Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It by Brittany Gibbons Page A
Authors: Brittany Gibbons
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others; listening to my mom when she ached or bandaging my father when he bled. Helping her stand was the easiest thing I could do.
A week after my grandma died, I packed the back of my parents’ car with suitcases of clothes, my favorite pillow, and a box of mangy fur coats. We’d both left home at the exact same time; she went to heaven, and I went to Columbus.
AGORAPHOBIA IS THE NEW VEGAN
Even though I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up, the random English and art classes I was taking were going surprisingly well for me. Because of that, I was a fixture on the dean’s list. I was also holding down a part-time job at the Gap in a nearby mall, and I was living in a two-bedroom apartment twenty minutes off campus with Andy and a pug named Lucy. We had knockoff Pottery Barn furniture, a guest room, I shopped at Whole Foods, and we had couples friends and dinner parties with wineglasses made of actual glass. We even drove nice cars, Andy the silver Nissan Altima from our first breakfast together giftedto him by his parents, and me a new VW Beetle, a car leased for me by my grandfather after the 1988 Oldsmobile I’d been driving caught fire in a mall parking lot. It was all very adult for twenty-one years old, and I loved it. I had created a simulator of the grown-up life I had always wanted. Clean, calm, comfortable, and sane.
In the summer before our fourth year of college, Andy, increasingly unhappy with his academic program at Ohio State, made the tough decision to return home and attend a local college to finish his degree. Due to the lease on our apartment and the fact that I wasn’t actually failing anything, it was decided I would stay behind for the year. Andy promised to come back down to stay every weekend, but I was still very upset. We had built a life together, a couples life. We had couples friends and game nights; how could he leave that if he loved me?
“We aren’t breaking up,” he assured me in the parking lot of our apartment complex. “It’s just one year.” He kissed my tear-soaked face, pressed a gift-wrapped box into my arms, climbed into his car packed with suitcases and laundry baskets, and drove away waving.
I walked back into our now-empty apartment, Lucy snorting and wagging her curled tail expectantly at me on the couch, and felt very alone for the very first time since I started college. Sure, I was looking forward to the freedom of meeting girlfriends at dance clubs and having slumber parties with chick flicks and fizzy wine, but the truth was, I didn’t know how to be alone anymore. I didn’t even like ordering pizza over the phone by myself. That was an Andy job. How was I supposed to get pizza to my house now? Dependence had become addicting. I’d never had it before, relying mostly on myself for survival, but when it was suddenly stripped away it was terrifying. I had moved away from my family and gone to college and leased an apartment with Andy. My life had become a team sport, and I wasn’t strong enough to continue doing these things by myself.
I unwrapped the small box Andy had left in my arms, and found a blank-paged spiral-bound journal with a flowing river on the front cover, which would have been soothing if I wasn’t terrified of all bodies of water. I mean seriously, you can’t see how deep they are. Entire boats and sea creatures swim below you and you just are supposed to act like that’s not happening? Inscribed on the inside cover of the journal was a note from Andy.
Since your current journal is almost full, I thought I’d gift you with this one to chronicle your final year of school, and your very first year living solo. I can’t wait to read it, and I miss you already.
Love Andy
Little did he know this journal would go on to read less like an adorable coming of age story and more like Tyler Durden, the Early Years.
At first, living alone was exactly how I imagined it in all my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies, but it quickly became lonely
A week after my grandma died, I packed the back of my parents’ car with suitcases of clothes, my favorite pillow, and a box of mangy fur coats. We’d both left home at the exact same time; she went to heaven, and I went to Columbus.
AGORAPHOBIA IS THE NEW VEGAN
Even though I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up, the random English and art classes I was taking were going surprisingly well for me. Because of that, I was a fixture on the dean’s list. I was also holding down a part-time job at the Gap in a nearby mall, and I was living in a two-bedroom apartment twenty minutes off campus with Andy and a pug named Lucy. We had knockoff Pottery Barn furniture, a guest room, I shopped at Whole Foods, and we had couples friends and dinner parties with wineglasses made of actual glass. We even drove nice cars, Andy the silver Nissan Altima from our first breakfast together giftedto him by his parents, and me a new VW Beetle, a car leased for me by my grandfather after the 1988 Oldsmobile I’d been driving caught fire in a mall parking lot. It was all very adult for twenty-one years old, and I loved it. I had created a simulator of the grown-up life I had always wanted. Clean, calm, comfortable, and sane.
In the summer before our fourth year of college, Andy, increasingly unhappy with his academic program at Ohio State, made the tough decision to return home and attend a local college to finish his degree. Due to the lease on our apartment and the fact that I wasn’t actually failing anything, it was decided I would stay behind for the year. Andy promised to come back down to stay every weekend, but I was still very upset. We had built a life together, a couples life. We had couples friends and game nights; how could he leave that if he loved me?
“We aren’t breaking up,” he assured me in the parking lot of our apartment complex. “It’s just one year.” He kissed my tear-soaked face, pressed a gift-wrapped box into my arms, climbed into his car packed with suitcases and laundry baskets, and drove away waving.
I walked back into our now-empty apartment, Lucy snorting and wagging her curled tail expectantly at me on the couch, and felt very alone for the very first time since I started college. Sure, I was looking forward to the freedom of meeting girlfriends at dance clubs and having slumber parties with chick flicks and fizzy wine, but the truth was, I didn’t know how to be alone anymore. I didn’t even like ordering pizza over the phone by myself. That was an Andy job. How was I supposed to get pizza to my house now? Dependence had become addicting. I’d never had it before, relying mostly on myself for survival, but when it was suddenly stripped away it was terrifying. I had moved away from my family and gone to college and leased an apartment with Andy. My life had become a team sport, and I wasn’t strong enough to continue doing these things by myself.
I unwrapped the small box Andy had left in my arms, and found a blank-paged spiral-bound journal with a flowing river on the front cover, which would have been soothing if I wasn’t terrified of all bodies of water. I mean seriously, you can’t see how deep they are. Entire boats and sea creatures swim below you and you just are supposed to act like that’s not happening? Inscribed on the inside cover of the journal was a note from Andy.
Since your current journal is almost full, I thought I’d gift you with this one to chronicle your final year of school, and your very first year living solo. I can’t wait to read it, and I miss you already.
Love Andy
Little did he know this journal would go on to read less like an adorable coming of age story and more like Tyler Durden, the Early Years.
At first, living alone was exactly how I imagined it in all my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies, but it quickly became lonely
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