Be in the Picture

Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women and nonbinary writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

A popular tweet made the rounds in December about being in the picture this Christmas. Regardless of what you look like, or how much weight you’ve gained, someone in the future will be glad to see you from this time. I have two things in common with a lot of folks right now: I don’t like being in pictures, and I’ve gained weight during the pandemic. Where my story may differ from yours is that I was always going to gain weight during this time. 

In 2018, I started working with a registered dietitian to recover from chronic dieting and compulsive exercise. I unlearned food rules, quit restricting and started facing my fear of fatness. I also quit exercising like I was a professional athlete. For years, all of my social media posts were pictures of me working out. We live in a culture in which fitness is a sign of moral superiority — we’re so scared of disability and death that we have convinced ourselves that our bodies are completely within our control. You’re allowed to be a little overweight as long as you’re “healthy.” You can put your fat body in the picture as long as there’s proof that you eat right and exercise.

A few months before the start of the pandemic, I hit pause on exercise. It had become compulsive. I was using exercise to control the size of my body. My recovery at this stage was accepting the possibility that my body composition would change once I quit exercising. What was not part of my recovery was a pandemic. When both of these things happened concurrently, I quit finding opportunities to post pictures of myself. What would the context even be? Hi, here’s my fat body sitting on the couch watching Murder, She Wrote, eating a snack, and still being inherently worthy and deserving of love and respect. Prove me wrong, but that picture wouldn’t get as many likes as one of me doing a handstand in a Formation Tour tank top.

I do not enjoy taking advice, even my own. But this Christmas I found myself thinking about that tweet and wondering if I was going to do it — if I was going to be in the picture. My husband and I took a walk on Christmas Day through a scenic park covered in moss and bright-green ferns. He had on a royal-blue shirt. I thought it was a great contrast to the green, so I made him pose for a picture. Then I said, “Wait, take my picture, too.” I posted it to a private Instagram account that’s only for my close friends and let the compliments wash over me. I did it. I was in the picture.

I don’t really know what I look like to other people. The pictures I use online were taken years ago and show a body and hair color that I don’t have anymore. I have a secret worry that when people meet me, they’re shocked at the discrepancy between my online pictures and my 2022 body. Unfortunately for me, the therapeutic resolution is to have new pictures taken. So after Christmas, I hired a photographer to take pictures of me for my website and to advertise my workshops.

Minutes before the photographer arrived, I felt a tightening in my eyes, like I was going to cry. I texted a friend who had recently done a photo shoot and asked, “Why am I so nervous?” They replied: “I couldn’t feel my face right before she got there to shoot me. What I do know is it’s all worth it and it will be over soon.” Then my doorbell rang.

The photographer had a calm, reassuring presence that made me comfortable having my picture taken for two hours. I started in my “safe outfit” of head-to-toe black, but slowly warmed up to change. In one outfit change, I wore a handmade caftan with a red collar and an animal-print body. I bought it years ago when you could still find such treasures at thrift stores. For the other outfit change, I wore a new plaid blazer that no one has seen over a yellow graphic tee. It’s an outfit “old Kim” would wear. 

At the end of the shoot in my home office, the photographer asked if I’d like some pictures for my podcast. I got out my microphone as she grabbed a stuffed cheetah I have on the floor. I held up the microphone to the cheetah and looked at him with my head cocked, like I was really listening. It was hilarious, it was fun, and it was over. Whatever I looked like in these pictures, I was putting them on the internet.

I made a decision a few years ago to take up space, with my body and with my words. To quit “protecting” people from what I look like and what I think. Recovering people-pleasers, rise up! Perceiving people as mad at me is scary. It makes me feel unsafe. Well, guess what? I got fat, and if it makes you mad, good luck unpacking that.