The shape of our lives
Her: I can’t imagine you as a fat kid.
Me: Oh, trust me, I was.
Her: I just can’t picture it.
My mom: Do you want to see pictures of him when he was chubby?
Her: Yes!
Me: Oh god…
If I said the words: Spike, Crack, Snip, or Kick and asked you to imagine that the sounds the words made had a shape, what shape would they be?
What if I said the words: Gooey, Balloon, Smooth, or Marshmallow?
If you’re like most people, the former comes across feeling kinda hard and pointy while the latter comes across as soft and rounded.
This is called the bouba–kiki effect.
Basically, words give us a certain feeling and have a “shape” to them in our heads.
Thought about this the other day because I’ve been telling everyone for years that I was fat at 14 but I only recently realized that was inaccurate.
I was fat in 5th grade so I would have been 10 then.
That was the most traumatic time of my childhood.
Childhood traumas stay with us for so long because of how time works relative to our age.
Case-in-point: I was fat for four years, from 10 to 14.
For a 52-year-old, that’s not that big a deal – after all, it only comprises approximately 8% of my life (4/52=0.08).
Unfortunately, when you’re 14 years old, those four years comprise almost a 1/3 of my entire life up to that point (4/14=0.29).
But it’s more than that, isn’t it?
Like, you don’t really remember much before you’re eight years old.
So, when I was 14 years old, I only remembered six years of my life, really.
That means that, those four years of my life – ages 10 to 14 – felt like most of my life, about 67% of it, to be exact (4/6=0.67).
My point is, if words have a shape and feeling, so too do periods of our lives.
I submit that periods of our lives have a weight and shape to them as well, and only we can see and feel them.
When people say, “Just get over it,” or, “That was ages ago,” they’re not being honest with how everyone processes their youth differently from everyone else.
For me, my fat years feel soft, heavy, slow, and oversized – everything was a drag and depressing.
Even now, if I had to describe my overweight years, despite their only occupying 8% of my total life, it FEELS closer to 33% of my life.
And this is why I try to remember that the kid is processing the world very differently than I am.
Yes, he’s 10, but he really only remembers stuff and people from when he was about seven or eight, so he’s really only lived maybe three years or so?
He doesn’t truly remember much beyond that, although he has a sense of things, like the bouba–kiki effect.
Like he has a sense of loving being in NJ with his grandparents and Queens with his cousins.
He just knows they make him feel good in one way or another.
That’s why, even some 40 years later, I still know exactly what it feels like to be a fat, friendless, kid.
It’s always why I’m always obsessed with food and being fit.
Because even though it was (several) lifetimes ago, deep down – well, probably not even that deep down – I’m terrified that I’ll wake up trapped in that fat kid’s body once more.
Which, let’s be honest, is only a few poor carbohydrate decisions away.
Me: Hit a new milestone today.
Her: What’s that?
Me: Welp…somehow, I’ve eaten four pounds of peanut butter in five weeks.
Her: You’re kidding.
Me: If only. (thinking) Now I gotta go out and pick up more peanut butter.
Location: my dry-as-a-bone room
Mood: stressed
Music: I paint a picture of the days gone by (Spotify)
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