CLUBFOOT

11:03 A.M.—in a random parking lot, looking for the meaning of life in a shallow puddle

I was born with a slight deformity.

Okay. Three.

Firstly, I was born with jaundice, which is, in itself, no deformity at all but a common condition affecting six out of ten babies. But a deformity I will call it. Because I like things happening in three—and for people to take pity on me being born with Simpson-like skin.

Secondly, I was a big baby. Like big big. And my mum, the size and weight of a malnourished fallow doe, struggled so much that the doctors had to bring a suction cup to get me out. Yes. You read that right. Thus, I was born with a “needle head” as it is referred to, where I come from—the land of vaginas, suction cups, and yellow babies.

Finally, I was born with a clubfoot.

Of the third one, no one really talked about. The very first instance was when I was around 8 years old; I remember my mother walking behind me and berating me to put my left foot “out” and walk like a duck. There are brief memories of us going to a chiropodist. Then a chiropractor. Of trying many, many different shoes to find one that might accommodate my custom-made sole.

Only recently did I discover that I actually had a brace/splint/cast on from my birth until I was about 8 months old to correct my foot.

There are no pictures to attest to it. No picture of a chubby baby with a weird head shape slowly deflating and changing into a normal colour with her toes touching her shin. No picture of a baby-sized brace/splint/cast correcting it.

When asked why no one thought about keeping a memento of this first transitional phase of my young life, my mum muttered a vague answer.

‘Why would we have wanted to remember it? It was something that needed to be fixed.’

Of course, I now know that my mother felt shame. Shame that she had not delivered a conventionally perfectly healthy baby. Shame from people’s remarks, those of family members and members of the medical team. Shame at her own body for having failed her, and thus, for having failed me.

But for the sake of this entry, allow me to be selfishly dramatic.

Alright. So—

Could those 8 months have forever altered the trajectory of my life?

CLUBFOOT

or

The Need to Hide What Is In Need of Fixing, Then Pretend It Never Existed

When the monthly hormonal pimples sprout across my face, I can hardly stand to look in the mirror. When I catch my candid reflection on a random surface, my silhouette unposed and my face relaxed, I feel betrayed. When my bleached hair is not quite the right colour because I’ve run out of toner, I feel the visceral need to cower away when looked at; I will round my shoulders, lower my head, and count the minutes till I’m back home, safely ugly in the confines of my home.

I’ve never been quite the athletic type. I fared rather well in PE, but only when the sport was entertaining enough. I was not in any clubs except for that one year when I joined a dojo to learn judo, as my mother wanted me to be capable of defending myself. I ended up leaving because a kid four years older than me slapped me across the face for losing, and no teacher did a thing. So much for building confidence and bullying bullies, huh?

I’ve never been the athletic type, yet I have always longed to be skinny.

But bodies have a funny, magical, inherited way of working. Based on your genetic history, gender, age, but also environmental factors, your ability to lose weight will or will not be easy.

Well, my body stores fat like it is designed to. And it is.

But for a young girl, this most simple logic didn’t sit well with her. She felt bitter. She felt vengeful. She felt ashamed.

I felt ashamed. Even though I was fifteen and a completely normal size for my age and height.

So I stopped going to the swimming pool. I stopped wearing tank tops (I still don’t). And I hid to work out.

During COVID, that period of time when the whole wide world was put on pause (remember much, yeah?), I purchased a beginner HIIT course from a fitness influencer. For six months, I waited for my parents to leave and for the house to be completely empty before I dared to do the warm-ups. I didn’t put on workout clothes. I didn’t listen to music.

In silence, I would follow the routine, mentally preparing my nonchalant smile when people would remark on my physique having leaned, repeating solemnly my victorious answer.

‘Oh, did I lose weight? Maybe.’ A practised shrug of the shoulders. ‘I didn’t mean to. It just happened.’

Once, my mom came back early and caught me out of breath, sweaty, with my face flushed the reddest red. When she asked what I had done, I muttered something about dancing. I can’t dare imagine what she might have thought I was doing.

When I bleached my hair for the first time, I ended up looking like a yellow leopard.

I had just turned sixteen, and I had a dream, alone for a weekend in my grandmother’s bathroom. My roots were as pale as my skin, the end of my hair a fading orange, and there were patches of my natural brown peeking here and there from the most uneven application known to men and hairstylists. I clogged the sink. I destroyed my waist-long hair. I came back home to my parents, head hidden under a bathrobe.

At the worst of my depression, I lost all my friends.

It happened right after high school and around the time I got my first real job during COVID.

I finished high school in 2016. COVID struck in 2020. I’ll let you do the math.

(I still can’t fathom having those years of my life lost to The Void)

Anyway. To make it short, I was supposed to go study abroad, leave my dear French-Swiss border and move to the great Montréal when the news arrived, directly from my parents’ mouths.

‘C’est la merde.’*

*roughly translated to ‘We’re fucked.’

The money set aside for my scholarly pursuits had to be used for a legal battle with our hometown mayor. (The guy was wrong, along with his administration; we won, but my family still suffered a decade-long debt.) So I had to kiss goodbye my Canadian dreams. My French dream, too—the toll of having no money to pay rent or eat or buy a bus ticket being quite the hindrance, as you can imagine, even a little closer to home at the University of Lyon.

During those years, I quite simply disappeared.

Out of myself. Out of my life. Out of other people’s lives.

If not for the fact that I lived with them, I might not have seen my parents for months on end. Not because I was busy. Not because I was bitter over some past argument. Not because I was living. But because I simply wasn’t there.

I hid away from my friends, disappearing a little further away with each message not sent, not read. With each lie pretending an impediment. Shame was suddenly a stronger advisor than the desire for comfort through companionship.

‘No, I can’t hang out, my parents need me for administrative stuff. No, I can’t come. I’m with my grandmother. No, I’m not avoiding you. I just have a lot happening right now.’

I refused to see my friends until I had fixed myself. Until I was whole again. Until I was back in my own life as though I had never left it behind, between one broken dream and a stolen can of tomato soup. I refused to exist until I had fixed myself.

And to fix myself, I had to hide.

But let me tell you something, you who reads me, bright little Comet soaring through the great digital cosmos.

Hiding got me nowhere.

In the end, it was answering a friend’s text, then another, that got me to go to a wedding and get a redo. A proper goodbye.

In the end, it was telling my parents that I was lost in the Void that got me in therapy.

In the end, it was showing my leopard hair that got my mother to get me a hair appointment in the very next hour.

In the end, it was going outside to work out (workout clothes, music, and all!) that got me to feel good in my body, with my family even joining me, trying to do burpees.

In the end, it's taking up space when I felt like disappearing that broke the cycle.

This little, silly blog might never get me anywhere. It might not even be read by anyone other than me. Or my sister.

But it doesn’t quite matter. As long as I keep showing up.

As long as I continue walking away from my hiding spots, head held high, shoulders square, pimples proud, and—

—clubfoot first.