Revenge Body

**TW: Below I discuss some obsessive eating and exercise behaviours, but would like to make clear that I personally have never suffered from a diagnosed eating disorder, and thus do not compare my experience to the severity of those who do or have. That being said some of the feelings and practices I mention could be a little sensitive for some folks and if so you may want to skip this one xx

To paraphrase an age old adage: revenge is a dish best served smokin’ hot.

My favourite part in movies was always the makeover scene. In “The Princess Diaries” when Julie Andrews tells Anne Hathaway she’s royalty and takes her from an unpopular wallflower to local celebrity with one wave of a straightening iron. When Sandra Bullock goes from a hot mess of a secret agent to beauty queen in “Miss Congeniality”, or the protagonist in “The Devil Wears Prada” trades in her lumpy blue sweater for Chanel. It instills this sense that there may still be hope for even you, a feeling that if you put in the effort and dedication you too could be beautiful. Plus a professional hair and makeup team of course.

Arguably the next best scene in these films is the moment when our hero, with their new look, faces their adversary for the first time since. When Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” reenters the couture clothing store that previously refused to serve her saying “Big Mistake. Big. Huge.” The moment that proves it doesn’t matter who you used to be, what kind of opposition you may have faced, because you’re hot now.

The “Revenge Body” is a concept as old as time; someone does you dirty, you get a haircut, drop a few pounds, update your wardrobe and the next social gathering you see the motherfucker at you casually say “Hey” (as if you haven’t been slaving away at the gym, over analyzing every conversation you ever had with the person, stalking their social media for any evidence of some new bitch who’s taken your place), pretending to be unaware of just how fine you look that night, and walk away.

Maybe you’ve been there: the guy ghosts you, the girl dumps you, the person you confessed your feelings to thinks you’re “really cool, but better as friends”. Anyone who’s gone through some kind of rejection knows what I’m talking about. After a healthy self-pitying wallow, the fire under your ass is lit and all other desires in this world are replaced with a want to make this son of a bitch rue the day they were born. The tactic is simple, no violence, no name-calling (maybe a little name-calling), the plan is to just get really, REALLY hot--I’m talking Velma’s makeover in live action “Scooby-Doo 2” sexy.

I don’t think I was ever good looking enough for him honestly. He’d never said this outright, but in small ways. I remember laying next to him when he told me I was “so pretty” but all I could think was how much prettier he’d think I was if I’d skipped lunch. I knew his words were purely out of politeness and I wanted him to feel that way about me for real. Another time he’d told me how toned my body was, and this scared me because I knew the workout regime I’d been keeping up that week was unsustainable.

Looking back at photos of myself when we were together my immediate thought is “How did I let myself look like that?” How could I have been so weak as to have loosened the reigns on myself. This wasn’t just a failure of my body but a critique of my own self-discipline, restraint, my very character.

No wonder he didn’t want to be with me anymore.

To stay hopeful, I told myself he’d never seen me at my prime, was unaware of the potential I had, and took this on as a challenge to prove. Outwardly saying my new physical ambitions were to show how much better off I was without him, internally knowing I was holding out faith that if I altered something about myself he would come back.

Scrolling through my camera roll I came across a photo of my stomach, from the band of my bra to my hips, completely out of context, that I clearly remembered sending to an ex after we’d ended. I have no idea what I’d written when I originally texted it to him but I know the unspoken words behind it were “I miss you desperately and don’t know how to operate anymore without you, but look how defined my abs are now!”

It had been noticeable. The weight I had lost was noticeable. I knew this because people had started to comment on it. My mum, my grandmother, a friend of mine who I’d always envied the looks of. Truth was I liked it. This was concrete evidence, physical proof that I was changing, that I could accomplish something I set my mind to, on my own. It was about time people started noticing the hard work I was putting in to my workout routine, the food I was cutting back on, so of course I wanted to share my new triumphs with the one I was grieving.

Then of course I find myself feeling the need to compete with the new girl, who always comes around doesn’t she. What did she have that I didn’t? I guess she was skinnier than me...did she have to be blonde too? But of course, I remind myself, my real problem wasn’t with her, it was with him and the fact that he didn’t value me for who I was. As I restrict myself for a boy who couldn’t care less I realize this whole rigamarole has nothing to do with him either. The real person who fucked everything up, who wasn’t enough and never could be...was me.

This body is not proof of my bounce back after I parted from someone I cared for. It is not proof of my dedication and hard work towards success. This body stands as a physicalization of all the self-hate that had been circling my mind. The disappointment I felt when something in my life didn’t work out, and the growing doubt that anything ever would again.

Accepting the facts as they are, giving up the falsehood of control that comes with restricting and exerting in all the wrong places, is harder than the loss of the actual person.

This body belongs to nobody but me, that has been true since the moment I was born, and will remain so until the moment my heart stops. To inhibit or put strain on my body hurts nobody but myself, and the realization of that made clear who I was really seeking revenge on.

I could go on a whole Robin Williams “It’s not your fault” tangent here but this has been enough of a bummer already so I’ll just leave you and I both with this:

If success is truly the best revenge, allow it to wash over you. Don’t fill the space left by whatever is now gone with a fight to regain what was “lost” but open it up to the new experiences, people, and opportunities that may come your way. You don’t need to look a certain way to deserve that.

If I could speak directly to the self-loathing part of myself that has stolen so much time, so many opportunities I will never get back, I would march straight up to it flanked by my successes, as “Gives You Hell” by the All American Rejects fades in the background. I would look it directly in the eyes and say “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”