Minnesotan Lisa C. is one of them. In 2005, after suffering a series of debilitating migraines that sent her to emergency rooms, and to specialists for tests and treatment several times, she racked up over $15,000 in medical bills.  Uninsured and working for a temporary employment agency then, Lisa struggled to send in minimum payments to multiple providers, a process she says was confusing.

“I ended up receiving something like six bills from my first visit to the ER, and I couldn’t figure them all out.  There was one from the hospital, another from the doctor who treated me, another from radiology — I don’t remember the rest. But then I had to go in again, and again, and there were more bills, and when I couldn’t pay them all the collection agencies started sending me their bills on top of that, and everything had different account numbers. . . .and I just got lost even trying to keep track.”  Presently threatened with wage garnishments against her $9 per hour salary, Lisa is trying to save up the money to file bankruptcy.

“There are judgments against me now, and with legal fees and everything, I owe more like $21,000.  It’s just impossible.”  Bankruptcy may also be impossible for Lisa, whose salary leaves little disposable income to pay the costs of an attorney, or the credit counseling mandated by state law.

Joe Squillace, an adjunct professor of health care policy at the St. Louis University School of Social Work and a doctoral candidate in Public Policy, has studied the issue of health care extensively.  He points out that the dim statistics on the uninsured don’t tell the whole story.  “Because there is such variation in health insurance policies, including benefits covered, it is difficult to determine the actual numbers of the under-insured.  According to Kaiser’s studies, 10% of insured non-elderly adults reported that they lacked drug coverage in 2001.  29% had no dental coverage, and 37% had no vision coverage.”  Rising premiums, deductibles, and co-payments among the insured may mean that even those who have health coverage forego necessary treatment or medication.

Squillace says it is not clear whether either of the health plans proposed by Obama or McCain will contain outrageously high health care costs, but “Obama’s plan will help those working families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, and provide an affordable option if the employer does not.  McCain’s plan does not really provide an option for many reasons. “There are many problems with McCain’s proposal for the working poor and lower income households.”  Squillace compares the “play or pay” element of Obama’s plan to the recent Massachusetts plan to cover all of its citizens.

The Massachusetts plan places a $295 per year/per employee assessment on employers who do not provide health insurance.  Since its inception, 439,000 of the 650,000 uninsured in Massachusetts have gained coverage.  Still in its experimental stage the plan is not without its flaws, including a shortage of doctors to handle the influx of the newly insured, and increased waiting times — sometimes up to 100 days.  Massachusetts is seeking to attract new doctors with school loan payoffs, investing more in its medical schools, and waiving tuition and fees for medical students who agree to work as primary care doctors in the state for four years after their training. The results of these efforts won’t be seen immediately, but the plan is being carefully watched by other states and policy makers, both for short and long-term effect.

Jeff Crim, a chaplain at a public hospital in Tennessee that treats many of its area’s poorer residents, sees the need for universal health coverage as urgent.  “Oftentimes, when poor people are discharged, their primary care is carried out in undermanned, overburdened public clinics or not at all. In fact, for some of them, the ER is their primary care doctor. They can get the best care possible in the hospital, but it can be undone by poor follow-up or by late diagnosis.”

“People claim that universal health care is somehow un-American.  Yet, I grew up as a military brat. I had all the free health care I wanted from the medical facilities on the base. If I didn’t like that care, I had an insurance policy I could use to get health care from private physicians. If that mixed system is good enough for the military how is it too un-American for civilians?”  Crim, who meets face to face with the sick and dying everyday, argues against the bootstrap philosophies that inform those who are against universal coverage.

“Bootstrap and meritocracy philosophies are pure garbage that only serve to anaesthesize people not in poverty from the reality of poverty. Poverty is cyclical, there is no doubt about that. Economic resources are finite, there is no doubt about that. As long as the majority of those resources are hoarded by a small number of people at the top of the economic ladder, the number of people at the bottom will be huge” states Crim.

Although insured now, Lisa C. rarely goes to a doctor.  “I owe everybody money, and I feel so stupid about why.  $21,000 for headaches?  I’m glad I didn’t have anything more serious, but I didn’t know that at the time — I just knew I was in a lot of pain. Now, if something like that happens again, I probably won’t go in (for treatment).  My plan has a $1000 deductible anyway.  Who can afford that?”  Not Lisa, or millions of other Americans who are uninsured or under-insured.

One of the greatest nations on Earth, heralded for its progressiveness and ingenuity, has so far failed to find a solution to its health care crisis.  Without one, America can only grow sicker, poorer, and more divided.

Next:  Pt V, Conclusion

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1. The Meaning of Things

I’ve never lost my childhood sense of mystification – my ability to be amazed by the intricate puzzles and foggy mazes surrounding the reality of a situation. And, over the years, my need to know the meaning of things, and to have those meanings make sense, has only grown stronger.

I suspect that if the world were as simple as wheat and chaff, the chaff would be far more plentiful. So many of us seem to be in a constant search for something outside our own realm. In reaching for that something, we superimpose the unnatural upon even the most common realities. A shadow becomes a ghost, a falling leaf becomes a message, and the human mind becomes a god, capable of performing miracles. . .if only one believes.

Platitudes and abstractionist philosophies abound, and many would argue that they are harmless. I strongly disagree. What becomes popular in our society becomes pervasive, affecting everything from our cultural mores to our social opinions.

2. The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

I remember when the gun of positive thinking was turned against cancer patients in the 80′s. Scores of books and literature were written that either laid sideways blame on victims for having the disease of “repressed emotions” or “negativity”, or that effusively promoted positive thinking as the cure. Those who died were not positive enough – they didn’t believe enough in the power of their own mind. Twenty years later, it’s what Dr. Jimmie C. Holland, in her book The Human Side of Cancer, refers to as “the tyranny of positive thinking.”

Unfortunately, despite major long-term studies showing that while having a positive attitude may help patients handle their disease better, it does not directly affect survival rates, the tyranny persists. The latest psuedo-science headline screams “A Positive Outlook on Life May Protect Against Breast Cancer”. Sadly, some breast cancer victims will read or remember only the explosive headline, and wonder if they brought the disease on themselves by not being cheerful or optimistic enough.

Outside of the realm of cancer, the tyranny of positive thinking has led to the massively held belief that unhappiness of any sort is some sort of disease – one caused by a mind that refuses to see the glass as half-full – that does not find beauty in pain, or redemption in tragedy.

And once again, platitudes abound.

Gratitude. . . turns what we have into enough, and more . . . -Melody Beattie
You can have everything you want in the world if you love yourself first!! -
Louise Hay
I am the perpetrator of my suffering – but only all of it. – Byron Katie

I had a revealing conversation once with a therapist who mindlessly repeated the oft-stated belief that “no one can make you feel hurt without your permission.”   I asked her what would happen if at that moment a madman stormed into her office and shot her.  Would she be hurt?  Could she will the bullet to miss her? What if it wasn’t a bullet, but a fist or a flying stapler – would the weapon make a difference?  Would she, bruised and bloodied afterwards, refuse to carry the affect of such an assault, maintaining the same unlocked doors and sense of security?  What if it was not her, but her daughter?

Of course people can make you feel hurt without your permission.  They can do so with a weapon, with words, with broken promises, bullying, or diminishment.  Others can rob you of a livelihood, a sense of safety, or even a person you loved.  They can steal the money you needed to retire or pay the rent.  The bad actions of another can have a profound, and even lifelong affect.

Ah, but. . . “We can’t control the actions of other people, we can only control how we feel about it.” Enter the foggy maze, where a bullet becomes inspiration and an unwarranted fist becomes a lesson.  Where those who die young were wanted in Heaven by God himself, and where pain, and struggle, and even the worst circumstances can be willed away . . . if only you believe.

3. Women, Unhappiness & the Chemical Solution

If only you believe in gratitude, says Beattie, whatever you have will be more than enough. And if it isn’t? Maybe it’s because you didn’t love yourself enough or think the right thoughts, according to Hay. In the end, Katie tells us, all suffering is self-inflicted. The robbery, the assault, the disease, the death. . .we must have wanted it on some level – or maybe God and the fates decided we needed it – or maybe it’s some karmic lesson left over from life #46 that we need to learn for life #47.  After all, there are no accidents.

It doesn’t surprise me that women make up the majority of those who most strongly espouse this fantastical kind of thinking.  We make up 50-51% of the population, yet hold only a scant percentage of the political and social power.  Lacking equal affirmation, and standing outside the doors of power, we seek change where we can – within the boundless territory of self.

It’s also not surprising that much of this magical thinking is, at its core, overly forgiving and tolerant of outside sources, and heavy on self-blame. Women have been molded, domineered, and duped into ready forgiveness and self-blame for centuries.

We learned that we bring forth children in pain to pay for Eve’s want of knowledge. Our monthly cycle was not a sign of health, but a curse. We were taught that as long as the weapon used against us was no thicker than a man’s thumb, assaults against us were sanctioned by God.  When even the most senseless wars of men killed our children, we were told it would be ignoble not to feel proud of our sacrifice.  Our emotions have been, at various times, labeled as madness or hysteria.  We have been romanticized as pleasing helpmates, cheerful housewives, and doting mothers. Scorned as ball breakers, brash women, hags, and bitches when we didn’t tow the patriarchal line.  Even now we are often blamed for rape, the divorce rate, and the destruction of the nuclear family.

The unhappiness of women seems to be viewed through a different lens than the unhappiness of men. It’s likely that the same unbalanced social mores that rate assertiveness differently for the sexes does the same when it comes to emotion. In other words, when men express unhappiness, it may be considered reasonable given circumstances, whereas a woman’s unhappiness is suspect – caused solely by her own actions, raging hormones, or negative, complaining female mind. If we can’t find our happy place in imaginative mental revisionism, then there’s always a chemical solution. According to a 2003 study from the University of Michigan, the ratio of women to men on anti-depressants in 2:1-3:1. Even after accounting for gender-based differences, such as postpartum depression, the ratio is high.

While clinical depression is caused by a biological imbalance, I have to wonder if at least some of those prescriptions aren’t being written for women who feel guilty for not being the reality shifting revisionists and perfectly cheerful workers-daughters-wives and mothers society tells them they should be.

4. The Blinding Aftermath

Unhappiness is not a disease, and outside of true medical conditions, it is also not a symptom. It seems disingenuous to promote positive emotion as a natural, healthy response while blacklisting unhappiness as unnatural, unhealthy, and solely a matter of choice.

In a society where most circumstances, and the emotions surrounding those circumstances, are thought to be a matter of choice,

- social injustices are minimized or negated,
- complaints, no matter how valid, are derided,
- reality becomes “what you make it” rather than what it actually is,
- the pressure on changing external forces is lessened,
- and compassion and empathy are spared.

It is easier to wear blinders in a world where human unhappiness is considered a self-fulfilling prophecy or disease.   Rather than going through the hard work of correcting injustices, we can blame the victims. We can refuse to see victims, and see instead only people who failed to make good choices.  We can more easily turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, and turn a deaf ear towards their complaints, when we believe that whatever they are suffering is self-perpetrated.

We can harm each other in a myriad of ways, and then claim we are not responsible for the aftermath.  We can be less compassionate, less generous, and less empathetic when we believe that the problem with other people is their attitude rather than their circumstance.

Certainly, happiness is preferable to the lack of it –- that is not the question. The question is one of genuineness, and realism, and rationality. In promoting positive, magical thinking not just as a self-help tool, but as the ultimate cure for nearly every human condition from cancer to social marginalization, what have we accomplished?   What have we lost?  What does the future hold for a society that makes bestsellers of books like The Secret, in which the author claims, “Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life.”  Writer Tim Watkin, of the Washington Post, points out that “Hard work, talent, education, even luck go unmentioned. As The Secret puts it, all you have to do is ‘put in your order with the universe.’ Ask. Believe. Receive. That’s the mantra.”

It’s a mantra that has been played like a lulling serenade, particularly during the reign of Republican congressional then Presidential rule, in which big business and war took precedence over people, and invisible bootstraps were the only things offered to those reeling from high unemployment rates, skyrocketing inflation, and a record number of home foreclosures.   The years from 1999-2004 (the last year studied) saw a nearly 20% increase in the suicide rate among 45-54 year-olds. For women, the rate leapt 31 percent.  Coincidence?   Or a matter of circumstance?  Researchers believe that the prime suspect is a high rate of prescription drug use and abuse, particularly of anti-depressants.

5. The Monster in the Closet

On May 30, 2008 an elderly man in Hartford, Connecticut was run over by a car on a busy street.  The driver did not stop, and no one, not even a single person, stopped to help him, or tried to divert traffic away from his body. Torres, 78, was left paralyzed from the neck down.  “At the end of the day we’ve got to look at ourselves and understand that our moral values have now changed,” Police Chief Daryl Roberts was quoted as saying. “We have no regard for each other.”

What regard can we have for ourselves and others when magical, positive thinking is the order of the day? When we believe that someone, somewhere else, is in charge of helping those who need it – or worse, when we believe that almost every human need is a self-contained matter, and that experiences and tragedies, no matter how harsh or unjust, are somehow chosen?

To what end is the self-flagellation guised as positivity? If we cannot truly “think it and be it” – if the outside world does not turn on our most focused and heartfelt wishes – and the future we so studiously and lovingly envisioned does not pan out, is it because we did not Ask, Believe, and Receive correctly?  Were our thoughts not happy enough, positive enough?

Realism in the age of magical thinking has become the monster in the closet. The scary thing that we avoid for fear of being swallowed or overtaken, or swept up in a battle when all we really want to do is relax –-  let go and let God. Find inner peace.  Fill up on a feast of gratitude, platitudes, and self-love when sustenance is short, believing that eventually we’ll discover the secret to life-long happiness and contentment.

If realism is viewed as a monster, it is not an imaginary one, nor will it go away if ignored or abandoned in favor of magical thoughts.   It needs our action, awareness, involvement, and yes – our continued struggle for a world that is better in reality, and not just in hope.   Our shared reality, in particular, needs us, front and center and standing at attention, willing to bravely face the unpleasant truths and do battle with harmful forces, if it is ever to arrive at a place of true social justice, lasting peace, and fully realized potential.  We need bravery, not bromides, to create the changes we seek.

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Now, though, you’ve developed small fractures in both feet. Your knees are unsteady. Your legs shake in waking hours, as overly strained muscles begin to separate from bone. Still you jump, only more slowly, and more aware of the damage being done. You begin to question your methods, and momentarily consider other alternatives, but nothing feels as perfect or reliable as the thing you are most familiar with. Ultimately, you jump so that you can get there – to the place you love – the place that makes you feel wholly alive and beautifully human.

One evening, your trampoline disappears. It is gone, and you cannot afford to replace it. Your body, despite its accumulation of damages, aches for nothing more than the nightly ritual of jump-bounce-twist-turn. Your legs feel as if they’ve taken on a restless, unhappy life of their own. They moan and twitch and rebel beneath you. Your heart, used to taking a nightly pounding, feels eerily still.

You do not sleep.
You begin to dream of horrible things while you are painfully awake.
Your body, you feel, has betrayed you.
You fear you will never sleep again.

You pace the floors, and so much comes to the surface in the dark of night. Bitterness, sadness, fear, anger, apathy. Your mind, overly-full and anxious, turns dark and despairing. In losing the trampoline, everything else you once loved also feels lost to you. You begin to associate your jumping with all the wonderful things you fear are lost forever, creating a black and white list of reasons you must, absolutely must, have your trampoline back. Without it;

you will never sleep again.
You will never again feel right, or whole, or rested.
Unrested, you will never be happy.
Unhappy, there is no reason to live.

The thought of getting back on your trampoline begins to consume you. It’s only the thought of jumping again that brings you close to feeling any sort of happiness. Small fractures and torn ligaments become, in your mind, a smaller and smaller price to pay, and even somewhat meaningless in your list of self-justified consequences.

You need the trampoline.
Your body demands it.
You, or some very important, alive, or sacred part of you, will die without it.
You’re are in more pain when you don’t jump than when you do.

The trampoline becomes everything, and until you have it again, little else seems to matter. You need to tie off the vein, light the pipe, snort the coke, take another pill, binge until you puke, starve yourself into a silhouette, gamble until it’s all gone, sleep with another stranger, drink yourself into oblivion — because nothing else, you are convinced — will ever make you feel as good or as much like your truest self.

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I see her through the clouded lens of decades past, the tiny girl with the weary smile, and the sure, square hands darkened with charcoal and chalk. At nine, she built her world of art on sidewalks and cement walls, springing dark-eyed figures out of marigold fields, and white rabbits out of wishing wells.

She had a quiet grace and sensitive hearing. I remember her brother standing next to her in the empty schoolyard one summer day and screaming loudly in her ear. She collapsed to the ground crying, covering her head as if the sirens had gone off and the world was coming to an end. Her brother scoffed and walked away satisfied. I stood with my back against a wall, watching her world crumble, my eyes darting left and right, for what seemed like hours.

“It’s okay,” I finally whispered, gathering up her chalk and charcoal and putting them in my bike basket. “It will be okay.” I repeated myself dozens of times, not knowing what else to say, and finally she lifted her braided head and nodded at me with a tear stained face.

She wanted to hold hands on the way home, so we did, my left hand in her right, my other hand pushing my bike. We walked in silence, with another secret between us, one of several, and our shared knowledge bonded us together more tightly than any game of double-Dutch rope or cats-in-the-cradle ever could.

Ms. Mary Mack Mack Mack and hands wrapped in brightly colored strings were only covers, dusty book jackets under which all the real stories stirred and collided. We were, underneath the false sing-song rhythm of childhood, The Girls Who Knew Things (no one else knew). We were The Girls Who Felt Things (that no one else could guess). We were The Girls With Secrets (that couldn’t be trusted to the world). We were best friends.

On the day she was to move thousands of miles away, I rode my bike all the way to Idlewild Park, a leg-numbing journey of ten to twelve miles. I rode the kiddie train around the park and glared at anyone who looked in my direction. I wanted a fight. A knock-down, drag-out, fists flying fight. I wanted to beat the whole world up. I wanted others to know my pain, and I wanted pain enough to cry.

I did cry, eventually. Under the cover of pine trees and dusk, when I knew for certain that the moving truck would be gone. When I no longer had to see the sad brown eyes staring back at me, or hear the promises of daily letters and one-day-we-will visits.

She was gone. And she took with her all the art and color and trust that had filled me. I felt drained of everything except defeat. I screamed into the Truckee river, the scream of a wild, abandoned child, and I bitterly harbored half a hope that she would hear me.

2.

I hear you screaming now, my friend. And I know, I really do, how hard this is for you. It came as a shock, although in my mind this last scene has played over and over again until it finally wore down to the inevitable.

I can’t, I won’t, compete with your darkly romantic visions of a slow suicide by neglect and Jack Daniels. I won’t be the one to keep your secrets anymore, because they are killing you, cell by cell, moment by moment, day by dreary day.

You climbed the ladder with drunken energy, only to let go effortlessly once you were near the top. There, crumpled into yourself, nothing mattered. Not those who felt obliged to nurture you back to health, or those who acted as both catalyst and crutch. Not those who paid your bills when you forgot, or remembered your children’s birthdays.

I was there when you bought your house. It was a beautiful house, once, and just what you always dreamed of – water, mountains, privacy, room for dogs and cats and horses. Now I walk inside and everything has turned into garbage. There are puddles on the floor, mountains of filthy clothes, rotting food on the counters. There are no animals in sight except the dark-eyed one that sits among the melted candles and artistic ruins, drinking herself into oblivion.

It turns my stomach to think that you live like this. That you, who are capable of so much beauty, and who worked so hard to produce and attain it, could let everything turn to a pile of shit in a matter of a few years.

I’ve wanted to scream, but I held back, not wanting to hurt you. I’ve wanted to grab you by the shoulders and shake you back to life. I have felt anger so primal that it took all my willpower not to add the mark of my hand to where yours had been, and punch holes in the walls. I thought, wrongly, that gentleness would sway you. I thought, maybe, if I washed the clothes and mopped up the puddles, and held your hand, and whispered in your ear, and showed you how deeply you were loved, that something would click.

Instead, it was all a huge disconnect. You. Me. The World. But mostly you. Growing so numb that I have to wonder how much of you is really left. Your eyes are void. Your dry skin hangs from fragile looking bones. Even your tears are dry. Pathetic, heaving sobs begin and end in wanting, needing, insisting on more of something, but it’s always vague and never named. You wallow in the dirt of self-pity, and tell me you are stuck, but your nearly lifeless hands reach for nothing except another grimy glass.

And there’s him. The leech that has sucked you down into some lover’s abyss I’ll never understand. He loves you, you tell me, but from here it looks like greed and a matter of ease. You, not for the first time, are so willing to let everything go for that one man who will finally take you into the less-than-zero zone. If you both have your way, and I’m now convinced you will, you’ll be worth less than zero when he is through living off your lifeblood and scavenging through your possessions. Then again, you might be dead and it won’t matter anymore. He’ll stay and pick through the bones like the vulture he is, and the rest of us – those who have truly loved you and tried to protect you – will have to sieve through our anger to find our grief.

It’s one thing to fight you. We have fought before, and fairly. Two against one, though, is one too many.

I am saying goodbye, my once-precious friend, and there will be no promises of letters or one-day anything. I am done, because you are done. Because I still have a life left, and I can’t live it fully while I’m trying to manage the one you and your two deadly habits are intent on destroying. There’s no damage control I can do that will ever rise above your need to experience some kind of death daily.

Do not dare tell me that I have not loved you well enough, or strong enough, or deep enough. I have loved you far too long, and way too much. I’ve kept your secrets and indulged your disease, and drained myself of time, money, and energy in order to give you whatever temporary relief would get you through another day. My love for you long ago exceeded any expectation of mutuality, and I have loved alone. Alone. Like a wild child, desperate to hang onto my one true companion – The Girl Who Once Was.

I will miss her. I will miss you not nearly as much.

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“Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” – Pat Robertson

Feminism. The word can rouse the twin specters of angst and animus out of even their most latent slumber. Feminist ideals are still attacked from every dominant cornerstone of America, from law and religion, to philosophy and social politics. When not under direct assault, feminism is often rolled through the mire of ridicule and humiliation – as if the concept of women as equals was a socially embarrassing fad that should be bumpersticker-ed into obscurity.

I’ve been somewhat surprised though to see a feminist v. feminist mentality at work when it comes to women’s health. Much has been made about ideas like “fat acceptance” and self-acceptance, although they are not necessarily rooted in the same ideas.

Women ages 30-60 in 2008 weigh an average of twenty pounds more than they did in 1976. Obesity related diseases, like late-onset diabetes, are on the rise. Child obesity has become an epidemic. The diet industry is multi-billion dollar failure that giddily churns out one broken promise after another in order to keep itself rolling in astronomical profits.

Those are just a few facts of fat in our society, and they can’t all be blamed on glandular disorders, slow metabolisms, or genetics. It IS the food we are consuming. It IS the way the food is made and processed, it IS our sedentary lifestyles, and this IS being sold to us daily by some of the greediest and least ethical industries in the world and their political lobbyists.

The snowballing social effects of our newly fat and largely sedentary society collide head-on with feminist principles. Not only does a new social prejudice arise from the glut that is sure to effect more women than men – “fat prejudice” – but women are left exhausted, less active, physically and psychologically damaged, unhealthy, and more prone to disease. Somehow, I don’t think this is what the early and most active of feminists had in mind when they began laying the foundation for social and legal equality.

As women, we should love ourselves – because the food industry certainly won’t. The government won’t. The diet companies only love us for our money and perpetual want for miracles. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but look at that unholy triad. Unhealthy foods created by politically savvy manufacturers get a seal of approval from the government. As Americans get fatter and fatter, the diet industry explodes in wealth, allowing for more product development, and more pharmaceuticals. The (predominately male) profiteers get richer, and the consumers (predominately female) and their families get poorer health.

Enter the new school of “fat acceptance.” Fat is beautiful, according to the new feminist creed. Fat is not a problem, but womanly, healthy, and somehow an all-natural phenomena of XX-chromosomes and estrogen.

Structurally, genetically, women are different. We are pears, apples, straight lines. Some of us have generous curves, others have hardly any curve to them at all. At our optimum best, some of us will be size sixteen, and others will be size two. However, there is a substantial difference between accepting our naturally occurring genetic attributes, and accepting the creation and sustaining of avoidable obesity.

As someone who tips the scales at far more than she should – who grew up thin and has steadily ballooned into more than a Rubenesque figure – I understand that fat acceptance seeks to soothe the souls and psyches of women like me who have, often unwittingly, been the victims of a diseased food and lifestyle culture. I also understand the feelings of defeat and shoulder-shrugging apathy, because let’s face it – change isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not comfortable for most of us. I have, like most women, felt betrayed by a body that doesn’t respond quickly to healthy lifestyle changes. The question is, do I give up? Do I let the food factories and diet industries hold sway over my life? Do I invent a new mental schema that rewires my thoughts to accept – and even nurture – my obesity?

Hell, no.

Does that make me less than a feminist? I don’t think so, and it’s sad to me that for some feminism has devolved into a practice of setting women against each other in the name of some perverse politic that demands women give up on their bodies, fall in love with their fat, and shut off their intuitive and learned knowledge in the name of “acceptance”. For whom are we really doing that? Certainly not for ourselves. We are not the ones benefiting from our lack of health and physical activity – we’re just the ones supplying the bodies and dollars for those who do benefit.

I may have once bought the “convenience” of processed, eviscerated, chemically-processed foods as sold by the food manufacturers, and then sought relief from the consequences of that “convenience” from the diet industry, but my ultimate reaction to the face and body staring back at me from the mirror is, No – this is not what I planned to look like at 46 years old, this is not how I wanted to feel, these are not diseases and problems I thought I’d have, and damnit, I’m going to heal.

I accept who I am and where I’m at, and I feel absolutely nothing akin to self-loathing. I don’t feel ashamed, or angry, or disgusted with myself. Instead, I feel protective of this body, admiring of its tolerance, and fully invested in getting it back to a state of health. “Nothing will work unless you do,” Maya Angelou once said. So I’ll work at it – like a fiend – and after a year I’ll either have a great testimonial to organic, whole foods and exercise. . .or not. I’ll either get down to a reasonable size or I won’t. I don’t expect miracles, but I do expect that I’ll sweat. A lot. If I’m still fat at the end of a year, at least my heart, my conscience, and my endurance will be better off.

In any case, I’ll still be a feminist. And I’ll still support other women who are brave enough to stand up and face adversity not only from the well-greased political machines, but from those whose misguided notions of feminism would ignore the health, well-being, and potential of women in favor of “fat advocacy.”

The anathema of feminism is not inherent in those who advocate for women’s health, but in those who would accept the crippling obesity of a populace, and then justify it with a program wherein the disease becomes a thing of beauty, and its symptoms become poetic symbols of self-love, womanhood, and solidarity.

There’s nothing beautiful or poetic about dying young when you’re the one dying.

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