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Forget that “Just happy to be here” shit
I think I must have had the chicken pox the day they called all the girls together in the school auditorium and taught them a whole list of things like:
- Evaluate parts of your body negatively as if these don’t make up YOU. “Oh, I hate my nose.” “My butt is so fat.”
- Weigh yourself compulsively even when you don’t have to make weight for anything.
- Don’t get obviously angry. Don’t swear. In fact, don’t do anything that might make anyone uncomfortable.
- Just be “Happy to be here.”
Oh, by the way, if you agree with any of that, it would be better for your state of mind if you quit reading right now.
The first time I heard that, “I’m just happy to be here,” was when I was on the U.S. team, in Europe, training for the world championships. There were a lot of rules laid down by someone who had obviously never competed in their life. Exhibit A: Everyone has to eat together because we are “a family.”
Now, my teammates ranged from some people I could tolerate to some people I liked, but even if they had been my actual family, the fact is that I weighed 56 kg for about 10 minutes a year, that being the few minutes before I was on the scale for weigh ins and the few minutes after.
My daughter, Maria says,
