Stamped: August 14th, 2007 | Toggle Similar
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I first became aware of my cankles my freshman year of high school.

Somehow I’d gotten lucky enough to go on a weekend beach trip with a handful of the most popular girls in my school. We all shared an Honors bio class taught by a teacher with a glass eye and was full of classmates who had all been plucked from the pages of an incredibly good-looking Abercrombie and Fitch ad. Our teacher asked us all one day who’d like to go to St. Simon’s for a long weekend because she had a conference and could bring a few students.

St. Simon’s is an island off the coast of Georgia, south of Savannah. I’d never been before and raised my hand immediately. I became one of the golden chosen ones and found myself on in a van under the guise of being one of the Popular People, sitting in a van and discussing the whether or not Express really made the best jeans.

All in all it was a fun weekend—one highlight was this new dance everyone was into that I learned called The Macarena. The other was the realization that I had huge ankles. And I can thank Rachael Carmichael for informing me.

We were at a beach gift shop and everyone was pouring over a display of these cute new ankle bracelets. They were thin strips of rope-like material with a string of colored jewels in a line down the middle of the bracelet. You could get different colors and the various colors meant various fun things like "green for honesty" and "blue for fun-loving." This was a time in my life when I lived by Seventeen's horoscopes and wishing on just about anything so I loved that the kitschy of these bracelets lay in the fact that you tied them around your ankle and with each knot you made you got a wish. Then when the bracelet wore out (which I figured would be about 2 weeks since they only cost $4) your wishes came true when the knots fell out.

Cute right?

We all bought one–I think I got green. We all went outside to the boardwalk to don our new purchases. Little exclaimations of "I got four knots!!" and "This thing is too big, I think" I noticed that I could only make one knot with mine and even then it was a little snug. What,were these things made for baby ankles or what? Did I get the wrong size or something?

Rachael Carmichael noticed my single knot at the same time as I did. She glanced at my ankle and then back up at my face. and she said,

"Wow Brandy, only one knot? You've got some big ankles."

I know she didn't mean to cut me to the core. I know that she was just making an observation because the next words out of her mouth were, "So are we going to get Dairy Queen now or go back to the beach?" She had simply stated what she saw.

I had big ankles.

In fact, now that I looked at all the lean slender calves leading down to perfectly bony ankles surrounding me, I wanted to disappear. I was skinny!! I'd always been skinny!! I hit 5′8 at age 10 and had only recently tipped the scales at my heaviest–119. How could I have big ankles?

I swallowed my hurt and pretended that this girl hadn't just started me down a path to hating my cankles. I had fun the rest of my weekend at the beach and Rachael Carmichael even invited me to a party at her house the following weekend.

But I came home aware for the first time that there was something I didn't like about myself.

All my friends had self-esteem issues–they were too fat, too short, too blonde, too freckly, too something. Being raised by one of the most vain women in the great state of Georgia, I was chock full of self-esteem. Even though I was skinny as a rail with huge crooked glasses and a somewhat unfortunate taste in floral print slip dresses and colored tights, I had never wanted to look different.

I told my mom and she said that it came from my dad's side of the family so if I was trying to pick a fight to save it for him. "You have fat feet, Bran. Nothing wrong with that. When my dad came home he told me that I only had big ankles because my body was getting ready to support a lot of weight. He always knows just what to say.

I became aware at age 14 and that awareness has always been in the back of my mind. And now at 26 I feel I can finally say that I am okay with my cankles. They are sturdy and they keep me grounded. Sure I feel flashes of envy when I see girls in their cute strappy sandals teetering on 4 skinny four inch heels. I will never teeter. I will never wear any type of shoe that wraps up my leg in any way.

And I'm okay with this.

I'm living with my cankles.

Last 5 posts by Brandy

• Hell House - November 9th, 2007
• 36 going on 11 - October 9th, 2007
• College was a good time. - September 25th, 2007
• I'm the easiet girl ever to break up with - September 18th, 2007
• Christmas Lights - August 28th, 2007