angry girl...

Perfection doesn't exist. I wish I knew this growing up, but I didn't.  I was an overweight, angry girl watching all of my friends have these seemingly awesome lives, but I was out of the loop. I assumed they were invited to every party and getting any boy they wanted...while I sat at home brooding. I was insecure, jealous, possessive and miserable....and I projected that misery onto others. As a result, my friends started dropping like flies.

This is the point at which I lost many of the friends I have since reconnected with. Some of my favorite people in my life walked out of it in high school...and for good reason. I was unhappy with myself...and I made some pretty regrettable decisions. My behavior was boorish, spiteful, and bitter at times. If you were my friend, you could never meet my expectations.  The affirmation that I demanded exhausted them.  If you were my enemy, I would gang up with other girls that didn't like you and make your life a living hell. It is something I am not proud of. I don't remember everything I did...but some things have stuck with me and haunt me to this day.

As with most teenage girls, I was self-centered and image-focused....the extra weight only made things worse. Being forced to listen to some of my skinny friends drone on about the way their thighs touched (when they had no business worrying about their weight) was tedious and insufferable.  Just a public service announcement to all of the insecure, skinny bitches of the world: nobody wants to hear you whine about your non-existent fatness, especially confident skinny women and the overweight women who actually do struggle.  As an adult, I can step back and see that even thin women have insecurities. They have their own idea of perfection...and sometimes that perfection is unattainable...but as a teenager, I was left feeling hopeless and intensely self-conscious. If those slender girls were disgusted by their own bodies, what must they think of mine? The truth is they didn't...because they were as self-absorbed as I was....some of them still are.

Life is a hell of a journey with a great many lessons to be learned. I have learned what it means to have a good friend, and how to be a good friend in return. I have learned that in high school and in life, everyone has their cross to bear, whether it be their socioeconomic status, their dysfunctional family, or their physical imperfections (as perceived by others or only themselves). I have learned that losing weight doesn't magically make things better and that the most important changes have nothing to do with being fat.

Senior Picture, 1989

High School Graduation Cruise with Mom (sweet dresses)