A word about body image and stuff

The other day there was an article in the paper about how kids are no longer required to shower after PE or sporting events. Read it and maybe leave me a comment about how you feel reading the article. It got me thinking back to my wretched, stereotypical adolescent days.
I grew up in a smallish, conservative-ish Minnesota town. It was the 80’s. I was a small little wee thing, and had learned from listening to the boys on the school bus that what really made girls attractive were “big tits”. As an aside, I have always, always hated that word, tits. Considering my introduction to slangy euphemisms for things of a sexual nature was the back of a school bus populated by children of garbage truck drivers and kids who were supposed to give their lives to Jesus, it is somewhat of a feat that I can even think about sex. Anyway, as you might have guessed, I did not possess the requisite tits. I was invisible, so I sat in my assigned seat with Tom Grimsley, who was a wrestling star and treated me rather respectfully despite the ambiance on the bus. I would stare out the window and feel pretty darned despondent. Firstly, boys were clearly the stuff assholes were made of. And secondly, I wanted so much for them to like me anyway, but I was going nowhere with my lack of a rack. I was very ashamed of my little body, and I hid it by wearing huge clothes. Yeah, they were comfortable and warm. But really, I just wanted to disappear.
Some years before that, I had experienced this rather defining moment when some kid (the son of a septic maintenance guy) asked me if I wanted a Milkbone at lunch. I was a pretty soft and impressionable kid in second grade, so I wore that ugly badge until I was, oh, about 33 years old. Silly, I know, but when you get really committed to some idea as a youngun, even if that idea is crazy, you tend to hang onto it. (see: religion.) And so I found myself in the seventh grade with a flat chest and a dog face sitting in Mrs. Owens’ health class.
Mrs. Owens. Here was a woman who cared about clean. She told us girls, who had been separated from the boys for health and PE, all about what it would take for us to get clean. By the way, the boys were upstairs in the naturally lit, airy gym, doing cool shit like climbing up ropes to the ceiling. We were in the stinky old wrestling room in the bowels of the ancient middle school (it had been a high school at one time, the high school my Grandmother attended.) doing aerobics. After doing aerobics on the musty, staph-laden wrestling mats, we were required to shower—and for good reason. I mean, ew. But Mrs Owens had a showering policy. Her policy was that you could not leave the communal shower area until you were wet enough. Mrs. Owens decided if you were wet enough. Finding myself in a situation where I was dreadfully, painfully uncomfortable in my body and being forced to shower with 20 other girls who probably felt the same way I did was a recipe for a bummer, I’ll tell you that. Mrs. Owens told us that our “private parts” needed extra washing, scrubbing, even, and that we should always use scented feminine hygiene products and douches to cover up the smell.
As far as I could see, I was basically fucked. Short, flat-chested, ugly, and now smelly.
It is a miracle I ever lost my virginity.
I’m sad for myself and my peers that we had no one to advocate for us. I’m sad that we have all had to get over Mrs. Owens and the things she told us. How I wish there had been a young woman around to tell us otherwise. Or an old woman. Any woman. This education sufficiently influenced me that this body was a disgusting thing, and the lessons I took from it made it nigh impossible for me to ask anyone, let alone my mother, for help and advice about how to grow up in a female body. I think it was around that time I began to devoutly wish I could become a cat.
I’m struggling even now with body image. I know I have written here about my forays into the gym. I am not getting any lighter, folks, and it bothers me. I think I am having the problem of comparing the way I look to retouched images of women much younger than myself. I have learned to dress—and I know I look alright in my clingier clothes. What am I aspiring to, and will I even notice if I get there? Or will I be doomed, like so many women are, to feeling like I am always too fat? How did I get to this place? I used to hate my body because it was too small. Now it isn't small enough. Goddammit.