Does My B*** Look Fat?

Every once in a while I stand back, take a look at my life and wonder if there is anything I would change about how I got “here”. Of course, I think about the cringey things I did and I wish I could “wish” them away. For instance, on my eighth birthday a mom was dropping her daughter, Pamela, off for my birthday party. Mrs. Pamela’s Mom said, “Happy Birthday” and I responded “Happy Birthday to you, too”. Not the end of the world, but when it happened I remember blushing right down to my toes. Over the rest of the summer my soon-to-be ex-friend Pamela reminded me of my faux pas, on a regular basis. We were eight years old. It was my recollection of dealing with a bully. She was a bully. And, today, all of these years later I still think about that naive social blunder! I laugh about it now but, obviously, I still think about it. What if I could go back and just say, “thank you”? It wasn’t the end of the world.

Well, now that I think about it, I do remember my first swimming lesson at the pool in Weston. All of the four- and fiveyear- old non-swimmers sat along the edge of pool at the shallow end while Father Bennett explained how to use a flutterboard. He told us to get in the water and I figured I’d jump in because how hard could it be to swim? Was I right? I was not. My sisters seemed to have mastered the art of swimming, so could I. So I just jumped in. Down I went and was promptly rescued by the instructor. I was so overwhelmed and shocked I called him a “stupid bummer”. At our house “bummer” was considered the bad word in the fifties. I wouldn’t have known at the time, but I was well on my way to getting rid of my internal dialogue. Sometimes I wish I could unring the bell on my lack of internal dialogue. But I had a voice. In a great big family, like mine, it was important to have a voice. My internal dialogue would take years to establish. I’m not sure if I’m sad about that or if it actually developed.

The thing about having a “voice” is knowing what to say and when to say it. I’ve always struggled with this. I’ve said it before; my parents were pretty liberal people. They encouraged all of us to “use your voice”. However, my parents mostly let us rip (within reason) and probably had a good chuckle when we went a bit overboard whilst using our voice. What they left us to figure out on our own was how to be “outspoken”. This we picked up by being spending most of our early years unfiltered and then having deal with the fallout. My parents believed in being direct and straightforward. And, many times, my parents were shockingly expressive about things they saw, stories they heard, news they read or were issues they were handling in their own lives. There were people who found Mom and Dad’s outspokenness a bit offensive, even rude. Let’s be honest, sometimes my parents were a bit rude. In the name of being honest, they called things the way they saw them. They were more unfiltered than outspoken. Sometimes what they said didn’t sound very kind, but they stood up for themselves, and for all of us. From them we learned to say what we had to say. We often we were more candid than tactful. By the time I hit my late sixties and then early seventies I had sort of figured it out. While it was okay to notice and comment, it was much better to be kind than to be right. Sometimes being kind just means to smile and keep your opinion to yourself. It’s difficult to learn to have an internal dialogue. I think I might figure that out in the next ten years.

Fast forward to these days. Am I sorry I didn’t have much of an internal dialogue when I was younger? Well, maybe for a little while, but mostly “no”. Have I learned to be more outspoken than blunt? Mostly, “yes”, but I’m a lot older and it isn’t as important to be right as it is to be kind. Do I like being the “victim” of another outspoken person? Sure. I want to know if I’m off base about something.

Sometimes the truth is shocking and it smarts to learn that, indeed, my butt does look fat in those jeans. But if your butt does, you didn’t hear it from me.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca