Breasts, Thighs, and Other Things Women Worry Over

I come from a long line of anxious women. When gathered together, the anxiety festers as one woman's molehill carves itself into a cumulative mountain. My childhood was a time in society when mental health matters within the collective consciousness were neither discussed nor given credence. Women were simply high-strung, children were often the cause, and large gatherings were a recipe for disaster.

One memorable Thanksgiving, the ingredients for holiday hijinks were all present and accounted for within the confines of my Aunt's small farmhouse. Immediately, my cousins and I were prohibited from play and all other facets of general childhood mischief. There was little space to make noise with a sleeping baby and a sleeping off-duty police officer Uncle occupying the house's upstairs quarters. For my part, I always occupied too much space. I was always too loud and too insistent. Upon arriving for Thanksgiving, toting leftover Halloween candy, my aforementioned Uncle demanded my Snickers bars as lodging reimbursement. When I found out soon after that I was the only child forced to pay such a severe fine, I could not contain my need to hash out the injustice of the entire situation. Never one to quietly contemplate my next conversation, I remember being both terrified of making noise and incapable of calming the desire to be noisy. The thick undercurrent in the atmosphere was the knowledge that some misbehaving youth would wake up one of the two sleeping parties, and utter chaos would ensue. Whose offspring would be the offending party remained to be seen, and in foresight, we were all collectively punished to silent games of Monopoly as our only form of amusement.

My Aunt's rustic and thin-walled homestead was not the ideal location for family gatherings. This year, she had put her foot down most fastidiously, insisting she would not be traveling. In my family, whoever pouts the loudest hosts. There was not enough room for the bodies trying to inhabit her kitchen, nevertheless a large meal and sizzling temperaments. Due to these constraints, we stored the rolls in the lone bathroom's bathtub. When my sleeping Uncle finally woke up, at no fault of my or my cousin's various banking disputes, he went to do the single most natural of morning routines: take a shower. Unaware of the baked goods behind the curtain, he turned on the shower and flooded the rolls. I am certain the world ended at this moment. This disturbance of peace created a tsunami of feeling as if the rolls were stranded buoys harboring the safety of Thanksgiving coming. Blame was cast in every direction, and my cousins and I shrunk down to game-sized pieces to escape retribution.

As shower-gate continued to rock the boat, another Aunt attempted to baste the turkey, removing it from the over and, in the process, splashing hot grease all down her arms. Few were concerned about her skin, more for the sake of the flooring. In my family, you constantly fear spilling on the flooring or furniture while simultaneously, we are known to carpet our kitchens, purchase white couches, and create the perfect storm. Like a true Midwestern woman, my Aunt refused medical attention and tended to the decades-old floorboards instead. I wanted to ask her if it hurt but could not discern if I was concerned for her well-being or that of the linoleum.

What sticks out most in my mind from this Thanksgiving comedy of errors is something my Uncle said to me during a Monopoly game later that evening. When the baby had been fed and returned to sleep, Aunts and Uncles had retired to various lodgings of choice, and it was just my sisters and me to play with; my Uncle took us on in a verbal game of real estate. We could hear the harshness of grown women's voices echoing from the kitchen, though I could not confidently say what subject was creating such great discord at the time. It might simply have been a rehashing of the rolls. My Uncle appeared to cringe with every raised octave, and he looked me steadfastly in the eyes and asked me to promise him something. I was suspicious of my Uncle as I had never gotten closure from the Snickers incident, but something in his expression bade me give him my full attention. His command, one I have never forgotten, was this: "It is up to you to break the cycle."

I come from a long line of anxious women. I give a name to this brain-affecting, holiday stress-inducing, mountain-making disorder. The only white couch in my orbit belongs in my therapist's office. I am in my late 30s, my mother's generation twenty-plus years older than myself, and I am thankful every damn day that we can now name the beast. No matter what goes right in life and what goes wrong, it is silence that stains the situation, like grease to a floorboard, lingering long after the last guest has left.