Despite My Best Efforts Not to Care

There's a looming, gripping, all-consuming, and sinister part of wedding planning that no one ever talks about. It feels sort of like when my high school boyfriend dumped me the week before Winter Formal, but I was hosting the group dinner, so all my friends came with their dates for a meal, and I sat alone at the end of the table and nobody mentioned what had happened.

We ate catered fried rice and orange chicken in my parents' dining room and had a good ole time, joking and taking pictures until it was time to head to Formal, where I danced hard (as usual) to top hits like "Solo" and "Single Ladies" and of course whatever was hot with Ke$ha at the time.

Except, then again, it's not like that at all, because that was actually fun, and I can't control the decisions and choices of other people. It wasn't sinister — it was a success story. I overcame a bummer situation and landed on top with the ability to be myself and spend time with my friends. It's the occasion itself, I guess, that makes it similar to wedding planning. Food, DJs, dancing, dressing up, taking pictures, etc.

But the looming, all-consuming bummer situation that no one is really going to talk about when you're planning a wedding is that you want to look and feel beautiful on that day, and, unfortunately, society has taught you that to be beautiful and deserving of that feeling, you really ought to be skinny.

Despite my best efforts not to care, I care.

If I'm honest, I've always cared. I was a tall, active kid growing up. On picture days, when you lined up in rows with your class, I was always assigned to the back row because of my height. I proudly walked up the steps and took my rightful place in the top row, put there because of a physical attribute that people seemed to respect and comment on. But then my width began to catch up with my height, and I had to get glasses, and I had a dorky haircut, and some kids who I thought were my friends told me that they didn't want to play with me at recess. They were too cool to be seen with the chunky four-eyes. They wanted to talk to the boys and gossip on the bench, and I wanted to play kickball anyway.

That was the fourth grade. I'll admit it — I was fat. But I was also a fourth grader. And no one really deserves to find a school picture of themselves on the ground with a drawn unibrow and a matching hairy mole on their face. Is that how everyone sees me? Who drew this? We will never know.

After a summer of continued activity, as well as an additional growth spurt, I spent fifth and sixth grade once again in the more-height-than-width department. But it was too late.

I agonized over my eyebrows, overplucking them so badly once that even my mom had to swap her usual "you're beautiful just the way you are" slogan for an appointment with an esthetician who taught me the right process and pro tips after they grew back.

"They're sisters, not twins." Best advice I ever got. And she let me hold the mirror while she worked so I could see where she was plucking and why. I digress.

I wore jeans or sweatpants and the baggiest tops I could find. I'd feel good if I could sail under the radar. At least, I wouldn't find a graffiti version of my school photo on the floor. In middle school, I wore my club soccer warm-up gear pretty much every day. If I wore athletic uniforms, then everyone might know that my thick thighs and strong shoulders were by design. I could at least pretend it was more than genetics.

By high school, I was within an "appropriate" BMI again. I had my eyebrows sorted out. I was as tall as I was gonna get. My sophomore year, I was probably the fittest I've been in my entire life, and I had my first official boyfriend. Our parents had to take us and drop us off at places for dates because we were both young for our grade and couldn't drive yet. It was cute. Painfully awkward and very teenage dream, but cute.

Even so, I felt large.

I've almost always felt large.

I remember watching the 2004 "Mean Girls" with Lindsay Lohan (still one of the most quotable films of all time) and knowing that it was a satire of what it's like to be a teenage girl and that everything was exaggerated a bit for comedy. However, part of the reason it's so good is that there's a semblance of truth to it.

"So you agree, you think you're really pretty."

We remember this line because it's a trap.

It's girl-world, psychological warfare on full display. In one line, so much can be revealed about the movie — about culture in general. You're supposed to be pretty. You're not supposed to want to be pretty. You're just supposed to be it. If you are objectively pretty by the standards set upon us by (let's face it) capitalism and patriarchy, you must be humble enough to never admit it.

And if you're not lucky enough to be born that way (because Maybelline can only do so much), then you'd better cough up the cash to get that way.

As I said, it's a trap.

Because even though I've spent much of my life trying to figure out who I am and what I care about and saying "Bye, Felicia" to things that don't align, I found myself on the scale this morning, staring at the highest number I've ever seen, letting my mind reel.

"You haven't weighed yourself in five years, of course, it's a jump."

"Why does it have to always be a jump up and never a jump down?"

"It's winter time. You've been indoors. It's okay to enjoy the holidays and allow this fluctuation."

"What fluctuation? It's pretty much a steady line upward."

"I literally just got back from a workout class. I ran three days a week for months, on top of soccer and frisbee leagues and...nothing. Doesn't matter."

"I didn't do those things to lose weight. I did those things because I like to do them."

"It's the goddamned pasta. You love it, and you eat way too much of it." "I mean...that may be true, but you're literally never going to stop having pasta because you do, indeed, love it."

"If I try to diet again, I'll just fail at it because I always fail at it, and it has never led to weight loss."

"The only time in adulthood you successfully lost weight was when you did 200-hour yoga training."

"Maybe you should drop some money this summer and do another training. By some miracle, you can get back down to where you were the last time you started."

"I literally bought larger clothes a few months ago, and they're already tight."

"If you have to buy even bigger clothes, you're just admitting the fact that you're just going to get bigger and bigger."

"There's not enough fake tanner, hair extensions, makeup, lashes, or Spanx that will make you feel beautiful eight months from now at the wedding."

There it is. The looming, gripping, all-consuming, and sinister part of wedding planning. The part that you keep quiet. The part that you fight, silently, every day — torn between wanting to make the miracle happen and angry that you can't just fight the patriarchy by being happy with your body.

You can see the facts in front of you. You love your partner. You're excited to marry him. He's not marrying you because of the number on the scale or the fit of your arms inside the fabric of an old sweater. You're not marrying him for any silly superficial reason like that, either. It's ridiculous.

Yet I stood on the scale. I agonize over the dress fitting in March. Hell, it's 2026! Could I just get a year's supply of Ozempic and call it good??

I wish that all I wanted was the permission and confidence to take up space, to be photographed, to be adored, to be chosen without earning it. The problem is that I know I do have the permission and confidence for all of those things, and I'd still rather have a smaller body.

If you’re planning a wedding and pretending this isn’t crossing your mind, too, I see you. You’re not shallow. You’re not broken. You’re responding exactly as you were taught.

I was taught that only certain bodies get happy endings. I know that's not true. The facts are in front of me. And if I'm being honest, my reeling mind while standing on the scale equates to knowing that the true path would be to find a way I can live with and be excited about the body I have. To be thankful that it runs, it walks the dog, it writes beautifully, it gardens in the sun, it shovels snow in the cold, it breathes fresh air, it swims and dives into water, it hugs tightly with its whole beating heart.

"My body is the least interesting thing about me."

I'm supposed to say that and say it often. My therapist is lovely, and she's helping. I'm also supposed to take lots of photos of myself and practice evaluating recent photos of me, because I am triggered when I see myself in pictures.

I haven't found the energy yet to begin taking pictures. I will, though.

With some tools and support, it's possible that this looming, gripping, all-consuming, and sinister part of putting together a wedding can transform, or at the very least be sedated. I can overcome this bummer situation and land on top with the ability to be myself and spend time with my friends.

I don't need to be forty pounds lighter to say "I do."