Stretch marks? There’s a cream for that and a more expensive one if need be.
Stained teeth? Not with these white strips! Just don’t ask what’s in them.
Too fat? Here’s a diet plan so expensive you can’t even afford food.
Too skinny? Wear this bra that pushes up your tits—because youstillneed massive tits.
What I realised, though probably far too young, is that some things can’t be “fixed.” There were noten quick ways to grow more fingersmagazine articles for me to read as a teen. No creams that wouldblurorfixorcorrectmy hand.Just deep pockets, long sleeves, and strategic posing that kept my hand out of view. Hidden like all flaws should be.
And though it was positively mortifying at the time, I owe a lot to Marcie for calling me on the hiding. It was my fourteenth birthday party, and I had all my friends meet us at the local pool. We were taking photos together with my friend’s disposable camera when Marcie came storming over from the set of lounge chairs she and my mother had claimed earlier in the day.
“Winnifred June McNulty, what are you doing?” she roared.
“Nothing,” I answered with aheftydose of attitude.
“Baby girl…” She laughed without humour. “The rest of these girls have their hands up in the air. Two arms and two hands. You can count, can’t you? Where are yours?”
I glared over at Sarah, as if to saycome get your mother,when Marcie reached between me and a friend and pulled my right arm up into the air, holding it there in a talon-like grip. “This is who you are, baby. And it’s beautiful.” She stepped back, admiring the row of us girls with a fondness that still sits lodged in my heart. “You can’t change anything by hiding it. You’ll just look back on memories and realise you tried to erase yourself. And howsadthat would be.”
It was the way she saidsadthat hit me. That I can still hear so clearly to this day. Sad likepathetic.Which, to a teenage girl, is a blow not long forgotten.
Until then, I hadn’t realised I’d been doing it. Hiding proof of my hand, as if I could someday look back on my life and forget that I was different. After that, I tried, bit by bit, to stop erasing myself.
It was a lot of effort at first. A lot of catching myself in the act and readjusting. Then, slowly, over time, it got easier. To the point where I didn’t have to remind myself not to hide anymore—at least on the outside.
The internal struggle was harder to kick. The awful game of comparison and shame spirals followed me through most of my adolescence and into early adulthood. I often stopped myself from trying because I was scared to fail. I was being told it was okay to struggle with simple tasks while also being fed news stories of those… overachievers.
The disabled elite, if you will.
The surfer with one arm, the mountain climber with no legs, a drummer with one hand.
And, deep down, I knew I should be proud of them. They were my community, and they were only working to erase stigma for therestof us. But I didn’t feel proud. I felt bitter. Jealous too. Angry that they weren’t justgreat surfer, record-breaking mountain climber,andsuccessful drummer.To me, they were a reminder that the world will always view me differently—put me in a different bracket—even if I landed myself on a pedestal.
I didn’t want to achieve despite myself. I didn’t want todefyanything. I just wanted to feel ordinary. To not overcompensate every day. I wanted to be bad at things and have people laugh at me because that’s life. I didn’t want pity.
And when I was great at something like swimming, I didn’t want to feel praised for what I’d overcome. I wanted to just begood.
It fucks you up, competing against low expectations. Nothing feels like a win.
But, like most people, I aged out of my insecurities to some extent. I found my own rhythm. I figured out who I was outside of the hold-ups and resentment I held. I started to build my identity in things that grew confidence. Who I was instead of who I wasn’t or couldn’t ever be. I stopped hiding parts of myself away.
Then came Jack.
Which rocked my confidence like nothing else.
Jack had wanted to be the hero in my story. At first. He’d hold my smaller hand in public but would smile at me in this way as if to say, silently,you don’t have to thank me. Truthfully, everyregularboyfriend thing he did for me—the little, partially expected things like carrying bags or opening doors—was never for the purpose of being kind. It was always done with some ulterior motive. Anuglyattitude that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge for fear of it all unravelling.
I was his good deed.
He loved me in spite of; never because.
Eventually, I think, it all grew a bit too tiresome. I was incapable in his eyes. Nottryinghard enough. Then he chose to become the villain. And he was good at it—I’ll give him that.
One night, late for his friend’s engagement party, I was fiddling with the strap of my heels for, I suppose, a minute too long.
“Just fuckingtry, Win,” Jack had yelled, exasperatedly throwing his body around. “People aren’t going to spend their lives waiting on you hand and foot. Stop being so goddamn useless.”
Suddenly, I was back to being that fourteen-year-old girl with her hand behind her back. Wishing, desperately, to change. To hide.
