I never thought I’d have the nerve to say this out loud, much less write it on a very public web site, but I have cankles. Always have, I just never knew they were called that.
See, growing up my mother was never happy with how her body looked. Her hips were too wide, her thighs were too fat and her calves were too thick. Heard that all the time. When, in truth my mother has a beautiful body, albeit pear shaped. She has a very small and femine waistline. Her weight fluctuates a bit, but for a woman in her 50s she’s pretty much got it going on. She looks great in a dress and even better in a suit. But, she’s always talking about how fat she is.
When I hit puberty I watched my body morph into a replica of my mother’s. Small-ish breasts on a petite frame, complete with small waist–everything from there down, though was somehow bloated. From the bellybotton down everything was a sie or two bigger.
For the longest time I struggled with my pear-shaped body. Even when I weighed just 110 pounds of pure muscle (due to non-stop atheletics) I thought I had a hideous big butt. When I left high school and put on the rest of my womanhood weight, thereby scoring a bigger pair of boobs than I thought I had coming. Go me, or something. Some years later Sir Mix-A-Lot and Jennifer Lopez made big booties fashionable. Women were getting ass implants. With time I learned to take the “You’ve got a fat ass!” statements that occured from time to time as compliments, and I learned to accept my bountiful, but beautiful, lower-self.
Well, all except for one feature: my freakishly shapeless and overly-large lower leg and ankles. Trust me, they are heinous to behold. My fat ankles have forever kept me in long pants during the grueling summer months, and out of skirts unless they were long or worn with jet black tights. I’ve only rarely felt feminine in anything that reveals my legs. Unfortunately, my hefty ankles are set atop a ridiculously small pair of feet. Size 6. Teetering about above my tiny shoes are ankles like boulders.