I’m writing this post at work. I’m writing it out of anger.
I ate a 3 Musketeers bar at lunch, and the guilt has been crashing down on me in waves ever since.
I was still a little hungry after my chicken quesadilla, and I wanted chocolate. So, staying true to the principle of Unconditional Permission, I gave it to myself.
Maybe a 3 Musketeers bar wasn’t really what I wanted. I think I wanted something with a little more crunch to it, something that would involve a little more teeth-work. Maybe I would have preferred a Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate with Butter Biscuit Bar, and, since that just seemed far too indulgent (and expensive), I made the mistake of compromising, causing me to now feel guilt rather than satisfaction. Maybe I was comfortably full two-thirds of the way through the 3 Musketeers, but finished it anyway because it is so hard to wrap up or discard only a few measly bites of a candy bar. Or maybe I was denying the residual twinge of guilt I felt from eating the quesadilla and, consequentially, decided to eat more in order to bury those feelings for just a little bit longer.
Whatever the cause for my guilt, its effects were obvious. My bra immediately shrunk. It must have shrunk three sizes. I can feel it cutting into the top and sides of my rib cage, and separating my back fat into thick, fleshy halves. They’re probably visible through the back of my shirt, those unstoppable overflows of flab, which is why I’ll choose to spend the rest of the day sweating rather than take off this sweater. Rather than let someone see the soft back of me.
I want to take this bra off. This bra, which entirely escaped my notice all throughout the morning, now clutches at me like the jaws of death. I’m at the front desk, no one else is around, surely I could just slip it off through my sleeves and tuck it into my bag, very quickly and discreetly, and spend the remaining two and a half hours with my arms folded across my chest.
No, I can’t do that, this is a new job and taking one’s bra off while manning the front desk is probably – definitely – not a good idea. A client might walk in.
Breathe. Sit up straight. Think about something else.
I can’t. It’s so uncomfortable. I need it off. I hate this job, I hate that nothing ever fits, I hate that I have to keep buying bigger sizes. I hate bras. They’re sexist. And suffocating.
I can imagine the angry red lines that are surely imprinting themselves into my skin as I sit here. I hate that I have to sit here. And my pants, the waist, it’s cutting in now too, and I won’t have time to go to yoga later, I’ll never be able to work out again, look at all these overweight office women, soon I’ll be one of them, eating at my desk until my bra pops and I spend my lunch breaks shopping at Ross for sizes I’ve never conceived of…
Breathe. I accept my body. I accept my body. I trust my body. Breathe.
Fuck this. Fuck spending hours tormenting myself over one candy bar, and fuck struggling to accept myself. I am so tired of hating my body. I am so tired of being self-conscious and afraid. I am so tired of depriving and bingeing and judging and repeating empty mantras in my head to somehow trick my brain into believing I’m a normal human being worthy of love and acceptance. That I’m not disgusting and hideous and irreversibly undesirable. When am I really going to be free of this? When does it end?
Will it end?
…
I hate this motherfucking bra.
Eating Rogue 