Here’s how it all started. When my sister and I were little, she was overweight and I was skinny. She wasn’t outrageously obese or anything, just a little on the heavy side. But as little brothers tend to do, I teased her about it constantly. In hindsight, I was pretty cruel. Much of my childhood punishments were the result of nasty things I said to my sister about her weight.
I have distinct memories of taking her underwear from the laundry room and laughing about how big it was. And one specific memory of the day I sneaked into the bathroom with a pair of her panties and tried them on. I didn’t do it in a sexual way, I was probably age 8 or 9 at the time, I just wanted to experience how big they would be on me so I could laugh about it.
As karma or genetics would have it, as I got a little older I started to gain weight.. My sister is two years older than I am, and just as I was starting puberty and gaining weight, she was in her mid-teens and coping with high school self-consciousness. She started playing sports and being active, as well as paying more attention to what she ate. The changes were slow and subtle, it didn’t happen overnight, but over the course of a couple years it seemed like she and I reversed roles when it came to our weight. I kept putting on pounds and she kept losing them.
Somewhere inside my brain I think I was completely aware of the changing situation, but I continued to tease her about her weight anyway, in complete denial of the fact that she was making great improvements in that area. I always saw her as the fat kid in the family and myself as the skinny one.
Then one day I remember my mother and I were visiting my grandmother. I had excused myself to use the bathroom, and as I walked away I overheard them talking about it. I’m sure that my grandmother didn’t think I could hear her, or she wouldn’t have said this. She commented to my mother that I had gained a lot of weight. My mother agreed. Then my grandmother said that I was bigger than my sister now, and again my mother agreed.
I was stunned. There was no way that was true. It bothered me so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it and wanted to get a definitive answer.
I kept wondering how I could find out how much my sister weighed. I had this idea that she would have some kind of ID card in her purse that showed her weight, and I waited for the right chance to sneak into her room and find it. We were still young, she didn’t even have a drivers license, and my search resulted in nothing that showed her weight.
A good amount of time passed with me fretting about it. And I realize that during that time I continued to gain weight and she continued to lose it. But I was still convinced she was the fat one. One day I finally had an idea to prove it once and for all.
I went into her bedroom one afternoon when I was home alone. I decided I was going to try on a bunch of her clothes. I expected them to be big on me and that would give me my answer. From my sister’s bedroom window you could see the driveway and I remember being nervous and embarrassed and constantly checking the window to make sure no one had come home.
She had a pile of clothes sitting right by the door of her room and it was convenient because nothing was folded and I wouldn’t have to go digging through her drawers and closet. I could just try something from the pile and then throw it back in the pile without worrying. The first thing I picked up was a pair of sweat pants. I knew I was being cautious because sweatpants fit loosely.
I pulled them on and they fit somewhat comfortably. They definitely weren’t big on me, and that was a disappointment at first. But the more I thought about it, I was relieved to find that her clothes at least fit. This meant that I wasn’t bigger than her, we were about the same size.
I tried on a pair of jeans and they also fit me. The waist was a little tight, to be honest, but the rest of the fit was very comfortable. This was consistent with everything in the pile that I tried on, right down to her underwear. Everything was very close to fitting me, and some of her stuff was actually more comfortable that my own clothes.
I accepted this news without much hesitation. I was happy to say we were the same size and I wasn’t actually fatter than she was. I immediately stopped teasing her about her weight.
Weeks went by. I tried not to think about it. Then one Saturday morning my mother mentioned that she was taking a few items to donate at Goodwill and my sister said she had a bunch of clothes that she would add to the donation. My ears perked up at this news. Why was she donating clothes?
My mother gave her a giant bag and then she went up to her room to start filling it with the clothes she wanted to donate. I was confused and kept my eyes on what she was doing. She proceeded to the pile of clothes near her door and started folding them and putting them in the bag.
I was nervous about it, but I finally found some courage and asked why she was donating all those clothes. She responded, with a very satisfied smile on her face, that she had lost so much weight that all these clothes were too big on her.
I was complete dejected. I knew what that meant, but was really afraid to admit it. My sister gave the bag of clothes to our mother, but then something else came up and her trip to Goodwill got canceled. The bag of clothes went out on the back porch to be donated later.
The very next chance I had, I went into her room and tried on some of her other clothes. Some of her clothes kind of fit me, but awkwardly tightly. Other things didn’t fit at all. I remember trying on a pair of her jeans that I knew I had seen her wearing the previous day. I struggled to even pull them up all the way, and once I did there was no way I was going to be able to button them.
Something that I think I had really already known for a while was now definitive: I was the fat one.
Then I started thinking about that bag on the porch, filled with perfectly good clothes that fit me. It had been out there for a while and was largely forgotten. One day when no one was around to see me, I grabbed it and took it to my room.
And that’s how it started.
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