Bridget Jones confessions - By Joan E. Kamatoy

(And then there's this essay from Joan, a Fat Person...again in the Inquirer)

THE NEW year is upon us. You can actually smell it in the air--like a capital P, not pleasure but pressure. Auld Lang Syne and explosives have to get on well together now. And while others aspire for world domination in the year now born, and Bridget Jones aims to lose 20 pounds, not get romantically involved with megalomaniacs et al. and probably ride high with a bona fide sex god when the clock strikes 12, here I am seized by a burning desire to get a grip on myself. Why? Just one word, no make it two: damn resolutions.

Though I do not believe in making resolutions, this time I have to. I embark on conquering my fear of failure. That of losing weight. I am 140 lbs.--heavier than Bridget Jones' 138. And for a five feet flat girl, that is bordering on obesity.

Naturally, I am well-stacked in my arse and bumpers. No reason to celebrate the new year with anything from the noche buena table. Because, you see, when you are fat and short, big boobies are not assets. They just confirm that you are, um, big.

Now let's have a little trip down memory lane. I used to be slim like a featherweight 8210 and sexy like the famed Betty Boop. An ‘org' mate named me YXES (sexy written backwards) when I failed to submit my code name for the Kris Kringle. Either I was being complimented or mocked. I'd like to think it was the former. And since college life was forever etched in everybody's memory, that phase was larger than life. After my freshman year, I started losing weight (not by choice, mind), classmates from first year finally started to notice me.

I particularly recall a cute but definitely insensitive guy who quipped that I no longer looked like a piece of furniture. Ouch! That hurt. Not so much because he implied that I used to look real bad, but because all those time I was harboring a secret crush on him. He who couldn't even look at me without thinking "by the way, can I borrow your notes on Kay Lawson's in Poli Sci 11?". And I'd been so blind. The jackass! Well, after that episode, I was surprised that he courted me. And even surprising myself even more, I dumped him. Years later, we met at the AS steps, and he had this big satisfied look on his face--like "look at me, I'm now teaching in our alma mater." With a professor like that, the future of our nation is doomed!

Soon after college, I started putting on weight I could not stop. I realized there were so many good things in life i.e. yummy chocolate cookies, carrot cake, which I felt I was deprived of due to a perpetual desire to look good. So now, after gallons of ice cream and hordes of choco-bars, I am trapped inside this body.

And I do not resent it. In fact, I have more faith in myself now than when I was skinny. The constant bickering--a battle to eat or not--inside my head stopped. And for once, I am at peace with my inner self.

But like yin and yang, there is good and bad. The bad news is you can't run a few strides without panting like you are seeing your crush for the first time; your heart skipping more than a beat per second. And the erratic heart also ails you when in a middle of a challenging badminton doubles match, you suddenly could not breathe and you try to signal time-out to your friends between gulps of oxygen which eluded your nostrils. And now you realize a new meaning to the adage "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

And what pisses me off is when inside a jeepney and the barker shouts "Waluhan yan! Usog lang ng konti!" When in fact the jeep will only fit six and three-fourths of normal size human beings! But if you are on the regular size, it does not need to bother you. Only the fat people feel that the barker is trying to make them feel guilty or pay for two when the desired number of passenger is not reached. Call it a bonus paranoia.

And there's this one time (at bank camp) my friend and I were in a hurry to catch the last train when we landed inside an almost-filled elevator to the MRT station when it loudly banged an overload warning. Our co-passengers who were mostly guys simply stared at us without moving a muscle. The creeps! They were expecting us to go off. Suddenly it was too much for me, and an image of Harry Potter's enemy, Voldemort loomed inside my head and started turning the muggles into wart-faced croaking frogs.

But before I turned criminal, my friend grabbed my wrist and coerced me to jump out of the box as our muggle friends made irate sounds due to the delay. I fought hard not to conjure Voldemort again. But time was essential, we scurried along three flights of cemented stairs, our nostrils flaring. To cut the story short, we missed our train. So did our muggle friends. Belaaat.

It is true that the confidence brought about by aesthetic beauty of being slim jumps a few notches down, and in my case, make it a triple. Suddenly, acquaintances with tongues that wag faster than cellphone vibrations, had the urge to talk to me and ask if I got married or got pregnant. A feeble attempt to pry. Instead of denying and explaining it's probably genetic, I just smiled a saccharine smile.

While I do not believe it could get any better, I soon discovered that there is a certain grace only fat people can have. It is in their gait--like the blossoming of velvety rose petals. Then again, there is the good side. Ironic as it may sound, when you are big, you can dash into oblivion in some guy's line of vision. Since I have never been an attention-seeker, that suits me just fine.

There is also a lesser probability that a stranger will try to pick you up while rushing to buy your little nieces and nephews gifts, or enjoying an eat-all-you-can sumptuous meal in a resto. It's a good thing you can do justice to the elaborate meal in front of you. Then, nobody offends you by whistling when you pass by, reminiscent of Legally Blonde's "I object!". And you can give any possible harasser a killer look that will send them away.

Unfortunately, my killer look had no effect on this particular attacker along Roxas Boulevard who bumped and greeted me "merry Christmas miss, hold-up ‘to!" I gasped when he breathed on my face. Because I was repulsed by his halitosis. I wedged bags of grocery give-aways between us and pushed him back hard then I blurted, "Tagadito ko, GAGO!" I didn't know what possessed me to say that. But I must admit it sounded good that time. In retrospect, what I meant was he was invading my space by stinky-breathing in it. That got me mad. My attacker was stunned for a moment, I made my escape.

I had been called "cute." But I dispensed being cute a long time ago. I feel that it's pathetic when people could not say any better than "cute ‘yan!" like giving away careless and insincere "Merry Christmases." It is a very ambiguous term used to please the receiver. The giver on the other hand, could not define what's cute. It's usually said just to please others. Or may be for lack of a better thing to say.

Thus, I arrived at my resolution. I guess the moral of this story is that I don't have to be cute for others. I don't have the overwhelming need to be liked by other people. Moreover, I realize that I don't have to be thin for others, but for myself, if and when I will it to happen. Finally, I sincerely wish you a more spiritually satisfying year ahead of you.
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Joan E. Kamatoy, 25, studied in U.P. Diliman. She is presently working at the Regional Trial Court of Batangas.
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:: Bing Tuesday, October 08, 2002 [+] ::
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