Looking Big, Feeling Small

I would like to thank Bonefish Grill for making me feel like the fattest woman in the world.

Since we had never been, Steve and I decided to go the restaurant last Tuesday for dinner.
The hostess led us to the nearly empty dining area and the atmosphere felt surprisingly intimate for a chain restaurant. I’m so used to us hanging out in the bar or at home recently that I expected something a little closer to Red Lobster, but the low track lights and the decorative wall made it feel a little nicer. We both took our seats in the booth. The hostess handed us our menus and looked at me and said:

“Is this booth going to be ok or is it too tight for you?”

I went from feeling pretty good to feeling like the epitome of huge in 0.5 seconds. I’m approaching five months and have gained about ten pounds. Not a small amount of weight, but good enough for me at this point. And now I am being asked whether I can fit inside of a booth at a restaurant. 300 pound people go to restaurants every day and sit in booths. I know because I’ve seen them. Steve said she was just trying to be nice, which probably is true. But in my mind I still called her a skinny biatch and wished that she would eat a fat sandwich of death.

To tell the truth, it kind of hurt my feelings.

Later on I told Steve how I really didn’t feel sexy anymore. His Response:

“So what? You’re pregnant.”

A lot of times my husband knows just the right thing to say to make me feel my best on my worst day. This was not one of those times.

What he said: So what? You’re pregnant.
What I heard: So what, you’re really not a woman anymore anyway, just a carrier of sorts for the baby inside you. You are round, you can’t drink, ride a motorcycle, get in a hot tub or stay up past 9 pm. You struggle to get out of a chair, why would you even begin to think about being sexy?

He probably didn’t mean all of that, but that’s how I felt when he said it. Being able to bring a new life into this world is one of the most powerful things that a woman can do. So how come instead of feeling like Superwoman sometimes I feel like less of a woman than I did before? Do I equate womanliness with sexiness? Shouldn’t I feel honored that my hips, thighs, boobs, and belly now have something more important to do than be cute things to look at? And why is it that the larger I get, the more and more I feel invisible?

I’m sure I could spend hours trying to answer all of these questions and maybe I will in another post on another day. Right now I have naps to take and fat sandwiches of death to make (that’s right Bonefish hostess, if you’re reading this, watch out. I have one waiting for you…).