Something happened after I got married. Suddenly it became very important that I let everyone know I was married. Granted, the dress and the party and tiny band tucked under my disco ball of an engagement ring was enough for my family and friends. Still, I began narrating my daily life to include “married” in every description.
“Married woman goes to Rite Aid”
“Married woman scoops the litter box”
“Married woman drinks too much rosé and needs a nap”
The headlines practically wrote themselves.
Despite growing up in a culture where getting married was my only job option, I didn’t think much of it growing up. It was something people did, sure, but as a forth grader was it something I needed to spend time thinking about? Plus, I was a fat kid. I don’t remember a time when my mom wasn’t fretting about my size and people weren’t giving us “helpful” advice about how to make me thin so boys would like me.
You would think a sensible adult wouldn’t put this on a stranger, let alone a child, but you’d be wrong. New teachers were usually the first to bring it up. Once at summer school a music teacher took me aside and let me know that while it was a shame I was so fat for someone so smart, I should try Germany or Africa when looking for a husband. “They just don’t care there!” she winked conspiratorially into my bewildered 11 year old face.
Church was worse. As an awkward teenager who refused to date the same five boys I had grown up with, I was told that I was nice but not to worry about getting married. God would give me a husband in heaven (where I would be thin) so all I had to do was stick to the rules and be alone for the next 60 years. Thanks, God.
When faced with such generous advice, I rolled my eyes and tried hard to forget about it. I knew that I would date once I went to college, where there would be people for whom dating a fat woman was not a source of deep shame. I’m happy to say I was right – there were plenty of men and women who cared more about my personality than my weight.
One of those people is the man I married. Early in our relationship I asked if I was the biggest person he’d been with. “You are,” he said, “But I also like you the most, so I don’t care about that”. We dated for 11 years which meant we were both present for the other’s body changing with time. So when we decided to plan a wedding in 6 weeks, both of us knew we would be marrying the same fat person we’d been sleeping with, living with and eating carbonara with for the last decade.
We didn’t diet in the run up to the wedding (we did give up booze but that’s another story for another time). I didn’t shrink from a bowl of ice cream and sigh “I’d love to but my dress!”. I ate the damn ice cream. I ate the pizza. I ate the pastries and drank the full-fat lattes and didn’t care.
The day after our wedding, there it was, the feeling that I had to let everyone know what we’d done. “There!” I wanted to say to those “helpful” people from my past, “I got married while being the fattest I have ever been. I am beautiful, I feel amazing and YOU WERE WRONG!!”. Because in the end they were wrong and I was wrong to let any tiny sliver of their ignorance and hatred of my body to stay in my mind for even a second. And so now, as punishment to you all, I’m going to spend the next 4-25 weeks casually reminding you that I got married.
connoisseur of human folly 