It’s not a swear word. It’s not an insult. It’s not a “horrible thing” to say about my body. Why? Simply because I’m not saying it to hurt myself or put myself down in any way. It’s acknowledgment of the way my body is. I don’t say “I’m fat” because of this…the fat on my body does NOT define me. My actions, my thoughts, my personality, what I say, where I was raised, how I was raised, where I live, my friendships, my past, my present, how I feel…those things are all part of what defines ME. I DEFINE ME. What am I? I’m funny. I’m liberal. I’m sexy. I’m delightful. I’m stubborn. I’m moody. I’m quirky. I’m loyal AF. I’m protective AF. I’m feisty. I’m silly. I’m serious. I’m hard-working. I’m lazy. I’m anything I want to be and nothing I don’t want to be. However, I am NOT “fat”.
Labels. Why do we label ourselves and each other? Comfort. It’s comfortable. It’s easy. It helps us “define” ourselves and the world around us. “He’s fat. She’s skinny. They’re short. We’re tall.” When we can put people into a category, like we do with animals, food, things…it helps us understand them better. It’s just not always *helpful*. It can actually hurt us and others.
I don’t care if someone calls me “FAT”. I don’t. It’s like “Thanks, Captain Obvious, tell me something I don’t know.” It often surprises people when I don’t react to them. Why should I? Do you they think I haven’t heard that nearly my entire life? Do they honestly think they are the first person to tell me that? Maybe they think I don’t have a mirror. Maybe they don’t know that I went though Junior High and High School as a fat girl. (College was fine as a fat girl…no one ever commented about my weight in college…and as I sit here realizing that…I’m actually shocked. I had a lot of suitors in college…damn…why was I so messed up and focused on Dustin?? Stupid girl!! Ugh…but I digress.) Wait…I do care when someone tries to inflict emotional distress upon me by using my body against me. It does cut, it triggers that young teenage girl inside of me that thinks no one will ever find her attractive because of her weight. I remember being on the phone with a male friend during freshman year, and him telling me how the JV Football team was talking about the girls in school and how the guys said I had “a pretty face” and if I would just lose weight a lot of them would go out with me. I was excited…because they thought I was “pretty”. Yeah – that’s what I took away from that conversation. I was 13 years old. I took away that I’m pretty and I could have a boyfriend if I would lose weight because they already thought I was pretty. I just have to be skinny, too. It had nothing to do with talent, intelligence, wit…nope…I just had to look a certain way and I was already half-way there. So, what did I do? I started to work out more and I started skipping meals. I had one friend who noticed my not eating lunch everyday. Stephanie. We cheered together on the Football squad. And then later on the Basketball squad that year. We started out as enemies. Well, she hated me in 8th grade and I never knew why. And then we became VERY close friends. She’s one of the kindest people I know to this day. But she noticed I had stopped eating lunch. She didn’t know I was telling my parents that I had a big lunch at home so I wouldn’t eat dinner. Sometimes I would eat dinner…because I was hungry AF. My cheerleading skirt started to get smaller. I was happy. But it became something different…I started to feel…righteous when I didn’t eat or ate something healthy. Almost holier-than-thou. It didn’t last though – Stephanie realized what I was doing, and she passive-aggressively made sure I stopped the skipping lunch thing. (Minnesotans are GREAT at passive-aggressiveness) So when people try to cut me by using my body size against me…I can feel 13 year old me behind me again…sad, scared, lonely, pretending to be tough, believing she will never find someone to love her…and I feel this protective self come out, pushing her behind me and wanting to ROAR to make her feel safe…forgetting she’s still VERY MUCH part of me. And that’s why I try not to say “I’m fat” anymore…because it’s not WHO I am. I’m more than what my body is. We all are.
Labels are fine for food, and cars and boats and things like that. We shouldn’t label ourselves or one another other than human beings. We’re humanity. Define yourself by the whole of your being. Not just one aspect of it. And don’t let anyone else do that for you either. You are more than just your body. You are a BEING. We aren’t called Human Bodies. We’re called Human BEINGS for a reason.
Life As I See It 