After all, I reasoned, models were merely skinny girls with stylists.

I perpetually fell short of that goal, though, and I blamed myself.

Then I met Cindy Crawford for a standard celebrity interview.

She laughed, frowned, acted serious, skeptical.

No matter what her expression, she was unspeakably gorgeous.

I wasn’t a failure, I realized.

I was an idealist.

Meeting Cindy Crawford made a realist of me.

I scratched “attain model-gorgeous” off my to do list.

So it makes sense that I’ve neglected my hands.

They hang off my skinny, wrinkled wrists like afterthoughts.

Then I signed up for a clay class with my 5-year-old.

She loves her handscrab-crawls them over surfaces, sticks them in her mouth and generally celebrates their existence.

The first day, the instructor cut each of us a slab of brown clay.

I pictured myself a potter, pulling up a shape on the wheel, my fingers slick with silt.

Later, when it was time for everyone to wash their hands, I decided not to.

I loved clay class.

I could not believe so many shapes were at, or in, my fingertips.

Why would that be?

Your heart lives in your hands and your hands in your heart.

They are vehicles with which to shape the world and express love.

The hands' prehensile capacities distinguish us from other animals, lending us part of our humanity.

Now I know if I lost my hands, I’d be losing a lot.

By Tuesday, my body had stalled in its effort to deliver.

I cannot, Icannot, Ican’t!

I thought, lurching through dilation and contractions, and I believed it.

Now I wanted out.

Let someone else take over; let me go home.

Doubt banished, my body took over, announced its mission and gave me my baby.

You gave birth!"

They were nothing, every doctor who saw them said, harmless.

It could be something, a doctor said for the first time.

It was nothing, the doctor told me at last, not cancer.

I left her office shaking with relief.

Not the worst thing, but not the best, either.

A constellation covers my body.

In locker rooms, other women catch a glimpse and wonder.

I’ve been asked if they are bruises or scars left by burns, ringworm or a rash.

I’ve been told that it is beautiful, even, and on my confident days, I agree.

My body, though, assures that I have always, unequivocally, related to the fat girls.

My right side is bigger than my left.

My neck may be slender, but my left rib cage protrudes.

My eyes are a lovely blue-gray but I always lean slightly to the left.

This undeniable division has haunted me through my life.

Turn aroundI want to feel it!")

that I ended up crying more ferociously than I’d ever cried before.

Still, I’m lucky.

My challenges are mostly cosmeticand emotional.

As a result of my condition, I tend to be guarded and awkward at times.

I back into corners and keep my jacket on, even when it’s 85 degrees outside.

I dread things such as my yoga teacher telling us not to “slouch like a humpback.”

I did not think, You should see my back.

I took the compliment, thanked him and walked on.

I suspect the man on the street was really responding to this newfound confidence.

The safety bar wouldn’t close over my belly.

Watching my friends' fun from the boardwalk below seemed to calcify the exile imposed by my obesity.

Praise Buddha, Allah and Tinkerbell, the thing locked, though my stomach crowded against the metal.

“Your legs,” Lisa reminded me.

Rightmy long legs, not my middle, squashed me into the tiny car.

My fat brain was playing its old tricks.

Screams filled the sky, but I was still replaying the click of the lock.

Only a former freak knows how time can stop like that.

I fit in, and someone else fit in with me.

Thin, I had room for more than myself, and others had room for me.

Here was a new one: injecting poison into the forehead to banish frown lines.

Then I started noticing friends' foreheads.

One by one, it seemed their frown lines were disappearing.

Not only did they look younger, but they looked nicer, too.

A few months later, I found myself at the dermatologist, awaiting my first dose.

But maybe the truth isn’t so shameful.

I care about how I look.

Since then, I’ve returned every three months at the same $200 a pop.

I could frown again, but the frown lines weren’t as deep.

I was out of practice.

It’s not that I stopped worrying.

(I didn’t get a lobotomy.)

the stylist for the magazine planning to photograph me asked over the phone.

I wanted to ask: “How do you feel about a burka?”

Star Jonessized, before she did whatever she’s done to become a shadow of herself.

I am bigger than a bread box.

Bigger than many bread boxes.

I’m what’s politely called plus-sized and not so politely called fat.

A negligee with scarlet trim and spaghetti straps?

Bare legs and cleavage?

I’d been envisioning more of a cute head shot.

Would it help them be more at ease in their own skin?

“Jennifer Weiner

Photo Credit: David Tsay