nothing changes

I had a strange experience at the gym yesterday. All during my time on the treadmill and walking back to the locker room I thought about how I was going to record all the witty thoughts I've been having lately about the trials of having to change clothes at a gym that's frequented by my students' parents. But then the 8th grade girls barged in on me in the locker room, and all my brilliantly funny thoughts died.
My shirt was halfway over my head when a giggling girl tugged on the curtain of my changing stall. Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you she giggled. Can you please tell her-she nodded her head at the giggling, much shorter girl next to her-that she's not fat?
I studied both of them, one short, like my height, the other a head taller, lanky, not quite grown into her limbs yet. Neither of them had a visible ounce of fat on their bodies.
I smiled and told them, Neither of you is fat. You're both lovely.
See, the first girl said to her friend, then turned to me. She's like 90 pounds and she's in eighth grade, and she thinks she's fat. I was like 90 pounds in first grade. If anyone's fat, it's me.
Yeah, I replied. You're really not fat. I wish I had known that when I looked like you. Now that I'm a bit lumpier than I used to be, I wish I'd enjoyed it more when I wasn't.
Oh my God! she giggled. You are not lumpy at all! Thanks for telling her she's not fat. We're sorry we bothered you!
No bother!
Thank you! Bye! They ran off, giggling and arguing over who was fatter.
I wasn't at my loveliest yesterday. I say that as objectively as a female can. My hair was a disaster since I'd gotten up late and couldn't fix it the way I normally do on a Thursday. My shirt fit too tightly, and when I exercise my entire body turns red, as does my face. I'd forgotten my contacts and a hair tie. I am on the lumpy side. Obviously I have the excuse of having a baby, but I think the statute of limitations on that one runs out after a year.
I have a picture taped to my desk at home. I'm looking at it right now. It's me, on a beach when I was 11 or 12. I'm wearing a two piece bathing suit that's not a tankini and striking a pose. My stomach was flat. I had no idea.
In some respects I think I have a healthier self-image than a lot of females because I can leave the house without make-up and I don't think about the way I look a whole lot, but when I do it's a poo-storm of disgust and self-loathing (although, with me, what's not a poo-storm of disgust and self-loathing?).
Yesterday, in that locker room, I knew my words to those girls were useless, but I had to say them anyway. I could have told them all sorts of things that I've learned about being fat and being not fat that I've learned in the fifteen years since I've been in eighth grade. It wouldn't have mattered, though. In eighth grade, and ninth, and tenth, and eleventh, and twelfth, and all through college and graduate school and the early years of marriage, I had that conversation, the no, I'm the one who's fat; you're not fat conversation. No amount of people telling me I wasn't fat, that I was beautiful made any sort of difference. I believed what I saw, skewed though it might have been.
My words to those girls have disappeared. They won't come back to them for years, when they've put on a few pounds, maybe had a kid or two and see someone who looks like they once did, someone dissatisfied with their weight and looks. They'll remember. They'll remember they weren't fat, they were beautiful, and they didn't know it.
It's the circle of life.