On Savoring
Or, How to Defy the Patriarchy
Hats off to the patriarchy, and its righthand man, capitalism. Anyone who manages a business or household knows how challenging it is to implement effective systems and, as systems go, those two are freakishly effective. They work like a charm. I mean that literally: We are completely under their spell.
Capitalism tells you success in life is determined in the marketplace (take the double meaning we’ve bestowed on words like worth and value), and then, if you’re not an able-bodied white male sociopath, patriarchy and racism and the other discriminatory fantasies they’ve dreamed up tell you you don’t deserve success, you’re not good enough to achieve it, and you should probably stay very small (tiny, ideally) and very quiet (silent, please).
Yikes. They’ve really got us coming and going.
At a recent doctor’s appointment, it was discovered I had gained five pounds in the last year. The year before, I had also gained five pounds. Ten pounds in two years. I’m 48, and my hormones, if visually represented, would resemble Old Faithful—at times appearing completely dormant, others a violent, overwhelming eruption. My period is like that bad relationship that just won’t end—what are we even doing together at this point?
My whole life I was very thin (my father’s nickname for me was Bones). Until recently, I had maintained (not counting pregnancies) the same slight weight my entire adult life. But what had I gained from staying so small? And, for that matter, what had I lost?
My doctor proposed a few new ways I could think about eating in order to not gain any more weight in the coming year. She had complained to me that all her patients were asking her for GLP-1 prescriptions. She said, “You don’t want one, do you?”
I did not.
Then I said something that surprised us both: “Maybe I was too small before.”
She smiled at me. “Maybe,” she said.
It was maybe the most radical and self-loving thing I’ve ever said.
