The Body as a Fortress

August 9, 2017

"I desperately needed to feel safe.  I needed to feel like a fortress, impermeable.  I didn't want anything or anyone to touch me."
--Roxane Gay, Hunger

This idea of weight being a protector is not new to me.  When I've allowed the thought in, I've believed that part of the reason for my extra pounds was to put a shield around me, a force field of protection.  A couple of days ago, I read the first pages of Roxane Gay's new memoir, and when I saw the word fortress, I stopped.  This Game of Thrones lover could see it clearly.  I have been using this extra weight as a fortress.  But from what?

Roxane was sexually assaulted at the tender age of twelve.  That's not my story, but I do think sexuality figures into it.  The idea of my body in that way, of expectations from the world, as a girl was too much, and there was no one to talk to.  I truly don't know how young girls today survive, and I suspect many aren't doing well, with so many expectations of a sexual identity so young and not just a sexual identity but one that would pain many women who are much older.  So, that's one, and even at my age (a number that makes me gasp), I still have a teenage girl inside me, who needs healing from early expectations.

But there's more (as there might be for Roxane--I'm going to be reading the book).  For me, I think, it's about other expectations, some from the world but some from myself.  And it's about my fear of those.  Last night, I was reading Marianne Williamson's A Course in Weight Loss, and she mentioned fear.  And the opposite of that is love.  That doesn't just include love of self, even now, at this weight, but requires that self-love.

So, I'm going to be examining what fears are keeping me at this weight and release them, which will release the weight, I've been told (not magically--there's still other work to be done).  I'm not hiding my fears and these expectations from you here.  I don't fully understand what they are at this point, but I can say that living a smaller life than I'm intended to live is one, and I am living a small life compared to the one in my head, the one I'm working toward.  But I've also been hiding from that large life, perhaps even sabotaging it.  And it's time to stop.  As I've thought many times:  small life, large body; large life, small body.  The choice appears to be mine.

In a recent interview in Rolling Stone, Roxane Gay said, "And with many years of therapy, I have recognized that, ok, you no longer need a physical fortress and the physical fortress doesn’t actually keep you safe. It just gives me the illusion of safety. Some of the old habits linger, but in many ways, I've worked through a lot of that."

I don't want a fortress around me anymore.  I want to open my arms wide to the world.  I'm a grown, educated woman who has had many experiences, and it's time for a larger life and the healthy body to carry me there.  Besides, the fortress isn't keeping me safe.  It is, as Roxane said, an "illusion of safety."  As I have been opening my arms more in recent years, I've also found the fortress to be a source of distraction and burden, pain and embarrassment.  One stone at a time, the fortress must be torn down.  With each stone removed, places inside me will be penetrated by daylight as they haven't in years, if ever.  Life is about to get very interesting.