Cry For The Child If the Tears Will Come/from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

1. Stuart Torments Laurel

Weddings are emotional times. They bring up unresolved feelings of love, guilt, attachment, even anger. I have learned not to trust the cascade of emotions I feel at weddings, and at funerals too. It was at a wedding, though, that I was eventually awarded The Picture; to phrase it another way, at a wedding The Picture found its way to me.
The way I write it, it sounds like I won an Academy Award or a Pulitzer Prize. In the world's eyes it means nothing; but in the art gallery of my soul it is stored in a safe and private place where only I can see it.
As is usual with all good stories, the tale of The Picture begins with my family, in this case, a cousin. I had a first cousin called Stuart. I lived in a close-knit family and we all saw each other regularly, and Stuart was a malignant pain in the ass. He is one of those people who can see immediately anybody's weakness. As I grew into adolescence I gained a little weight and Stuart began to torment me, bully me was the actual correct word, but in those days it was considered harmless teasing. I was told to ignore Stuart and not be so "sensitive."
We passed each other in the halls in school, and Stuart always had a new name for me; Elsie the cow, Laurel lard ass, thunder thighs, pregnant cheeks. I tried circumventing Stuart and finding alternative ways to move from classroom to classroom. But Stuart was like a bull dozer. He always found me and called out yet another one of his what my mother called "harmless names" for me.

The day he called out "jelly belly" as I walked down the hall with my friends, I wanted to die. My friends felt sorry for me. That was the day I declared war on Stuart. Very soon he'd wish he'd never been born.

Slowly I walked home from school, debating. How was I going to get Stuart? Find one of his weaknesses and expose him to ridicule? Practically impossible. He was thin, wiry, had blond hair that he wore sleeked back from his forehead, and all the girls thought he was "cute." He was a talented artist and played the guitar in a rock band and was always surrounded with friends. So I couldn't approach him that way. On top of being "cute," popular, and talented he had the skin of a rhinoceros. On the rare occasion that anybody tried to insult him he just laughed. OK. What else could I try?

Instead of making Stuart look foolish I could change myself to the point that he'd never find a way to insult me again. I was fat; I must be fat or Stuart wouldn't call me names; then I would changed myself from fat to thin.

At least half the girls I hung out with thought they were fat and were always trying to lose weight. Privately I was bored with all this talk of diets and exercise plans. None produced any lasting result; wasn't there anything else to talk about except calories and fat contents of foods? There were so many more interesting things to talk about; music, books, art? I had a piano and I had been studying since I was seven; my piano teacher was proud of me. I read all the time and owned dozens of books; a lot of the women in my family were talented artists and were always sculpting, weaving, painting. Did the whole world revolve around one's body?

It was a little too late to question the status quo. To get Stuart to leave me alone I had to lose weight.