News > Columnists > Mark McCormick

Posted on Sun, Oct. 12, 2008

e-mail	print	RSS	reprint
AIM	Digg it	del.icio.us	Facebook

More than you can see, even with less of me

What you see next to this column is a representation of me. Not all of me. Not even most of me. You can't see the long, jagged scar traveling from my ribcage to just south of my navel, the path surgeons took to relieve the extreme ulcer pain and stop the internal bleeding I'd endured for years. You can't see the bulging blue veins on my left hip, products of two blood clots, or the way my left leg swells to twice the size of my right. You can't see here any of the imperfections I see in my mirror every day.

Even if you could, there's more to me than what you'd see, even now that there is less of me.

Since late spring and early summer, I've dropped more than 60 pounds through a regimen of diet, exercise, science and medicine. I'll talk about that more in a few weeks when I reach my goal.

For now, I want to focus on this journey which only confirmed what I already knew, yet hadn't fully experienced: that what matters most resides inside of us. We're so cruelly superficial in this culture anymore, and we practice this superficiality in ways that damage our spirits and our bodies.

I've long viewed my weight as failure, and not just one. More like a million: one for each attempt to control it. I felt ashamed whenever someone pointed a camera at me. All I wanted at that moment was invisibility.

I regularly depended on people's decency, hoping they wouldn't poke at my very obvious flaws, but the behavior I encountered at times shocked me.

A friend, who also has lost a lot of weight, told me her family routinely skewered her about her weight: "You're really cute, it's such a shame that you're so big." "Damn, I never thought your hide could stretch so wide." "With all of that blue on, girl, you look like a beached whale."

Strangely, losing weight doesn't curb such behavior.

The people who picked at your scars will then decide, even after you've explained otherwise, that you're gravely ill, too thin or on crack.

We all have miserable folks orbiting us who rely on our foibles to make themselves feel good. They need us to be the receptacle that accepts their anger, jealousy or other emotional refuse.

But that's not most people.

Most people want you to see and accept what's inside of them, even when they can't.

This craving is universal, whether you're a racial minority who wants people to see beyond your skin, or a woman who wants people to see your strength, or a man trying to convince a judge that a father can love his children as desperately as a mother can.

In my case, I feel better. I have more energy. And it's a lot easier to find clothes that fit, though none of mine do.

But my journey helped me sort out an entire period of my life and explain my inclination for finding the quiet anguish thrashing around inside others. I'm a homing pigeon for hurt and hurt people.

I've been there, done that -- and bought a T-shirt.

Losing weight isn't something you should do for someone else. Or even because of someone else.

You're more than what people see in front of them.

And to truly understand what that means, I had to see it for myself.

Reach Mark McCormick at 316-268-6549 or mmccormick@wichitaeagle.com