How Maura Kelly Made Me Cry

I have Part Two of my marriage blog ready to go.  As a matter of fact, I had it set to auto post on Wednesday when I was happily (hopefully) on my way to Dallas to watch Sid the Kid and the Penguins battle the Dallas Stars.  God Bless the Internet.  However, I'm going to push it back and divert a bit because of the controversial blog by Maura Kelly of Marie Claire.  (I won't link to it - I refuse - if you want to see it, it's still up and active, you can easily Google it.)  I think, given my experience with body image over the past decade, this is a subject I cannot delay commenting on.

Let me take you through my day:  I was already horribly mortified when I saw photos of myself in my requisite Halloween costume at work.  I swear, if I weren't clearly past child bearing age, I would have looked like I was six months pregnant.  I cannot overstate the complete and absolute mortification I had when I realized this is how I look.  I can preach body image all I want to, but the fact of the matter is I don't walk the walk.  For me, it all began when Mother had her accident.  At the time, I was pretty happy with myself.  I was happy with my size, I was exercising regularly and clothes fit comfortably.  I had a good sense of self for once.  Then she crashed her damn van, my sense of self went with it.  Exercising became spotty, I ate when and what I could, often late, and then menopause hit just to make things more interesting.  Most people know my story.  In the middle of trying to care for Mother, my oldest daughter died.  Since then I've lost a friend, two dogs and, not the least of which, my mom.  I learned years ago when my dad died:  I eat my way through grief.   The results of all of this grief is abundantly clear in the photos.  I wanted to die when I saw them.  Literally.

Struggling with the horror and loathing I felt for myself, I shuffled off to work today where my friend and co-worker asked me if I knew about the blog post by the woman from Marie Claire about the new sitcom Mike and Molly.  She explained that the blogger had blasted the lead actors as "fatties".  I did a little research, but avoided the blog itself, still managed to get righteously pissed off, made a comment on the ABC site, and then tried to set it aside and concentrate on my day.  But, a while later, my surviving daughter sent me a text that she had walked out of her psychology class where the lecture was on eating disorders.  She said she left when the presentation stated that bulimia was not life threatening.  She was right to leave.  We know better.  Her professor knows our story.  It was insulting and insensitive.

I made it through the day, but it was not a happy day.  I am uncomfortable in my own skin, upset for Marissa, and heavy - if you will - with my thoughts of the daughter I failed.

I came home to Greg working on dinner.  When I took modest portions, he questioned me.  Didn't I want more?  When I shook my head, he looked at the mass of food he had prepared for us and paused.  Then he said he should stop making so much food and wondered out loud if his insistence on large meals was a reaction to how he lost his daughter.  I said that it very likely was.

I sat down to eat my dinner, all of these thoughts bouncing around in my head and finally decided I should read the actual blog before I passed final judgment on it.  It's still there.  You can pull it up easily if you really want to.  All I can say is I could not make it all the way through it.  I have had some fucked up things said to me in the months since Kelsey died.  This ranks right up there.  I couldn't make it all the way through it.  I tried.  I really did.  It was offensive and disgusting to me.  I have no appropriate words for how completely horrified I am at this moment that a professional writer not only believes the shit she spewed, but was brazen enough to put it out on the Internet.

You may ask why I'm so upset.  I'm struggling with weight, but not obese.  Kelsey never was.  Far from it.  I have no idea what she weighed when she died - don't want to know - but I know when she left for treatment the last time her 5' 7" frame was carrying around 90 pounds.  She couldn't have been much more when she died.  But it was crap like that that she heard all her life that messed with her head.  She was terrified of being judged by people like this blogger.  She was horrified that she would be thought of as anything but thin.  She hoarded magazines like the one this woman works for.  She had countless pictures of Kate Moss in her room and on her computer.  I destroyed them all.  They helped, in their way, to destroy my daughter; it seemed fitting.

The woman who pounded out this bile is young and attractive I noticed.  Initially, I thought her post must have been written from a position of ignorance, insolence and naivete.  The thing that hurt me was that she said some things that I thought were horribly triggering to someone struggling with an eating disorder, such as, "My initial response was: Hmm, being overweight is one thing — those people are downright obese! And while I think our country's obsession with physical perfection is unhealthy, I also think it's at least equally crazy, albeit in the other direction, to be implicitly promoting obesity! Yes, anorexia is sick, but at least some slim models are simply naturally skinny."  Then I read tonight that someone at the magazine stated that Ms. Kelly actually suffered from anorexia herself at one point.  Clearly, I say, her recovery is not complete.


I have not seen the show she commented on.  I have seen promos for it, and admittedly thought it was an interesting choice in an image conscious world.  I doubt I'll tune in as a result of all of this.  Too many options, not enough time.  Does that somehow pale my opinion of her critique of it?  Maybe.  But, I can tell you this without any doubt:  I don't need to see the show that prompted all of this to know what my reaction to her words are.  Which is that I am completely heartsick.


Some my say that I am projecting my own current self-loathing onto this woman and her blog.  If that's the case, I must really despise myself.  My sincere wish for her is that she come to learn the error of her ways, sincerely, not based on public pressure, and that she become a better person for it.  Maybe then she can use the power of word to help people shed tears of joy, not anger and sorrow.  For now, my tears are angry ones.