The struggle- it's real. But we mask it, and we hide it, and we walk away from it thinking it will finally just disappear. I've struggled many years like countless before me and thousands after me. We're told our situations and problems are trite and simple but they don't understand. The problems we face as individuals make up the calamity of "world hunger," "poverty," "sexism," "disease," and the myriad of other things that make the world far from perfect. No matter how much we listen to John  Lenon's "Imagine" we're no closer to Utopia or Heaven-on-Earth. I grapple and brawl with the monster behind my curtain, fighting to keep it back from sight. He prowls and slithers, growls and hisses, screaming to get everyone's attention. I toil day in and day out to maintain this facade, as if I don't have a monster hidden behind a curtain but we all know we do. It came close to discovery 5 years ago when I let me guard down. You may be thinking, "Well wouldn't you want to stop worrying and instead have the stage fumigated of this wretch?" Well, no. Denial keeps him at bay because he's a sleeping giant. Besides, he can never be eradicated. He will always be the pest to keep me from sneaking up on another peice of cheesecake and the nuisance to drive me towards hours of physical excursion. He also encouraged me to take the course that seemed to be so popular in the country; Self-Loathing and Low Body Confidence 101- I excelled at Self-Starvation and 'Skinny is Pretty' with all A's. I guess you can say he had his influence over me and now I'm even thinking like him. I don't think it will ever go away. I will always find myself nit-picking my body parts in the mirror at first light and lifting my shirt after meals to ensure that I haven't gotten bigger. Since the scale broke I've had to resort to other measures. Now I just estimate based on how much I can pinch on my stomach and thighs. But I won't let the monster from behind the curtain go partly because he's now a part of me and also because I don't think it will make a difference. Society makes us believe that we're nothing, that we make no difference. It belittles the problems that exist into non-existence. It was too late for me to get any help because now I'm conditioned to gag at dessert but it isn't too late for the third graders who are now pining over fashion magazines and deciding their course of action to shred the pounds. It isn't too late for the boys who sleep with weights in their hands. Or the moms who long for their pre-baby tummies. Much like the "iron curtain" that fell between the USSR and the rest of the world, our shame curtains must be torn down and the enemy must be destroyed. And much like the Soviet Union, my monster will die eventually. We must all pay attention to the man behind the curtain, or in this case the moster behind the curtain, because otherwise the problems will continue and our hopes for living life in peace and sharing the world will be impossible.