cw: bodies, weight, fertility, family stuff, wls, medical, diet culture
beta capricorni (which is a star system in capricornus) is also known as dabih, or "the butcher". meanwhile, nu capricorni is also popularly known as alshat, or "the sheep". one of my sisters is a capricorn so it was kind of an offhanded reference to the more brutally efficient parts of her personality - the ones that reap great benefit but can sometimes be harder to love, especially when taken to extremes. ---amrit brar
Almost three years ago in early 2019, Ian and I went to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida. We had been there for a week the year before and had a really nice time, that being our first visit that wasn't about someone's death or the fallout from someone's death. My dad and I probably got as close to being vulnerable with each other as we could; I believed him when he said that he had always wanted us to be close but my mom had kept us from that. I had been distant, almost practical, in how I dealt with my family over the years and now it felt safe to hang up the cleaver I occasionally wielded. I felt so at peace with my family situation as I sat in my seat waiting to take off from Fort Lauderdale that I couldn't wait to visit again. The visit in early 2019 was nothing like this.
From the start, there were comments about weight that Ian and I had gained but these were primarily targeted at me as the actual blood relative and a woman. There were passing comments from my abuela about how easy weight loss surgery was and how it was the best thing my mom had ever chosen to do. All I could think about was how after surgery, she always had to keep a ziploc bag in her purse because even a bite too much of a meal would make her throw all of it up wherever she was. She lost weight quickly, reaching a size than I hadn't seen her be since she crash dieted into a size 4 dress when I was little. She didn't really learn how to eat though and she didn't love her body more. She just had a literally smaller stomach so she couldn't eat as much as she used to.
I was 14 when she turned to alcohol because she couldn't really figure out why she was still depressed, why she still didn't like herself. I watched her life fall apart completely over the next 14 years of my life and I know now more than ever that weight loss surgery was the catalyst for everything that came afterwards. The ironic thing? She ended up gaining some weight again because being very thin wasn't her body's set point. These are all the things whirling through my brain as I'm hearing my family talk about my body this way. I cried in Ian's arms a lot that week. I tried to push back or just shut the conversations down when they came up, making it clear that I didn't want to talk about this topic. Even the good time I had with friends during that trip felt painful as I could feel my family's disappointment weighing me down.
The day we were set to come home to Toronto came and it poured rain all day. I packed and panicked that the storm would ground our flight, keeping us with my family for even more time. It cleared by the time we had to order an Uber and I breathed a sigh of relief as we gathered our luggage that it was almost over. We waited outside with my dad and stepmom and after putting the bags in the car trunk, my dad hugged me and said something after he let me go:
"Now when you get home, lose some weight so you can make me a grandpa."
I was stunned. I didn't say anything, I just got into the backseat of the Uber as Ian finished saying goodbye. Ian got in next to me and immediately knew something was wrong as I stared forward at the driver's headrest.
"What happened?"
"He told me I should lose weight when I get home so I can make him a grandpa."
Ian was horrified and wished he had caught it because he would have said or done something.
"Yeah, that's why he said it in Spanish so you wouldn't be able to intervene," I said.
I broke down crying multiple times on the way to the airport and even more in the terminal as we waited for our delayed flight. We got home in the middle of the night, landing in a dark snowy city and startling our cat when we walked into the apartment. I didn't say a word, I just undressed and went to bed, falling asleep with my cat's sweet head resting on my hand.
When I tell you the next few months were a blur, I mean it. I was in a deep depression that I couldn't shake; I took no photos during those months. None of me, none of Ian, none of my life, none of my environment---I didn't take one. I don't remember what I did or read during that time. When this period comes up with my therapist, she remembers it the way I do: countless weeks where I said little and seemed like my body was functioning on cruise control. It's the most depressed I've ever been in my life and I would have traded the deep black nothingness I felt at my core for any feeling, no matter how painful. When I did talk about it, I broke down, carrying so much shame for something that wasn't my fault. I wondered if I should just do the thing that would make them happy, no matter what it meant for my own sense of self.
I began coming out of it but my panic around my family remained. I avoided calls for as long as I could, terrified the topic would come up. I didn't want to be asked about when I was having a baby (or rather, giving my family a grandchild) and I didn't want to be asked about my body, no matter its state. Over time, I did talk about what happened with Ian and my therapist and my friends; eventually I even wrote about it. I didn't talk to my family about it though. I remembered the crushing feeling of abandonment and disappointment so well and I knew it had messed me right up. I couldn't risk it so I tried to keep my life from them to protect it, to protect myself.
A lot happened in that time. I grieved how a chronic illness changed my body and my life. I grieved the loss of my mom who was flawed but the only person in my family besides my aunt who really got me and met me where I was at. I grieved the baby I had been so sure I would have with the partner I love. I didn't walk around any of this, I walked right through the middle of it. It broke my heart when my abuela died last summer but the hurt part of me, the child version of myself deep inside me, thought "That's one less person who will ever think of me as a failure for not being thin". Time didn't heal my hurt; I did, and life did. The more I threw myself into my life, my world, my little family of chosen people, the more I felt myself inhabiting my body in a full joyous sense.
Now and then, my therapist would ask me if I was ever going to talk to my dad about how he hurt me. Initially this would make me clam up but over time, I got closer to knowing what I wanted to say. I wrote those words down over the past few months, feeling closer to doing it than ever before. I knew that I couldn't be the only one to make our relationship work but I knew if there would ever be a chance of repairing it, I'd have to set a boundary and be honest about my life. I didn't think about it as often as I did right after it happened so I was surprised when one day about two weeks ago, I just knew it was the day to say what I had to say. I wrote a message about my decision to not have children, the fact that I'm training to be a therapist, and that I was very content with my life; I told him I understood it may take time to mourn the loss of the idea he had of who I was supposed to be and give him. Read receipts told me he read it about 15 minutes after I sent it.
It's been two weeks now and I haven't heard back. I think that sending it even a day before the day I sent it would have absolutely wrecked me. It was the right day to send it, a day that's become more common for me lately where I feel loved, happy, open to the possibilities of my own life and existence. I am not the butcher as often as I used to be, as I needed to be really, but now and then she comes out, cleaver shiny, the muscles in my back twitching as I raise it in one arm. I don't mean harm but I also won't take any shit. It would be glib to say I don't care at all about other people but I think for the first time in my life, I care more about me than anyone else. I know more than most how hard it can be to love the butcher but you can't love me without loving her; I won't cut off any part of me to keep someone's love.