Sister #4

Hello blogging world.  I’m Ashley the second to youngest in a household of 5 girls.  I know what you’re thinking—WHAT NO BOYS!?!—and you, my friend, are correct.  I always tell people my dad deserves a medal for swimming across the estrogen ocean and surviving.  I am twenty-three and I live in Midland Texas with my parents.  I eat way too much and exercise way too little.  I have a long distance love—he lives in Utah and some days are harder than others.

Anyway, in household with SOOO many ladies you can imagine we had a lot of fun together, but almost inevitably many of us—whether we admit it or not—have developed a rather competitive spirit.  Because of that, we sometimes are angry or bothered or whatever by what our sisters have or are and we lack.  I think that competitive nature may be a major source of the tension we experience when talking about weight.

In our family we have a rather wide range of shapes and sizes.  We have shorter girls and taller girls and some who find it easy to be thin and others who find it easy to be... not so thin.  This is our story being shared as it happens one triumphant or painful or empowering moment at a time as we try to relate and understand one another in our now not so personal struggle to reach self acceptance. 

My first major brush with personal insecurity was around fifth or sixth grade when my feet grew…. And I didn’t.  I hated trying on shoes I refused to wear flip-flops because I didn’t see the need to show my finger-like toes.  I was insanely sensitive about them.  So much so that when my sisters new boyfriend (my now brother-in-law) came over and said “HOLY COW! Those are some long toes.” I immediately ran off started crying and decided I hated him (don’t worry Joe I changed my mind fairly quickly).  Oddly, my insecurities did a complete 180.  Now I love shoe shopping—I mean my feet stay the same size—and I almost dread shopping for clothes.   Trying on pants almost always results in a few tears of frustration.  And Ladies and Gentlemen I am NOT fat or obese or whatever.  I pack some extra pounds (most people do) but for all intense purposes my weight has stayed around the same (give or take 5 pounds) since I was in high school.  I have broad shoulders like my dad and have tried to come to grips with the fact that I will never—let me repeat that NEVER—be the size of the women on magazine covers or even the size of my mother.  It is not in my genes to be tiny.  That’s a little tough to accept. 

What’s In A Weight is a title inspired by the words of Shakespeare’s Juliet when she said "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."   

With that.... I say What’s in a weight. That which we call a person, at any other size would be just as wonderful!!!