A drive with mom, and a yearbook photo from 1982

I was wearing a striped shirt and dark brown stretch pants while sitting in the front passenger seat. My mother said, "If you lost weight, you could move a lot easier." I flexed my legs and told her that I could move just fine. She paused for a moment and then added, "If you lost weight, you wouldn't sweat between your legs so much." I replied with, "I don't sweat between my legs." She got angry with me and said, "You know what I mean."

The truth was that I didn't know what she meant. I was 17 years old and she was 39. She was talking about her problems with being fat and assuming they were my problems, too. Even though I was morbidly obese, I could sit in cross-legged yoga positions and was very flexible. I also didn't realize that "between your legs" meant what my mother would call "the wee wee area," and not between my thighs. That being said, I didn't sweat in either of these places as I don't seem to sweat much at all (and still don't), but I guess she did.

What my mother didn't say was that she wouldn't be as embarrassed by me if I lost weight. I also concluded that she'd love me more if I did. I think that I remember that exchange in the car, which was not atypical for my mother and me as she often was critical of my fat while ignoring her own, was that I had reached an age where I understood what wasn't being said as clearly as what was.

The striped shirt I wore on that day lives on in local history as it was the one I was wearing when I was photographed with another classmate as "most artistic" among my high school classmates. I won't publish the entire page, but I will say that all of the other categories for people who were daring, flirtatious, musical, etc. showed people in staged positions looking happy and having fun. I guess the photographer not only didn't feel I (and my compatriot, whose glee at posing with me is clear in his countenance) warranted a fun picture, but not even a reshoot when I was ready and smiling instead of being caught in an awkward open-mouthed moment.