the impact of a bathroom sink

I was fascinated by my third grade teacher. She was a tall, thin, older woman who wore full body lingerie that would sometimes peak out from under her bright yellow and green suits. I couldn’t help but stare with my jaw to the floor when I noticed the black lace. I thought people only wore things like that in movies I wasn’t allowed to see. She had long, pointy red fingernails – always freshly polished and the perfect shade of red that matched her curly red hair.

I assumed she was someone very special because along the side of her bright red hair, she had a long thick chunk of perfectly silver hair that she referred to as her birthmark. I also had a birthmark. Mommy said God gave it to me because I was so special. But mine wasn’t pretty like hers. Mine was on the right side of my torso and was referred to as a “strawberry birthmark” and looked kind of mushy. But to have a silver birthmark in your hair?! Then she must be extra special. I think she must have known she was special, too. She was always going in the bathroom to “freshen up”, and between lessons would grab a mirror from her purse and reapply red lipstick and powder her face. Yes, she was obviously someone very important. I wanted her to like me and teach me how to be pretty. She would talk to us about her weight struggles, but I couldn’t understand what she was referring to. She was already so thin.


One day after she read us our afternoon story, we sat surrounding her on the floor while she proceeded to tell her group of eight year olds that her sister was in the hospital. Apparently, her sister also thought she was fat. So fat she would throw up everything she would eat. But this time she threw up the lining of her stomach. When hearing this, my face became hot. I was dizzy. I was scared and curious all at the same time.


The next day during a routine bathroom break, it was announced by one of my fellow female classmates we would be holding a contest to see who was the fattest girl in the class. This would be determined by who couldn’t fit between the bathroom sinks. I stood there staring at these sinks with mere inches between them and wondered how anyone would be able to squeeze themselves in. The first girl went. She made it. The second did, too. And so did the third. One after another, these little waifs managed to do it. They all fit. And I was last.

I wanted to run. I wanted my teacher to come in and tell us break was over. I needed an escape. Yet, I found myself approaching the sinks with a racing heart and sweaty palms. Dear god, I thought. Please, please, PLEASE let me fit. Don’t let me be the fattest girl in the class.
I was taller than everyone else, so my hips were the first to try to fit. They couldn’t. I bent my knees, thinking I could squeeze my waist in. I sucked in. I pushed so hard it sent a pain through my entire body. I tried so hard, struggling and giving it everything I had. A little less than half of me made it through and I stood there, awkwardly bent at the knees, humiliated and holding back tears with the realization the contest was over: I was the fattest girl in the class.

All the girls laughed and celebrated their victory and I was left alone in the bathroom with my new title. One I would hold on to for the next twenty years of my life, regardless of my weight.


Even now at age 27, that moment will come flooding back to me from time to time. It's amazing...all the beautiful and incredible things I've been told throughout my life, a bathroom sink can determine a lifetime.
hm.