Big Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

For all women—or maybe just all plus-size women, or maybe just me—there’s a moment right after you put on a new piece of clothing, after you’ve buttoned the buttons or zipped the zipper, but before you’ve seen how it looks—or, rather, how you look in it. A moment of just sensation, of feeling the fabric on your skin, the garment against your body, knowing where the waistband pinches or if the cuffs are the right length, an instant of perfect faith, of pure, untarnished hope that this dress, this blouse, this skirt, will be the one that transforms you, that makes you look shapely and pretty, and worthy of love, or respect, or whatever you most desire. It’s almost religious, that belief, that faith that a piece of silk or denim or cotton jersey could disguise your flaws and amplify your assets and make you both invisible and seen, just another normal woman in the world; a woman who deserves to get what she wants.

The trick of the Internet, I had learned, was not being unapologetically yourself or completely unfiltered; it was mastering the trick of appearing that way. It was spiking your posts with just the right amount of real… which meant, of course, that you were never being real at all.

There were people who were revolted by your body and took every opportunity to tell you so, and the people whose disgust came disguised as concern: Don’t you worry about your health? Don’t you care?

I thought of the poem attributed to Dorothy Parker: “I like to have a martini / Two at the very most / Three and I’m under the table / Four and I’m under the host.”

was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had.

In space, nobody could hear you scream; on the Internet, nobody could tell if you were lying.

to think about my friend and how there were things you could be hungry for besides food.

Where has she gone? And who is there to say? But this we know: her gentle spirit moves And is where beauty never wanes, Perchance by other streams, mid other groves; And to us there, ah! she remains A lovely memory Until eternity; She came, she loved, and then she went away.

Really touching lines. It makes me think of my Meggie.

“Everyone tries to put the best versions of themselves across. To fake it. And when they’re not doing that, they’re sitting behind their screens, passing judgment and feeling superior to whoever they think’s being sexist or racist that day.”

“When you have excluded the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth,”

I’m not brave all the time. No one is. We’ve all been disappointed; we’ve all had our hearts broken, and we’re all just doing our best.