External Exchanges
So much of who I was had been comprised by others’ thoughts of me.
So much of who I was had been comprised by others’ thoughts of me. Much of it has to do with the look of my body to please those who cared about me. Mainly from maternal figures, who after each milestone in my life have reminded me, like a biological clock, that I am getting big. “You putting some weight on ya, aren’t you?” my grandmother Jackie would say after observing my full cheeks and stomach that have grown since the last time she saw me before leaving for college. My mother would often make comments about how large my breasts and thighs have grown, “I don’t know who gon’ be able to handle all of dis cause you a big daughter!” she would tease, leaving me to be self-conscious while sucking in the belly fat I’d tried so hard to conceal with black leggings.
In my pre-teen years I was never cute enough to be admired by the guys compared to the other girls in my camp who somehow managed to grow into a body complimentary to what I desired; firm breasts, small waist, and a flat belly. I had neither. For years, I’d been told I was a late bloomer and that my time would come. The year would be the age 17 and the place would be Boston, city of my alma matta and the beginning of being appreciated for not only my personality, but for the body I’d finally bloomed into.
I hadn’t quite mastered keeping his attention solely by being myself. “You better be lucky the sex is good…that’s the only reason why we have stayed together for so long,” he once said in passing. He seemed really different the semester I’d first laid eyes on him. Maybe it’s because our school was small and he’d been the only Black guy I’d not become acquainted with during our first semester, but I wanted to get to know him. At the time, I’d ended a friendship that led me to seek out other communities to connect with. So when a mutual friend had invited me to a night of bowling the first week of my second semester, I couldn’t help but join. That’s when we first met.
Now it wasn’t love at first sight, but I knew there was something interesting about him from the way he spoke about the world around him. He was smart, quirky, funny, charming, and skinny. I wondered if I would be too heavy for him given the disproportion of our body types compared to each other, but I would continue to convince myself that that did not matter. Eventually, he and I would meet again as a group for dinner at the cafe in our dorm and that’s when we clicked. He’d revealed his type to be light-skinned Black girls similar to the women back at his home in Atlanta, you know, the kind with long hair, typically pretty, small figure, and not too sassy. I was the complete opposite. I was dark skin, thick, sassy, and nothing about me was typical.
I had always seemed to be a bit too big for him. Shaped round around a group of guys who wouldn’t appreciate me for me as I wasn’t their type. I had to be strategic to gauge his attention. My tactic to do so was to act like one of the guys. I got familiar with their humor and understood when to laugh at their jokes, not to take it personal, learned to love watching basketball, and eat like them too. During those years, chicken fingers and fries combined with turkey sandwiches maximized my dress size to the point where I’d grown to be 180 lbs. In the end I gained their favor while also gaining extra weight, causing me to lose parts of myself that had vanished over time.
“Damn nigga, can you breathe? I mean, you look like you suffocating,” said his roommate's older brother who’d been visiting and entered the room to find us sharing a twin mattress on the top bunk of their shared space. Trying not to hurt the feelings I had left, he responded, “I mean, I’m a little snugged but I’m alright.” The guy continued laughing as I tried moving as close as I could towards the wall to give him more space. It sucked to know I had been the reason we were not able to sleep comfortably together in his bed.
“You’re a little heavy when you are on top. Let’s go for a run,” was his form of motivation. Thinking before he spoke wasn’t something he mastered but something he found effective. At the time it hit me that somehow I’d become bigger than who I was when I started college and he noticed. If he noticed, it mattered. This was the catalyst to the change I needed pushing me to start running, something I would grow to love over time.
I’d never run a long time in my life up until that point. I hadn’t trained my mind or body to endure such an exercise, so when he mentioned running, I felt I’d fail before the mile could even begin. The first mile he and I ran together was brutal, but I managed to get through it. His slim body seemed to know how to endure running when my body, full and tender, could not relate. When I arrived back home from Boston running became my tool for a mental health practice. My spirit and body were free to be in the moment enjoying every bit of solitude at a time when I felt restricted by my circumstances. The weight loss that came with it was surprising because up until that point, I believed I would never be small. Running proved me otherwise.
By my mid-twenties we did the thing every college sweetheart desires. We decided to get married. Somewhere between my first year of graduate school and his life on the road as a full-time musician, we’d come together for a civil ceremony in Manhattan on a Friday in October. Three years after the honeymoon phase, we’d reached a pivot in our relationship and would get familiar with facing our challenges in the midst of a global pandemic.
I contorted my body for the last time into a shape I could no longer see. It had been six months since graduating and we were well on our way to moving out of NYC. We’d come back from Los Angeles, our last trip together, and like the rest of the world, we were shocked that our plans would be forced to change due to the pandemic. With the arrival of quarantine, somehow my needs resurfaced somewhere between passive depression and his career growth. In the beginning, the reality of living together was a beautiful time. Sex had become a space where we could explore different sides of ourselves, yet I was discovering I needed more.
After a month of being quarantined together, I started feeling like I needed to tend to the routines I’d maintained without him as he traveled for work throughout the year without me. This meant connecting to my spirit and body through yoga, running, connecting with friends over coffee, and taking up space to care for myself in ways I had been neglecting for years. This looked like waking up early to catch the sunrise and enjoy sun salutations on my yoga mat.
He did not like the distance this formed between us as he was someone who needed to be needed by their partner and that wasn’t me. With each morning I grew into my yoga practice creating more flexibility in my limbs, the curves of my hips grew wider, and the suppleness of my breasts reminded me how beautiful I am. For the first time in years, I loved the figure I saw in the mirror. I was placing myself first and loving the person I was becoming without his approval. I observed the changes yoga had made on my body and spirit. I noticed what this would mean for my future. Eventually, this change shifted my mentality causing me to say the words I’d been too afraid to say, “I think we need to separate.”