It's a beautiful, albeit somewhat chilly, May day in the Midwest. Nellie is enjoying the view out the window--a pair of robins that are nesting in her yard are worm-hunting in the great piles of freshly pushed around dirt. The landscape has gone from huge piles to piles spread back out. Good for the birds!
I sit contentedly turning vanilla nut coffee cream into stores of future calories. Yeah, it's not the fat-free stuff. That only comes in a couple of flavors and it gets boring having that all the time. However, even the fat-free creamer has calories, so I still get to do some work, since she drinks creamer in her coffee every day. Not as much, perhaps, but it doesn't take much for me, Flo, to do my thing!
Well, I must report something quite interesting. Ever since I let the cat out of the bag last week, Nellie hasn't been behaving tooooooo terribly. I expected her to really go hog-wild with the snacking. Not to say she's all 'fixed' or anything, but she didn't go on a splurge-of-horrific-proportions. Hmmm. We'll have to do some speculating about what that means.
At any rate, now I'm back to my mental list of other topics I wished to bring up in our discussion about myself. To remind you all (read: for those of you who are just dull enough to have missed it in the first place) my name is Flo. Short for 'Floret'. And I am Nellie's fat. Yes, fat. Need I repeat myself again? Yes, fat. Take a good laugh and get over it. I am writing this blog so that I can share with you why I exist.
I exist, obviously, for medical necessity. Zero fat is not good. We've established this. However, I am more rotund than is desirable for Nellie's body. And let me say again, this is not my fault! I am merely doing my job. It is Nellie who must realize why she overfeeds me and under-exercises her body (causing me to be ever more efficient) and how she can modify this behavior.
In an effort to get to the bottom of this issue, I have been pointing out the reasons that I (being a somewhat passive and unbiased observer of all things concerning Nellie) can so easily see to explain Nellie's eating behaviors.
I've already pinpointed several of them:
1. her nervous disposition
2. her stubborn insistence that she can damn well do whatever she wants as an adult
3. her nagging fear of failure as a writer
4. her lonely existence
Now, since last time we talked about the L-Bombs (love and loneliness) this time I thought I'd talk about the B-Bomb. Not to say that we're entirely done with the L-Bombs. We'll come back to them later. But today I want to talk about Nellie's perception of Beauty and what it means to her to be thought of as 'beautiful' by her husband Ned.
Nellie grew up with conflicting ideas about her beauty, or lack thereof. Her older sister used to put her down a lot, probably in reaction to her own self-esteem issues. Her mother always told her how much she "looked like Grandma" and apparently that was a good thing, but then this was coming from the same mother who gave her nicknames such as "urchin" and "hog jaws". Nellie was (by the standards of the '70's) a chubby child. This of course set her up for a lifetime of confusion when her mother fed her as much as she desired to eat (during times when food was plentiful) and yet put her down for being chubby.
So Nellie didn't feel beautiful growing up. When she turned 10, she had a growth spurt and slimmed down quite a bit naturally. She had beautiful blond hair and earrings and straight teeth, plus she was as tall as her 12 year old sister (who by contrast had thin brown hair, no earrings and crooked teeth) and suddenly began to attract the attention of boys at school. This infuriated her older sister, who did her part to beef up Nellie's low self-esteem by beefing up her criticism of her sister.
When Nellie was nearing her 12th birthday, she and her sisters were put into foster care. During the years that Nellie stayed with that family, whom I'll call the Smiths, she was given messages regarding beauty as well. Her foster parents didn't pick on her about being chubby (and she grew much chubbier during the first few years there as there was never a scarcity of food). But they equated 'beauty' all in terms of Biblical views of the subject.
For instance, she was told that having her hair cut short, which had long been a preference even though she rarely could afford a haircut, wasn't beautiful. Proper young women have long, flowing hair that they pin back modestly or wear in braids or buns. Permanents, dye and other hair-altering concoctions were discouraged until adulthood.
Jewelry, clothing and behavior also was expected to be appropriately modest, in order to conform to the Bible's view on femininity and beauty. Dresses were strongly encouraged, jeans and tee shirts were discouraged (or forbidden...things that did not meet the approval of Mrs. Smith disappeared from closets and dressers). Wearing shorts in the summer was strictly forbidden. After all, a proper young woman does not go about displaying her body for boys and men to see!
So much of what Nellie was taught about beauty during her teen years was rooted in shame. You will be shamed, a hussy and a slut, if you wear X,Y or Z. Everything you chose, from your clothing to your hairdo to the way you walked and talked, was all for the sole purpose of not bringing shame to yourself by appearing as if you wish to attract the opposite sex at all.
Let's just say it was modesty in the extreme. But Nellie adapted and while she internally rejected most of what was taught her in that culture, she complied for the sake of keeping peace with her foster family and 'doing her time' there.
Nellie's first serious boyfriend, who later became her first husband, had strange notions of beauty himself. While he outwardly claimed to lean toward the modesty-theory (as his mother was the perfect example of such) he inwardly had a rather tawdry desire for the neighborhood slut-types. Hahaha! If only his mother had known! For the sake of this blog, we'll call him Bobby.
Bobby didn't dare break out of his 'good son' image and seek to date the neighborhood sluts. His brother got to do that instead (as the bad-sheep of the family). So Nellie was a good choice on some levels. Safe.
During all the years they dated and were married, Nellie was never made to feel that she was beautiful. She lost a considerable amount of weight late in high school, but yet her status as a church-going-goody-two-shoes (pushed upon her by the Smith's) kept anybody but Bobby from being interested in her.
Often during those years when Nellie was dating/married to Bobby, she'd ask him "am I beautiful?" and he'd always give her the same answer: "you're cute." He refused to tell her she was beautiful because, as he frankly put it, she didn't fit the mold of traditional beauty. But that's okay, he told her, she should just be happy with what she is.
She accepted it and just ignored her nagging concern about being 'beautiful.'
After her divorce, she dated some but never really had enough comfort level with a few of them to ask that fatal question: am I beautiful. However, she did get such a compliment from one of them while he was a bit tipsy. Does that count?
Those couple that she actually did ask for their assessment, she got varying answers. Most of them were confused about the question. One gushed about her beauty as a person, another gushed about her apparently desirable boobs, but mostly what she got was "you're cute". Judging herself against models and movie stars, I suppose 'cute' should suffice?
What Nellie isn't trying to get is some lame statement comparing her to the likes of Cleopatra, but an assessment of whether or not any man who supposedly 'loves' her also finds her beautiful, despite cultural conventions. Finding her 'beautiful', in her own way of thinking, equates 'true love'. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?? Well, if a man who supposedly 'loves' her deeply doesn't find her beautiful, what does that say about the quality of his love? These are thoughts that nag at the back of Nellie's subconscious.
Perhaps this is entirely neurotic, flawed thinking on Nellie's part. Personally, I've never been able to understand her fixation on the issue. But then again, as I grow, Nellie herself feels less beautiful all the time, thereby increasing her need to hear that, despite my heft, she is still beautiful to the people she loves.
As a way to obtain that assurance, she makes barbs at herself. Ned, being the somewhat tuned in man he can be (when Nellie has his full attention) poo-poo's her comments aside. When pressed he will even say "you're beautiful to me."
Well, okay Ned, that's closer. You've gotten closer than any other man in Nellie's life. But that isn't exactly what she wants to hear, you clod!! Just tell her she's beautiful, for mercy's sake!
Ahhh, sometimes I wish I had the ability to leave messages on Nellie's skin, like the demon in The Exorcist! hahaha! Do you think Ned would listen to me? Or would he just call in the priest and try to get rid of me that way? If only it were as easy as some holy water and prayer.
Ohhhh, but that's tomorrow's topic. Best not get ahead of myself here!
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