Contrasts

He tells me that I am fine the way that I am; he compliments the curves I long to eradicate. Not stick thin--I could never be a twig, but I strive to be much less than I am.  "I don't understand your reasoning," he says as he assures me that I'm more than attractive and that my personality is "something special."  I try to explain that it's my own dissatisfaction that drives me. "Have a cookie with your tea," he says as he hands me a homemade sugar cookie with green sprinkles. "You're looking like you don't eat enough these days, and this cookie has your name on it. Besides, real women have curves." I want to believe him that I'm fine; I just can't.

She tells me I look like shit within the first ten minutes of my visit. In a perpetual smoker's hoarse voice she remarks how amazing it is that her sister with breast cancer twenty years my senior looks better than me. She points to the silver in my hair and the circles under my eyes. "You're not very sexy," she says. I am infinitely sorry that I chose that particular afternoon to deliver the flowers and get well card. "Ignore her," she responds as she glares at her sister. I don't.