Obsession:

Tinka always had an obsession about her looks, especially about her skin and her weight.  As a child she and her sister had an accident sitting at the coal stove playing with the iron poker, by stirring the coals through the grid that holds the fire.  Warm ashes then would fall through in an ashtray at the bottom.  By doing that the heat was more and it warmed up the room much faster.  But on that day the cleaner had dumped his old torchlight batteries in the ashtray to collect the lead after it was melted and cooled down for making weights for fishing.  Usually it would’ve been safe for the two girls if they did not help the hot coals to fall through and heated the ashes more than usual.  The next moment a heavy explosion made the stove plates fly and hot ash and coals was filling the entire room, Tinka was the unlucky one who took the blow in the face.  The heat of the flying ash, coal and debris left her face in a black covered mask that burned her skin, her sister came unharmed out of the dusty cloud asking what the hell just happened.  Tears were making white lines upon Tinka’s dirty cheeks as they ran down her pretty funny looking face, from ash in her eyes but not crying yet and with a quite bewildered look on her face, not knowing what hit her.  Her sister started to laugh and thought it was quite funny, but Tinka yelled to call her mother because she was hurt.  The next moment her mother came storming into the house seeing the pathetic looking girls in front of her.  If it were not for the white trails on her face, her mom would’ve thought she was the cleaner’s child.  She told Tinka to go wash her face and clean herself up.  She then really cried and said it was burning too much.  Only then her mom realized she was hurt.  She helped her clean herself by cleaning her face with Vaseline and had put some paraffin-gauze to prevent scaring.  Tinka had to stay in her room for several days not to catch infection.  She healed quite well, but white spots where the skin was lifted stayed a burden to Tinka for the rest of her life.  She always thought people might think she did not wash her face and developed a deep obsession about it and for good reason since others had made nasty remarks about her looks after that.  When older she could start covering it up with make-up but that again caused her to suffer with acne and pimples, which also left scaring because her fingers could never resist anything touching her face.  The main reason she still wears her hair back and out of her face, and cannot handle someone touching her face without her permission.  She was called “speck-face” at times and the hurt knowing she was not responsible for what she looked like.  That remained a tender point to Tinka all of her life.

The second obsession that Tinka has is her weight.  She was always a real short shit among the other kids.  A little chubby around the belly, something she was born with and could never understood why she could not have a flat tummy like her sister who was the needle-thin one of the two.  She had these very strong well-shaped legs that could be called heavy.  With big thighs and thin ankles, the nice look for some, but to Tinka another burden she did not feel comfortable with most of her life; more so in her later years, older and less sport active and after having 4 kids.  Of course it did not help having a partner to break her down by telling her quite often what a pathetic body she had.  That made her neglect herself even more because the harder she tried to look better the bigger the insults; eventually giving up on taking care of herself and her body.  Then she developed serious back problems and had to do something about it, that was the same time her mother had died and her farther gave her all of her mom’s clothes; which were four numbers to small for Tinka.  That day she took a vow that a year later she would fit into those clothes.  She started to lift weights and lost a lot of weight reaching her goal in just e few months.  A year later she fit into what was given to her.  But close to becoming anorexic she stopped.  She had her passport photo taken and a few others and with a shock realized she over did the weight loss thing terribly and looked like a ghost.  Twenty years older and sick of herself she stayed thin for a very long time until bad remarks were coming her way from her partner degrading her driving her further into self loathing.  Each time someone referred to her body he would break it down by saying hurtful things to the point that she decided never but never be naked when having sex; yes sex, making love did not exist in their relationship; love was just something you would read about in books.  There was no love between them during sex.  She was the faithful wife giving her husband what he wanted but without thinking of her own needs.  She would cover herself in a towel the moment she undresses to take her bath; cover up again getting out and dressing herself, not taking the towel down before she was covered.  Something that died many years ago, never be mended within the relationship that killed it.

Slowly but surely Tinka started to gain some weight back again.  Life treated her bad but no worse than she treated herself.  Money was yet again to become an even bigger problem than her pathetic self image.  She could not afford to eat healthy food, living on a diet of whatever was available.  Bread her biggest enemy became her food of survival.  Her body started to expand no matter how hard she tried not to gain weight.  A constant battle to stay in shape would be part of her life forever.  One chocolate and a zits would show, two chocolates and her hips would grow, three chocolates and to the toilet she needed to go J

Now she has new purpose in life to stay in good shape.  Her soul mate gave her confidence enough to take action and to pamper herself in the name of love.

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