I remember it like it was yesterday. The firs day time that I found out that my body could be my enemy, could put me in danger, could make someone hurt me. I remember it like it happened this morning. I was all of 16. My dad wanted me to get confident getting around on my own and taking care of business on my own. I paid the monthly major bills for the family. The first time he went with me, showed me who to pay, made sure that I understood the importance of receipts and told me to have lunch with the remaining change or see a movie. The first few times he put me on the MARTA train it was effortless and I felt free. I felt so damn free. Heck, there was always $40 left from paying the bills and I had the freedom to walk around a little, explore a bit and have lunch and see a movie. SWEET!! I would get dressed in my shorts or a pair of jeans, put on a t-shirt and my tennis shoes and be out. And one day it happened. One day, as I stood in my pink v-neck pull over t-shirt, one day as I stood in my acid washed jeans and white high top Reeboks – some man decided that he just had to have me. This was WAY before the I don’t know what her age is period that we are in now. I was a baby and I looked it. My folks did not play that grown girl mess AT ALL. NO, I wasn’t physically raped. This man who I tried desperately to get away from followed me talking about the most disgusting things that he wanted to do to me. This man made me ashamed of my body, made me want to hide. He followed me about 3 blocks until some man – and trust me I had passed many men and women who witnessed this man behaving this way towards me who looked into my terrified face and did nothing to make him stop - saw me and started talking to me like the nasty guy did not exist. He gave the man a look shook his head and walked me to the station. I was SOOO thankful. When I called my dad to pick me up from the station I told him what went on. He sat in the car seething. He looked me up and down and … I became more ashamed. I did not do anything – hell I was just a teenage girl in jeans and a t-shirt paying the family bills. He apologized for the man and explained that more than likely as I became more of a woman this would increase. It did. I gained weight because I was afraid. I avoided men because I was afraid of them for years. Today I learned that I was terrorized. Yep, walking behind young women and speaking to them any kind of way – taking their security and making them incredibly, horribly vulnerable is terrorism. Men need to deal with this and accept that too many of them behave like this. I note young women being treated like this by so called “men”. I wonder if they ever heal from the pain of it, cause it hurts!! The very being we depend on for protection and safety steals it from us and for what!! This makes me very, very, very angry. However, I will continue to work on losing weight, and I have become kind of adept at telling men to get the hell away from me in verbal and non-verbal ways. I pray that I am prepared for the nonsense that comes from some so called MEN when I lose more weight.
