Michelle Oeltjen

Today’s blog is a venture away from my writing journey – sort of. It actually was an assignment for my last writer’s group so I thought it might be fun to share with you, my readers.

If you are an aspiring writer, I highly recommend that you join a writing / critique group. If you aren’t sure if your area has one, do a google search. If you still come up empty-handed, start your own! Through the fate of the reading god’s, I found my amazing critique group via Susan Pohlman and am now being led by the wonderful Diane Owens, founder of Wise Women Write. And so for me, the wonderful journey of writing (with very wise women by my side) continues.

Freshman year.

For me, those two words illicit several strong memories. I was finally free from my boring small town farm life. I could do what I wanted, when I wanted and with whom I wanted. Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty; I was free from the farm at last. And I was finally going off to college.

It was also the year I became a prisoner of my self-image.

In high school I never watched what I ate. In fact, I ate whatever I saw. Post-volleyball / basketball / track practice refueling snacks consisted of a Snickers, a small bag of Doritos and a 16 oz Mountain Dew. This was merely an appetizer I inhaled while making the nine-mile drive home where I would be greeted by the divine waft of my mother’s tasty roast beef and oh-so-buttery mashed potatoes, fresh farm corn and of course, more carbs in the form of dinner rolls. “Supper”, as it was called on the farm, was nothing short of what would be considered a celebratory meal these days…in my household anyway.

Growing up in a small rural town in the middle of the middle of nowhere, I was partially protected from the harsh messages the rest of the world was sending to women across the universe. The message that thin was in and if you were fat, you weren’t all that. And perhaps because I was toothpick-thin for as long as I could remember, I never gave much thought to my body appearance or weight. Often teased by my father for my string bean legs, the only time I stepped on a scale was during the yearly physical all high school athletes were required to take.

The only issue I had with my then 105 lb frame? My small breasts. Now I consider them one of my greatest features as nearly 20 years later, they are still relatively in the same place as they were back then. Small, but stationary, nonetheless. Gravity has been more kind to the less-endowed ladies such as myself.

I lifeguarded every summer in high school. Nary once did I hesitate to don a swimsuit and parade around the pristine, rectangular pool, blowing my whistle and scolding the little boys who never heeded the “Walk, Don’t Run” rule. Towards the end of the summer, I would gaze appreciatively at the deep, warm brown color my legs had turned. I loved my legs. They were slim, long and lean.

And then my freshman year of college approached and without warning, I was sporting a gut.

I remember the day it happened, just as painfully as if it were yesterday. It was a warm summer morning in early August and I was in the bathroom with my mom, getting ready for another lazy day at the pool and yelling at ornery kids. I had on my pair of favorite faded cut-off jean shorts and a bikini top and as I sat, slouching on the lip of the porcelain tub waiting for my turn at the mirror, it painfully dawned on me that I could pinch way more than an inch of my midsection. “Where in the world did that come?” I thought aloud. Unfortunately, this thought escaped my lips before I had a chance to realize my mother could hear me.

My mom whipped her head around so fast I thought it might fly off. In her oh-so-annoying-motherly-I-told-you-so voice accompanied with her signature surly scowl, she gave me my answer. “BEER! It’s all the BEER you’ve been drinking this summer!”

“Pfft”, I retorted, neither confirming nor denying her accusations but bowing my head in embarrassment nonetheless. She was right of course. It was my last summer before I would flee the nest, before friends I had known my entire life would all part our separate ways, never knowing when our paths might cross again. Our lives were in transition. We were determined to make the most of those last few months we had left together. And in a small town, that usually meant hanging out at the river or someone’s house and drinking our cares away.

So I had an extra inch or so of insulation around my midsection. It was barely enough to register on Michelle’s Richter Scale of Pure Panic. No, that wouldn’t come until half way through my first semester of college.

My college roommate and I were vigilant about working out. Mandy and I had been top athletes at our respective high schools. While we were grateful to no longer have Nazi-like coaches demoralizing us daily – shouting at us to run harder, faster, longer as we sweated blood for the opportunity to be on the starting team – we also feared the Freshman 15 our older sisters had warned us about. We targeted our oblique’s specifically because we lusted after the six pack abs like the models in the fashion magazines  (see Victoria’s Secret photo above) so beautifully sported.

Our workouts were great…when we did them.  We were consistent at the irregularity of them, maybe going once, twice a week, if we felt so inclined. There were just so many other things to occupy our time in the big city rather than studying for what we sure would be a repeat of the successes we’d both had in high school as straight A students.

Then one day I looked into the full-length mirror hanging on the back of our door.

I was dressed in my sports bra and shorts and what I saw staring back at me caused me to shriek loud enough that I scared myself. I watched as a girl with the same dark blond curly hair and long, thin nose peered back at me suspiciously. This couldn’t be me. In the mirror was a girl who had not just a flabby tummy, but a cellulite-covered tummy. Definitely NOT the six-pack I was working* so hard for. (Years later I would proudly brag of my post-high-school acquired Pillsbury dough boy tummy (PDBT) as a 6 pack…of bud light.)

Mandy and I could have passed as sisters – we were similar in height, physique and personality. And thankfully, she developed PDBT alongside me. We wallowed in our gluttony by doing what we know knew how to do best – drinking more beer and eating more late night fast food.

The battle of the bulge had just begun for me and my belly. Over the years I would try everything short of surgery to try and whittle away at the spare tire that was my mid-section. Workouts, crunches – and when I was feeling really ambitious, diets — just didn’t seem to make any indentation in my PDBT. Only when I was tan during the summer months did it seem to create the illusion that I had a somewhat flat, if not toned, belly. And only then because whether I was at the lake, pool or beach, I sucked in my gut until I could hold my breath no longer.

If you can’t tone it, tan it. And if you can’t tan it, suck it in.

It became obvious that like it or not, I would have to make peace with my bulging belly. That to have freedom once again from my self-image imprisonment, I would have to accept I had a less-than-perfect stomach. No, I would never grace the cover of Swimsuit Illustrated nor walk the sandy beaches of Miami with a strong sense of pride for a toned midsection but I guess there could be worse things. Like not being able to drink beer or eat late night fast food. Or have the experience of nearly flunking out of freshman year because Mandy and I were too busy having fun to be bothered with going to classes.

Yes, my beer gut was well worth it. I worked very hard for it after all. It will forever be a reminder of my price of freedom – freshman year.

* According to the Michelle Oeltjen dictionary, working = imagining.