After almost a lifetime of being dissatisfied with the state of my body, one day last week I felt comfortable with my shape. This may seem strange, and I am not sure what led me to this day.

As a child I was always chubby (whatever that means). We didn’t eat badly, I just had a tendency to put on weight. And I always felt this was a flaw. I thrived in the shadow of a woman who had always been thin and who remained much smaller than I was as I moved into puberty and grew. When I did eat questionable things she would tell me that I would get fat if I kept it up. I didn’t understand at the time that my mom just didn’t eat. She stopped eating normally as a child in reaction to severe abuse at the hands of her father and that behavior became her way of life. All I saw was a skinny woman and my role model.

I leveled out in high school but I still leaned toward what I believed was an unacceptable size. Let me confide that the size in question was an American size eight. This seemed unacceptable at the time. Everyone I saw seemed so much smaller, cuter. Never mind that most of my friends were my size, but for some reason everyone seemed smaller than me. I felt like a huge mass just lolling around the town. I look back and it seems ludicrous really, and yet I still feel the same today - some 20 years later!

When I started college I swore that I would never succumb to the ‘freshman fifteen’ but I still put on weight. I had a major falling out with my father and we became estranged. In response to this I went into a strange depression that motivated me to do absolutely nothing. I just ate badly and gained weight. Mind you I only went up to a size nine. Then I met Dave. We became a couple. Dave was a workout maniac. His body was a temple. In the beginning everything was spectacular. He liked me for me, I liked him for him. Then I started to exercise more, possibly in response to his constant exercising. I don’t know. But I did. I worked out six days a week. I reduced my food intake. I began to feel like I was making good changes when I could clearly see my ribcage in the mirror during my aerobics class. Bones are good, right?

Eventually, we both changed. Dave began to criticize what I ate and when I ate. I became oddly attached to him and craved his acceptance. I remember once that I made cookies for Christmas and I started to eat one. He went into some sort of lock down mode and “all in good fun” tickled/wrestled me to the ground and took the cookie out of my mouth. He. Took. Food. Out. Of. My. Mouth. He said, “Do you want to get fat?” At the time I had exercised myself down to a size six. If you saw me, you would know that a six is pretty small for me. There were other instances like that but I think that was the turning point for food. I stopped eating anything that wasn’t spinach or brown rice, when I ate. Apparently, I didn’t eat enough of that high iron food, because I became severely anemic and found my hypoglycemia. I may be sick, but aren’t I pretty?

I got down to a size four and at some point later I am sure that I was smaller, but I didn’t buy any clothes at the time, so I don’t really know. I was too depressed. At one point Dave pointed out that I was a “heifer” when he met me and didn’t I feel better now? He would buy me clothes that I can’t even believe I wore. We went night-clubbing quite a bit and I wore these ensembles. I could only wear these clothes if he was with me, mainly because I needed some sort of protection. Not because he made it a rule. But he knew that. At times he would parade me in front of his friends to show them his prize. No really, parade me in front of them. I was young and stupid and I felt like this somehow satisfied my existence. I was finally skinny enough for someone to love me. To be proud of me.

I realized that maybe something was wrong when my best friend and I were shopping for ski pants and I finally had to go the children’s section to find a pair that fit me. During this shopping experience I actually said to my friend “my ass is so fat”. This was in response to the fact that I could only fit in the child’s Large size and not the child’s Medium size. She just stopped what she was doing and stared at me. For the first time in our relationship (many, many years) I actually saw pity and (I think) disdain in her face. It was horrifying.

At this time drugs came most prominently onto the scene and became a better way to stay thin and get things done at the same, efficient time! I remember the days after a particularly speed addled weekend thinking how nice it was that my stomach was so flat - almost concave. At my skinniest my bra size was a 32A. My normal size is a B or C. I was never thin enough though. It always came back to needing to be smaller, thinner. That would make Dave and me happy with my body.

Interestingly, before I met Dave, I was a relatively independent girl/woman. I considered myself a feminist. I fought for things, I believed in things. I fought against domestic abuse, child abuse, pet abuse. I believed that women were independent beings. My mother always taught me to be self-sufficient. That we don’t need men to be make us whole. She taught me to never bow down to a man. I was devoutly against men. My father had all but abandoned me and I knew that a man would never complete me. I would never let a man decide who I would be. And yet I let myself become the person that I always fought against. Before Dave, my body and my issues were my own.

Dave and I had a very tumultuous relationship and after four and a half years of stopping and starting, I called it quits. He was a crazy maker and I had become one too.

Food continued to haunt me, but I started to put on weight. I got off the speed. I moved out of town and left Dave no forwarding address. I lived on my own and spent my days working, going to class, painting, pursuing my acting and getting to know me. I learned to hate Dave. I started to recall the things Dave brought to life in me, most notably my absolute hatred and fear of food as well as the complete disdain I have for my body. To be fair, I grew up with a fear of my body before he came along. He just helped me dislike my body more than I ever did. I became blinded for some reason.

But as I moved away, I put on more weight than I ever had before. Needless to say, my acting opportunities diminished. After my first gallery show of my paintings, to which members of my family had attended, my mom told me that they were worried that I was getting fat. Yes, fat. I was a size ten. After everything that I had gone through for the previous six years, and no matter where I landed, someone was still telling me my body wasn’t right. No one had anything to say about the artwork that they viewed.

It started all over again. I hated my body, I stopped eating. I would buy food to revel in throwing it away. I would work myself into a panic attack at dinner and I couldn’t finish my meal.

I got back down to a size six. I got a better agent. I started to audition more.

I got married. I started to work out six days a week. I ate on the run (salads only), went to class and went to the gym. I eliminated any carbohydrates and all dairy. I began running more consistently and wavered between a size four and size six (depending on where I shopped).

I got an even better agent, went out on even more auditions and was performing in back to back plays. It was great and I was thin again. Yay.

Then I got pregnant. I gained more weight than I care to mention by number. I had high hopes of losing all of that weight within some ridiculously small amount of time. I was reminded that my mom left the hospital after having me, in her pre-pregnancy Levi’s. I was doing no such thing. I felt like a moose. I hated my body.

I held onto that weight for two years. I was bigger than I had ever been. I felt terrible. I hated my body and was too damned depressed about how ugly I felt to even try to make the effort.

Finally, I lost a good portion of the weight. I worked out. I also got the dinner time panic attacks and couldn’t eat at some point. All those old feelings came back. I am down to a size seven. As I lost the weight my auditions got better and I got more call-backs.

But lately, the acting has gone by the wayside. What with focusing on writing a business plan for my new business and raising my son.

But, here is the problem. I know that a size seven is by no means large. I know that, in my rational mind. But I feel huge. Too squishy. Too round in places. To soft. I don’t like to look at myself in the mirror, lest I be judged — by me. I have lost twenty pounds and gone down seven sizes. I anguish over it. Not enough yet. Not a day goes by that I don’t fret over the size of my thighs or the thickness of my arms. My stomach is not as flat as it used to be, and probably never will be since I had a child.

But for one strange and glorious day last week, I was satisfied with my body. I didn’t mind the roundness of my tummy. I was proud that I have a round butt. My arms felt strong and able to lift my beautiful son. My legs felt strong and lean enough to let me run, but still comfortable to hold my son on my lap. I didn’t feel guilty that I have been too busy to go to gym regularly for the past couple of weeks. On that day I thought that maybe it would be okay to only go to the gym three days a week to maintain a sense of healthiness. This would give me more time to do other things that I would otherwise have a hard time getting done.

Yesterday, I cried because my stomach is too squishy and my thighs shake too much. My ass has dimples and my arms remind of a turkey neck.

But for one day last week I felt as I have never felt before. Satisfied. Healthy. Strong.

I never felt like that at my skinniest day. I always have felt that there is more to lose, more to fix. There is always this painful need for more of less.