Why I Never Subscribed to Marie Clare in the 1st Place

So, there is all this controversy surrounding this Marie Claire online article.  I heard about the backlash long before I actually read the article.  It was exactly as bad as I had feared it would be.  Basically she takes on the show Mike and Molly, which she has never seen, and she basically says that she can't stand to watch fat people, and doesn't think anyone should.  An actual quote:

So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything.

This made me so steaming mad I had to write about it.  Her, and the magazine she represents, are the problems with society dealing with people who are overweight.

I recently got paid to write an article about how my overweight ass has been treated in certain stores.  Just today I went in to get a pair of jeans and was treated as if I was sewage when I asked for my size (which they do carry, but they didn't have any in stock).

Not only is being overweight in my DNA (both my parents were obese, and their parents), but I've been made to feel like the scum of the earth because I was overweight. 

I worked out for 9 months straight once, 5 days a week, with a limited diet.  In fact, I had a friend with me doing exactly the same things I was doing.  She lost 25 pounds, and I didn't even lose one.  My being overweight is not for lack of trying.  And because of women like Maura Kelly, even though I try my best, I still feel like someone that can't even walk across the room without making someone uncomfortable.

Jackie Warner was quoted in this article: “We need to handle this as an addiction. It’s an emotional addiction, and that should always be handled with love.”

And she's right.  After losing my job, I feel like I can't spend money on anything, especially food.  Even though I know it's not good for me, I frequently go without meals in order to save money.  Our house is a house of condiments, and my husband gets free meals at work, so he is always taken care of.  Even when I had a job and was eating, I was frequently coming in at about 1,000 calories under what I should've been eating.  And it doesn't help.  I'm still overweight.  The scale keeps going up.  No matter what I do.

Everytime I want to eat, I look at my body, then I look at a copy of Marie Claire, and lose my appetite.  I want to be back to that glorious 115 that I was before my metabolism crashed.  If I leave the house, I have to face those people.  Those people that judge me, even though I'm just walking past.  They don't make it any easier to just go from day to day.  The trip to the mall today was so disheartening that I came home and didn't leave again.  I don't want to go anywhere, because it's uncomfortable being watched like a monkey in a zoo.  A fat monkey.  A freak show.

Women like her are the problem.  They make it harder to even go outside.  It's no wonder most people eat their feelings.

Friendship

My mom just sent me a link to a story for this book, which is out tomorrow.  Basically it started with this woman having a horrible experience in college where she was basically backstabbed in the extreme by a bunch of girls from a sorority. 

As I read the article, I became more and more relived to find that I wasn't alone.  I've had two female friends my whole life that haven't been backstabbing, horrible individuals.  I wish I was exaggerating. 

One was my best friend in 6th grade.  We weren't the same person, but we fit together, and we were always there for each other.  I know people say that kind of dumb crap all the time, but in this case it was actually true.  If I was upset about anything, she would be there for me no matter what.  I can only recall one fight we ever had, and that ended with us bursting into laughter and forgetting the fight the second after it happened.

Nothing ever happened to break up our friendship, we just started hanging out with different people.  We went through junior high and high school never even seeing each other in the halls between classes.  She wasn't the type to join Facebook or even really have a computer at all, so I never expected to see her again.  As my life went on, through college and afterward, my mind sometimes wandered towards her, but her name was too common to Google without much luck.  I always hoped she was happy and everything was okay with her.  I knew I'd never really see her again.

Cut to last month, when I went with my husband to Disneyland to celebrate his birthday.  It was the end of our annual passes, and we were getting the most out of it, staying at the Grand Californian so we could go back to the hotel room whenever we wanted.  Hubby had convinced me to go on the Grizzly River Run for the first time.  I had avoided it because it was a water ride, and I desperately hate to get wet and then walk around all day in wet clothes.  I agreed to go if we went back to the hotel and I could change into my bathing suit and a cover up.

It turns out it's one of those wet rides where you are in a big round rubber tube with a bunch of other people.  It forces people to be social, since you really can't be on your cell phone when water is coming down all around you.  We talked with our group until the end of the ride, but it was a little difficult, since most of them didn't really speak English.  We decided we were a little wet, we might as well go again, since this would be our last time in the parks.  The second time was fun as well, more people spoke English.

As we exited, Hubby said "Ready to go back to the hotel?"  And for some reason, I wanted to go one last time.  It had been so lonely at home since losing my job, and I was really craving some interaction.  So one last time we went, and after the ride and an embarrassing fall down the stairs afterward (my shoes became so waterlogged, I fell) I knew I had reconnected with my 6th grade best friend. 

She was in the ride with us, next to my husband, with HER husband, who was...get this...celebrating his birthday.  They were staying at the same hotel, on the same floor, and we were leaving the next day, they had just arrived that day.  If that one moment hadn't come to pass, we would have never reconnected, never came across each other.  In fact it was her mannerisms, and not her face, that I recognized.  It was my gut that somehow knew she was who she was. 

It was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me.  I feel like, because everything else has sucked lately, fate saw fit to give me a piece of what made me myself back.

And, as luck would have it, Facebook brought my other best friend back as well.

On the relationship front, life is good.