flab
here is a prompt i came across in my goldberg book: “ten minutes on being fat, chubby, flabby, stout, bulky, paunchy, pot-bellied, fleshy, blubbery, plump, round, or corpulent.” i guess i can write to that.
i have never been skinny, or thin. i’ve heard stories of my dad’s comment, when he and his sisters were watching me run as a two year old, “well, she’ll never be a sprinter.” true enough.
the thinnest i felt while growing up was during a growth spurt – i must have added a bunch of inches to my weight around the time i was 12 and 13, because i was able to fit into a size 12 jeans and a medium shirt.
the most i’ve weighed was right before i started running. the scale was tipping way too close to a number that was too close for comfort to another number. the number was one thing, but another was how uncomfortable i felt with myself. i never felt bad about myself, or had low self esteem because of my weight; i just felt physically uncomfortable. after losing the weight i did, i remember how annoying it was to find clothes that fit the way i wanted them to and didn’t make me feel like i was always having to tug something somewhere. on top of that, the boobs were (well, still are) ginormous. that doesn’t help matters.
then there was the matter of chairs. i remember going to a lecture at scsu for a class and we had to sit in the theater chairs, which were built many years ago. after about half an hour wedged into the chair, i was starting to get clausterphobic. i don’t run into that that much anymore, although i wouldn’t be surprised if i still did.
the thing is, now i feel more self conscious about my flab, probably because it really is more flabby, in that it’s looser skin that jiggles around because it doesn’t have as much fat underneath it to keep it taut. the two places i wish would tighten up are my upper stomach (above the waistband) and my inner thighs. my butt can jiggle all it wants, and we all know my boobs will jiggle til the day i die.
so that’s what i know about flab, fat, chub, or corpulentness.