Gerbils

Thinking of gerbils today. I was in middle school when the friends down the street got some gerbils. Assuring me that they were both boys, they gave me the pair as a gift. Only a short time later, the two boys had miraculously produced a small family of 30. In one cage. After a family jailbreak (and gerbils in the dryer, shower drain, dishwasher...) my mother said they needed a new home. I agreed with one condition: the family had to stay together. I placed an ad in the local paper and received a call from someone who spoke such intense hick that even I, fluent in hick myself, could almost not understand. "Ahm calleen 'bout them little black dawgs y'all gotfer sayell inna pie-per." She took them all. Almost 10 years later I had the sudden and horrible realization that the only reason anyone would take 30 gerbils was to feed something larger. I am still so sorry for those little guys. (What does fart have to do with hello, you ask? Read on to see why I thought of these guys today...)

Most of the time I am hardly aware that I am even a person, with a separate identity from fat. I am a worker, a daughter, a sister, a painter, a lover, a best friend, a cousin, a Southerner, a New Yorker, a cat owner, a shopper, an organizer, a laugher, a dancer, a nurturer, a cook, a launderess, a reader, a writer, a nature lover, a florist, a photographer, an observer. But all I can think is that I am a fat girl. Today, I will remember and be aware that I am all the other identities too. I am strong and determined to change. I am a goal setter and a persuasive talker. I am a helper and an idealist. I am a perfectionist. I am a fat girl today but I am also the person who can change it. I am the person who is exhausted. I am so finished with the trauma of being fat. I was sweating to much I could smell my armpits without even trying. They smelled like a gerbil cage that needed to be cleaned.

(If you'd like the mouse pad shown in the photo or an apron with gerbils on it - who wouldn't - I found these and other items at www.cafepress.com/petwebsite.)