Archive for April 16, 2011

On the death of my grandfather

April 18, 2011 Amanda-Faye pain, the fam fam

I have a mole on the side of my body, right between my right breast and armpit. It used to look like most of my other moles, small, flat, and brown, but it looks different now, and I’m kind of freaking out about it. Not because I’m scared it’s cancerous or anything like that, but because this mole is special, as my grandpa, Poppo, had the exact same mole in the exact same spot.

For those of you who follow this blog, but don’t know me in real life, my Poppo died at the end of this past December. If you do know me or read me, then you’ll know that this has been a devastating, however expected, loss. I won’t go into everything again (you can read more about him here and here) but he co-raised me and we were very close when I was growing up. For over a decade before he died, he suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease. In the end he didn’t really remember any of us except my grandmother, and he lived full-time in a special home for people with memory loss.

A lot of people aren’t close to their grandparents, so they don’t really get it, and they say or want me to say that he was like a father to me, but it wasn’t exactly like that. I never had a father, so I wouldn’t know what that means. Poppo was my best friend and one of the only people who has ever made me feel completely safe and loved. Years ago a sentence like that would have never appeared in my writing, because feeling safe and loved is not funny, or really very interesting as far as the big story goes, but getting older and trying to get healthy mentally makes you say and feel all kinds of things that aren’t super amusing. I have lived for almost my whole life genuinely believing that I just can’t seem to do anything right, but my grandpa’s love always got through to me. He never made me feel ashamed or ugly.

I’ve been hard on myself for mourning so deeply. I can’t figure out why it still hurts so much, especially since he was old and sick, so ready to go, and went so peacefully. But I suppose watching the person you love most in the entire world exhale for the final time doesn’t fit neatly into the definition of “peaceful.” It was harder in the end to watch him leave his earthly body because I had stuffed down my feelings about slowly losing who he was long before that. Just as my favorite mole is changing, I watched my grandpa change before my eyes for years and then had to turn away. It was too painful to see him, too difficult to accept that he was alive but not there to read my stories or meet the person I want to spend the rest of my life with (who reminds me a lot of him, by the way. Sometimes cliches work out). Of course, unlike the weird, raised, discolored mole (TMI), which I will probably have to get removed, my Poppo never turned into anything ugly. He was beautiful to the very end and beyond, from his last breath with most of my family by his side to the amazing pictures we shared at his rosary to the strength he gave my cousin to deliver his beautiful eulogy.

I know it will get easier, because there are more funny stories about Poppo than sad times, but I will miss him forever.

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Well-armed

April 16, 2011 Amanda-Faye clothings, fat

I wish there was a way to tell you this without sounding like I'm just picking on myself (which I normally do endlessly and without shame, so that right there should tell you something), but I have gigantic arms. Yes, I am a fat woman, but they are disproportionately large, even so. I've tried to imagine why this could be, and how surely there must be some kind of evolutionary benefit, but nothing beyond the ability to naturally hang glide comes to mind, and I haven't thrown myself off a cliff. Just yet. This year I decided once and for all to try and love my body and accept the love that my partner has for it, but nearly 30 years of deep shame is hard to erase permanently, and the temporary relief that hard drinking brings is not without it's own consequences.

Around 6 years ago, I lost a lot of weight (over 50 pounds), and I learned a few things. The first is that, sadly, it's true, most people are way nicer to you when you lose weight. The second is that being thinner didn't make me feel much better about myself, at least outside of the dressing room. The third thing I learned is that no matter how much weight I lost, my arms refused to join the party. Of course, now that I've gained back all that weight and then some, my arms are participating with glee, growing to proportions that ensure I will never comfortably wear such seasonal trends as tailored blazers or sleeveless shirts.

Well, when it comes to sleeveless shirts I've been giving it my all to get over this fear. I mean, everything in my feminist, fat-positive soul tells me I should be flaunting my voluminous limbs for all to see, but again, changing one's lifelong feelings about themselves is no easy feat. I randomly had this idea that fully growing out my armpit hair would help me feel more liberated, but it's not working and sort of itches. Now I'm too lazy to shave it because I know I'll have to pre trim or risk busting my razor. Seriously, backfire.

(Side note: This Christmas I asked for a bunch of Jockey granny panties as part of my "No Ill-fitting Clothing or Shoes Campaign 2011" [working title]. This was another total failure because it turns out that, while offering unsurpassable ass coverage, the underpants have these little side seams on the waist that dig into my flesh. Back to the thong, I guess. I've always found them more comfortable, but I switched because I wanted to wear all cotton, plus I didn't feel awesome about being THAT LADY in line at Target buying the 2XL thong three pack.)

Anyway, usually with sleeveless things I wear a tiny black bolero of some kind and often I have to giggle/panic about how that looks. It's not like it's a fucking arm invisibility cloak. It's two giant arm hams wrapped nice and tightly in black polyester! And I know the best and most fashion-forward look would be to get the fuck over it and realize that nobody gives a shit about my huge (I mean, seriously, enormous) arms, and anyone that does, including me, is kind of being an asshole.

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