante, his shoulder to lean on, his equal teammate in this violent sport we call restriction-fueled weight loss.

During one of my last weekends living at home as a young adult, he caught me fawning over the latest Vogue September issue. My shirt had been lifted just above my diaphragm where I was tracing each rib like piano keys. The more of them I felt, the louder the music.

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