Everybody has more than I do. Everybody is happier than I am. Everybody has their shit together, except for me. HA! I can’t believe I EVER thought that about other people. I was with a friend the other day, one I regard highly. She is beautiful, talented and funny – the trifecta. This girl has more insecurities than a rogue box of Twinkies at a Wal-Mart in America.
I was shocked, SHOCKED, to hear about how hard and down she was about herself. Me, constantly thinking about what a great tall, skinny body she has and the whole time she was thinking she was fat. I wanted to smack her into reality and have her grab one handful of the ass I carry around all day.
Last night at work, one of the house runners brought some cookies to me and said “You want these, you don’t never turn down no food, I know you want these.” I was like “duh, of course I want cookies.” Then I thought and said “Are you calling me fat?” mostly as a joke, because he was really just trying to be nice and he knows that I never turn down food (well, anything with sugar). He gave me the look and promptly retorted “now you know that’s not what I mean, you ain’t fat at all. At. All.”
I had a little smile for the rest of the night. I know that I’m not the F-word any more, at least not like I used to be. However, once a fat girl, always a fat girl. I strongly believe that I will always have an inner fatty, just salivating over a piece of cake or any passing glimpse at decadence, in calorie form. However, what I am not is a fat girl in a skinnier girl’s body with a negative body image of herself.
Now, what there is is two separate parts of this ‘learning to love me’ business in affect. One – the physical and two – the mental. It’s one thing to be body positive and accept yourself exactly the way you appear to be; It’s another to accept the person living inside. Who sometimes, and often times, seems like a completely different person altogether.
Like roommates the two yous can live harmoniously and co-dependently. Also, like roommates, one can be helpful and encouraging to your face and then totally trash you and set you up for failure while you’re not looking. The trick is bringing them together, and it’s very very painful.
You have to take a very honest and sobering look at yourself physically as well as all the mental tricks you’ve played on yourself since your body de-image began however many years ago. For me, I’m finding I was very very young. That’s a lot of damage to un-do. It’s not all done, but it’s unraveling at quite a steady pace these days.
What I’ve learned is it has to be done on your own terms. You can’t seek outside help for this, well you can to get you started, but like all difficult things in life it is left up to you to implement any lasting changes. So you begin. For me, and this happens every time I have ever started a diet or weight loss program… I work so hard at the beginning, because it’s starting a new lifestyle and I go to the gym and eat right for so long and don’t feel any changes.
Then my body does change, but the changes I see and feel make me feel fatter, not skinnier. And because I don’t feel better after “all my hard work” I slowly start to get discouraged and slip back into old routines. Then time goes by, the pounds and mean words come back and one day I’m sitting on the toilet going through old facebook photos and realize I wasn’t even that fat to begin with!
What. The. Fuck!
Luckily, I caught myself before I slipped too far this time. Roughly gaining about 10 of what I lost last year. I felt so gorgeous last year and even at 10 lbs heavier I’ve been going through a phase lately of fat, disgustingness. Part of it has to do with the female design to feel undesirable at any instance of walking past a 6’2” blonde bombshell or a pole. The constant pounding to be better, be different, be like that person and buy those clothes to blend in or cover it up.
I remember (one of the times) a guy picked another girl over me. I was literally in bed, for days, with a pang so intense in my stomach. It was the most violent heart-break I had had at the time. We were not official, but I thought that’s where we were headed (ha, I feel like I’ve said that way too many times in my life). He knew her before me, fine. He liked her the whole time and I had no idea. She was skinny and short. I’m not skinny and I’m not short. I felt like a fool, I felt hurt and I felt fat.
It took some work to get me out of that rut. Luckily, I was able to get out by myself and not with another guy and his constant affirmations. It was me getting my act together, little by little. I started taking care of myself because it finally, finally, finally clicked – that no one else was going to. Ever. The force-fed fairy tale bullshit we get as children from the Disney deception design leads us to believe that HE will come and fix, or help fix everything.
I became much happier when I let go of the idea of true love. Love, yes. However, True Love is the gift only I can give to myself. I look in the wall to wall mirror in my bathroom and smile, almost every time. I noticed this the other day. I love the way I look because I’m finally comfortable with my body because I’m finally comfortable IN my body. I’ve had enough meaningless sex to feel wanted and I’ve had enough meaningful sex that has ended with me feeling like a piece of meat.
So I’m writing off sex. No, no, no just kidding. I am though still in the process of welding the two lives of me together. One day I will eventually find a partner who loves both sides and not just one. However, he won’t be able to, until I do. So my body affirmation project has begun and I love myself the way I am. Big, jiggly thighs and all.
Adventures of the untoward 