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Oct

2017

Confessions of a Nearly 40 Year Old

Posted by admin on 31 Oct 2017 / 4 Comments

Confessions of a ‘Nearly 40yo’ #31102017

As a kid, no one cared that I wasn’t the same weight as others. The kids asked if I was Chinese though… then I was a teenager and everyone started calling me skinny. I shaved my head and the girls would say it looked weird, like an egg. I was called Mr. Burns and Bones in high school. For some reason mentioning your lack of weight wasn’t considered rude, unlike its portly counterpart.

Then the acne kicked in… it didn’t leave until I was an adult. I was also short… in Year 12 I looked like a Year 9. You won’t see a photo of me without long sleeves all through my high school years either. I had to cover up (what I thought were) my shamefully skinny arms.

I had an electronic organiser, and on my birthday, in the Year 2000, several years in the then-future I pressed enter a hundred times to write a list, deep down, where nobody would ever find it… a list of all the things I hated about myself…. You’re ugly…. I wrote… You’re skinny… Nobody likes you…

The list was rather comprehensive. Roughly 20 things I hated about myself if I recall. I now know this to be emotional disclosure. But at the time there was nobody in the world I felt I could tell these terrible beliefs to.

My 20’s came and went… still slim… early 30’s…. people still asked ‘Why are you so skinny?’… like I chose this small-boned frame of mine from a magazine or perhaps I’d been praying to the porcelain god after every meal. Either way, the question was stupid. Of course, you can’t call people stupid. That would be rude.

Never would I be seen in public shirtless, which is hard as a surfer, my ribs and chest would look like a shipwreck frame on a beach, bones poking out all over the place!

I thought I should toughen up and get changed in front of friends and not care what anyone thought; they’ll understand and accept me for who I am right? One of them saw me and laughed saying ‘You’re nothing but a skinny, white ghost!’. Suffice to say that was the last time I’d attempt such boldness for the next several years. Even now my wife asks me why I’m so shy in public pools etc.

Sri Lanka was good for my self-esteem however, I was bigger than the average man… making me reconsider my self-perception. Then in India, big billboards with skin whitening lotion adorned the city streets and bridges, confounding my view that ‘all men were meant to be darker’. Do they want to be more like me? It was insane!

I tried lifting weights and got stronger… but alas! no guns materialized on my arms. Sunbaking would last for a week then I’d be back to glow worm status after a day or two of peeling. Indonesia didn’t help my cause at all, turning 30. Bonzen surfers and babes all comfortable in their own skin while I looked like a skinless piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken…. and definitely not the boneless kind. One of the ribs.

Slowly through the mid 30’s and into the late 30’s, surfing seemed to have rendered my shoulders out a little and finally, I’d gained some. People occasionally mentioned my weight but weren’t offended by my lack of western indulgent handlebars around my waist. To those not endowed with (what they perceive to be a blessing of) a good metabolism I was still somewhat of a threat, and the occasional laugh could be heard through my window after other surfers would see me getting changed; but I remained calm and accepted my lot in life, customary to those speedily heading towards their 40’s. Or maybe they weren’t laughing at me? Maybe I heard what I wanted to hear?

Soon my family said, ‘you look like you’re getting muscles, must be the surfing’… but the mirror speaks louder than a few minor affirmations.

Doesn’t it?

Now, however, the tide has turned, the metabolism has slowed down and I’m putting on weight…

However, only in one place…

The belly.

That’s right, this insecure, slim, pimply kid finally starts to fill out, but now he looks like he’s 20 weeks with ‘one in the oven’, minus the ethereal glow to accompany it.

So after a lifetime of being called skinny, now well-meaning people mention my new breadbasket growth around my waistline and I have to think of new and creative ways to somehow avoid the fluctuation of this ever bloating, E.T. looking belly that now bestows me.

I do feel that I somehow deserve this… that my ‘taking for granted’ of my metabolism needed a just and fair consequence.

Odd, I know.

But at least now I feel somewhat connected to the vast majority of middle-aged men with glorious guts. I can rest gracefully knowing I walk among giants.

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This is an excerpt from Luke’s book ‘Confessions of a ‘Nearly 40yo” coming out in May 2019 and subsequent Movie with the same name the following year. All profits will go towards the Man in The Mirror Foundation, a non-for-profit organisation helping men transition from slimness to big bellies.

Please be aware that the above statement isn’t true…. this was a facebook status and only meant for fun… however true.

4 Comments

Helen Smethurst

7 yearss ago

Loved reading this Luke! I remember my brother having a body just like you describe. We used to say that his party trick was him playing a tune on his ribs. He was like this for years until in his older years his belly became slightly more noticeable. But whenever he has to don a suit, he scrubs up well; as I am sure you do. AND it is amazing how many men seem to get more attractive to the eye as they age…….(says she, smiling) xx

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