The Seven Year Shift

The seven year shift. I didn’t believe in it. As a 12 year old girl who didn’t know the meaning of a wrinkle, when my grade school Spanish teacher ran into her classroom bawling I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her. “The Seven Year Shift!” She started screaming. We had no idea what she was talking about. So she issued the same warning, “The seven year shift... it happened, this morning!” Blank stares met her eyes full of fear and sadness.

See, Miss Kozewski was planning her wedding this school year, she’d post pictures of wedding dresses for us to vote on, and when a classroom full of 6th graders didn’t choose the one she wanted she just said, “Oh really? Well, I like the first one anyways.” She elaborated on the seven year shift without saying anything that could get her fired. It had to do with the weight of your body changing. Not up or down, but locations. She claimed that every seven years, there would be a sudden shift in weight distribution. She, in the middle of her fittings, marrying an archaeologist, (who just happened to be working in the same town my grandma lived!) was having trouble with some of her measurements.

I did not commiserate at all in 6th grade. But I do now. I have experienced my own seven year shift. At a ripe 27 years of age I am now the proud owner of a belly pooch. A pooch on my belly. This is different than belly fat. Belly fat is an evenly distributed amount of fat over the general abdominal area, and it doesn’t not affect how clothing looks all that much, you don’t have to look “fat” if you have an evenly distributed amount of fat. It’s the rolls and odd bulges and deposits of fat that make people look fat. So I’ve decided. I mean, there is a woman I’ve seen around who is very heavy, but her body proportions are so even and she can wear any style of clothing that she looks great, all the time. So – I don’t have anything against heavy people. It’s just that uneven fat distribution is my biggest pet peeve. On my own body, I think I’ve sufficiently discussed my disproportionately large thighs and ass. And now, a belly pooch. Even when I was 10 pounds heavier than I am today after graduating college, I did not have a pooch. The pooch appeared last week. Seven year shift. Damn it all.

There are certainly a lot more benefits of aging than the negatives of a pooch, so I’m going to try not to sweat it. I think that’s how God plans it. He gives you a little pooch just around the time you start to not give a damn anyways.