Keeping up appearances part 1

I went to an all-girls boarding school from the age of 8. 

In Cumbria.

Mark Zuckerberg was just going into first grade.

Things were a little different from what they are now and us girls didn’t really give a damn about what we looked like. We were Northern. We had scuffed knees, red noses and chapped lips (it was bloody cold). We ate like troopers: everything from porridge to Lancashire Hotpot to chip butties and tinned tomatoes and fried bread (did I mention it was fricking cold??) We didn’t worry about fat or cellulite or spots or bad hair and ragged nails. Some of us didn’t even look at a razor for months!

Until the dance with the local boys’ school was announced and all hell broke loose. The week running up to the event was a flurry of madness and preparation. Hours were spent discussing every outfit in detail and being the first to borrow so-and-so’s top or boots or jeans. Tweezers were dusted off and we would queue up to get our mono’s sorted and shaped. Suddenly we gave a damn about the acne and hair and nails and the corridors would stink of ‘Stop n’grow’, Clearasil and Veet hair removal cream, a smell that would linger for a good few weeks. The suspense and anticipation was a killer but FINALLY we would pile onto the coach and drive off into the night. It was a big deal. Who would be there? Will the teachers bugger off for a bit and leave us to it? Will this god awful strapless bra last the night? Will I get a snog at the end of it? (a snog, Dear Reader,  instantly gave the green light to ‘go out’ with the boy in question and become a steady girlfriend, thus spending the next two months writing long letters of love during Biology and hanging around the pay phone most evenings...sigh!) I would wake up with a HUGE spot, always, without fail on the morning of the dance. 

Of course most of the action happened in the last twenty minutes as the first two hours were spent just STARING at the opposite sex, scarcely daring to believe they were real until someone (usually the smallest boy) would get pushed over to the most approachable looking girl (usually me, due to the spots…) and ask if his mate could dance with my mate (sigh again!). And that’s all it took. 

What I am trying to say in a rather roundabout way is that WE DIDN’T CARE (much) about looks. This all changed much later on, when I was about 17 and went to a mixed collage and was surrounded by boys ALL THE TIME. And no, I didn’t like it. Well actually that is a lie, I DID like it because they were very funny but I felt like I needed to look half decent all the time instead of slobbing around in pyjamas. We started worrying about fat and cellulite and bad hair and spots. We started eating salad. I found my rusty razor and decided that I would just wear thicker tights.  Yet the funny thing is we would have conversations like this:

“Ugg.. God you are sooo lucky you’re thin..I am such a fat moose..”

“No you are so not, my bum is wayyy bigger than yours..”

“Guys I have no boobs, being thin is crap, you are soooo lucky”

“Do you think that if I can just squeeze here and here and not eat..”

Whilst sitting down, drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits. Lots of them.  Those were the days…

No matter how much we complained, looking back I bet most of us would take back our 17 year old bodies in a heartbeat.  I would!

The other thing is that chemotherapy made my body go nuts and shed 15 kg in 2 months. At Christmas I weighed 56 kg. I haven’t been that weight since I was about 12 (I did talk about the chip butties and biscuits didn’t I?) and guess what? I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it because I looked like crap; nothing fitted me, my bones stuck out, my eyes were sunken and yellow and my knees looked massive compared to my skinny thighs. Flash moment! Thin? No thank you very much.

Now that I can actually eat, I am going to eat (healthy of course!) and I am going to enjoy it safe in the knowledge that I now like the skin I am in and it ain’t skin and bones.