3/19/07

Menopause hasn’t even hit me, yet.
I’m 38; hopefully I’ve got a few more years
perhaps a decade or so more before I
morph into a different phase of my life.

Yet, somehow I feel obsolete already.
Invisibility is the best way to express
how I feel and how I think the world
perceives me.

Useless.
Obsolete.
Invisible.
Burdensome.

I spent the first 15 years of my life
adapting and conforming, to survive
my family environ. Be someone
other than who I am, just to fit in,
just to be noticed; and in doing so
my fleeting childhood and teen years
disappeared.

I spent the next 15 years of my life
floundering while trying to remain
attractive or magnetic for men. Men,
who in turn used me for their own gains.
Me, a need, to someone else’s end.

Impoverishing my bankbook and my soul.

Useless.
Empty.

The next 15 years should be, or should
have been years nurturing a child, my
child, and in doing so, repair my inner
child, and re-experience childhood,
experience things I should have
experienced in the first place.

Instead I am in a no woman’s land
Fertile? Infertile?
Menopause? Perimenopause?
Useful vs useless.

On the precipice of invisibility and oblivion.

And no one gives a shit about it, but me.

I can’t wait for the day when I just
surrender, when I just don’t care anymore,
because honestly, this struggle,
this fight, these demons
are the only things I truly own.

Alabama Vibrating Veggie Tales

On Being Criminally Fat

Inspiration for this post (which also was posted as a comment elsewhere): Obese child deemed victim of neglect.

Obesity = neglect = crime?

Let's bust up a loving family because their only crime is that their child/ren is/are fat.

Question: Why are more people not up in arms about the implications of this?

Genetics (MY Vast-Sweeping Over-simplification):

Face it. Some kids are (either knowingly or unknowingly) genetically prone to getting fat. Yes, skinny parents can have a fat child. Recessive genes anyone? Yes, fatness, just like blue eyes, are recessive, inheritable traits.

The Fat Man's Economics--The Cliff Notes version:

Let's take a look at the economics of it. Some folks who subsist primarily of fatty cuts of meat or carb laden foods because it's inexpensive, and they cannot afford healthier foods. (Freshman 15... Top Ramen... anyone?

I know from first hand experience what "government subsidized foods" are like. Gubm'nt cheese anyone? [ED: Oh and by the by, "da cheeze" is greasy, fatty and binding, and decidedly NOT health conscious!]

It's not a stretch to suggest that the same parents who could not afford leaner cuts of meat, or scads of fresh fruits or veggies, cannot afford gastric bypass surgeries for their kids. Hell, this article about a little boy who died because of a toothache/abcess and his family couldn't afford proper medical care is another indication of what's wrong with our society.

Add to the genetics, the economics and the environmental, you've got a health crisis on your hands.

Obesity---------->= crime?

As laughable or inconceivable as it may seem, Child Protective Services taking away children who are obese due to some perceived notion of neglect (let's face it, children can be willfull as all get out, despite the very best intentions of their parents), I don't like the message it's sending.

What about our Fourth Amendment to Privacy in our homes?

Ever see this "surveillance campaign" over at ACLU, where it uses the premise of ordering a pizza? It's only a matter of time before obese people are taxed or otherwise penalized* for their girth, and I am not implying merely higher medical insurance premiums, either.

*See Eugenics

The Fat Man's Future: MY Hypothesis

How is governmental interference and intervention on behalf of obese children not Eugenics? From that link on Wiki:

[...]Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored discrimination and human rights violations, such as forced sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and, in some cases, genocide of races perceived as inferior[...]

NOW! WITH MORE HYPERBOLE!:

What is next? Rounding up all the fatties, Stepfordizing the rest, and relaunch "New! And Improved! Soylent Green! NOW WITH HALF THE CARBS!

"IF"