Galileo’s Head Was On The Block... in Chapter 9 : Oil Above Water

“Are you still losing weight?” She asked me. I let the question hang in air knowing that there would be no right answer. The way I look has long been my family’s favourite ammunition against me. No matter how I look there’s always a fault to find. The weight of Ma’s question was beginning to bear down on me, and so I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt at indifference. “Oh, I was just wondering”. I know she’s wondering. She wants to know how much I’ve lost so that she can judge whether or not she can continue to shame me in public and have it be seen as joking. She wants to know if the tables will have turned in my favour. She wants to know if now is the time for her to switch roles to the caring mother rather than biggest critic. She too has learned lessons since my last relapse. She has learned that once others no longer see me as the big girl, that her barbed commentary on my weight ceases to be a form of entertainment for others around me. Image is everything to her, both mine and her own. There’s no hair colour that is safe from criticism, not even my natural hue. I’m either too pale or too tanned. No body shape is satisfatory; when I’m fat I’m a source of shame, when I’m thin I’m competition. I can do no right. When I was born everything about me was wrong; I was the wrong sex, too small, too dark - I had the wrong set of genetics having inherited my maternal grandfathers dark gypsy looks instead of my paternal grandmothers aryan appearance. I never fitted in on either side of my family, I wasn’t a missing piece of the puzzle, I was a stray puzzle piece lost in a chess set. Both sides have made it abundantly clear throughout my life that I have no place on either side. More grey cloud than black sheep, and whilst my parents forced me into the whole family obligation it has long proven to be unrequited.
The question is, how do I compartmentalise this so that I can go off in to the world and have relationships without the shadow of ulterior motives hanging over me? How do I even begin to form relationships when those who are meant to be closest to me have spent my entire life distancing themselves from me? I feel like I have no clue how friendships and relationships even begin. My isolation protects me, but even I’m starting to feel alone.