What's Your Secret?

I'm a skinny girl. I'm going to be completely honest. I'm skinny. I am 5'7 and today I weigh 115 pounds, which is five pounds less than what I weighed when I graduated high school nearly ten years ago.

Pretty much any day I go out in public someone will comment on my weight. "You are so skinny," they say, as if they were giving me a compliment. Their next comment is predictable. I've heard it from family members, friends, acquaintances and strangers. "What's your secret?"

At this point, I usually just smile, shrug, and say, "Oh, I don't know." And that's the end of it. But it's not the truth. The truth is that I know exactly why I am so skinny. But most of these people probably don't care anyway. They are just making conversation. Somehow commenting on someone's weight just became everday small-talk.

I was recently at a community picnic when I ran into a distant relative I had not seen in sometime. "You are so skinny." I never know what to say. Do I say thanks or what? Do I say that she looks skinnier? I never know what to say. Then it came. "What's your secret?"

I don't know what came over me. I must have been feeling a bit snarky. I suddenly found myself telling her my whole medical history. I have Ulcerative Colitis. And I told her. I told her about how I feel sick and how it causes me to lose weight and I really told her more than I should have.

And she replied, "That must be so nice."

I was shocked. I stared at her to see if she was joking. But she just had a smile frozen on her face. As I related this incident to a friend I wondered if the girl just hadn't been listening. How could she have said that it would be nice to have a chronic illness???

Then I got my second shock. My friend told me that she would be willing to have my illness if it meant she would be as skinny as me.

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?!? So begins my rant...