The Bits We Don't Often See

I weigh seventy pounds more now than I did at twenty. As I was thin as a rail then, I'm about fifty pounds overweight. There are great gobbets of fat hanging off my person in places I never thought possible. It's gross, creepy and unpleasant. However, the ninety-seven pound weight I maintained, with no effort whatsoever, was pretty creepy, too. I don't think anorexia had been invented yet, but people were very vocal in their criticism of my appearance.

Shortly before my twentieth birthday, Brian (my first husband) (not SSS) and I had visitors from out of town. The husband was very tall and thin, and his wife was very petite, and somewhat round. They had a little boy--maybe five years old, at the time. He was very proud of the fact that he knew how to rub a person's back, so before I knew what hit me, I was flat on my stomach on the living room floor, with my shirt tucked under my arms, and this little child was starting to rub my back.

All of a sudden, he went very still.

"Mommy!" he said, in a shocked voice, "What's she got?!"

I was a bit concerned, as my back was not something I looked at every day. I raised my eyes to Janie, his mom, a little nervously.

Janie's face went red as a beet, as she gently told him, "Honey, that's her backbone!"