We Are Who We Are

When I was sixteen I worked in a hair salon, as basically an assistant to the stylists. One day I was putting laundry away and heard a client who was getting her hair washed, her voice echoing in the shampoo bowl, talking, well complaining is more like it (I don’t know what it is about salons, but as soon as you put a bunch of high strung, hair obsessed women in the same building, all they can do is bitch, and bitch, and oh yeah BITCH!)  about her I believe her sister-in-law or sister, some female in her life who was trying to get pregnant and was having troubles. “And it’s because she’s obese, I mean women that are obese have problems getting pregnant,” and it wasn’t what she said exactly but how she said it. In a very I-know-it-all voice, like being obese was the worst thing in the world. (By the way, I HATE the word obese, just an FYI) And for some reason that has stuck with me, that some people, (I’m not saying all of them, please know that) think because someone out weighs them they can talk about them like they’re aliens. Like we’re green and have weird antennas sticking out of the top of our heads, maybe if we were THIN and green and have antennas sticking out our heads, they wouldn’t care that much? Is that too dramatic? I think not, but what do I know, I’m obese.

I know there are health risks with being a plumper person, I get that. But not all plump people are un-healthy. I do exercise. I don’t run or jog or do sit ups and pushups anymore, but I do dance, swim (I LOVE swimming!), and I used to volunteer for animal rescues and shelters. And come tell me after you’ve been holding on to the leash of a seven-month-almost-fifty-pound-yellow- lab that your arms won’t feel like they just had the work out of their lives! I drink smoothies with fresh fruit, I prefer chicken over red meat, and shocking! I like vegetables! 

I do also love, love, love cupcakes from Jilly’s Cupcake Bar, which I have no idea how many calories in those beautiful stuffed morsels of cupcake heaven, and don’t plan to know. I know I don’t NEED those cupcakes (Okay, sometimes there are days where I do believe I NEED a Jilly’s cupcake. The days I like to call I-fucking-hate-everything-and-I-need-a-fucking-cupcake-day! And that Pink Velvet cupcake with the caramel filling and cream cheese frosting, really, really makes me feel better!) But it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have one every once in a while. I mean I would be pretty worried if I ate one every day, that’s a little extreme, but I deserve a treat just as much as my thinner counter parts without getting looks like I used to get on the bus as a little girl.

So are people that are plumper not supposed to eat yummy things? I say hog wash! You can have a balance.

I have been in a Type Two Diabetic Study since I was diagnosed when I was twelve. It has been a real blessing, and unlike most doctors’ offices they don’t try to make you feel bad into losing weight, (which by the way in my experience doesn’t really work, unless you want me to go home, cry, eat a piece of cake, and then proceed to wonder how long I would have to walk on the treadmill or how many crunches I would have to do on the Ab Lounge for me to get rid of that piece of cake, or if it would be easier for me to just stick my finger down my throat)

I have a dietician, whom I LOVE. She has a super sweet southern accent, glasses, and long blonde, almost white hair. She’s middle aged, and is in good shape. And the first time she walked into my doctor’s office of the diabetic study I thought “oh good, another person to ask me ‘now what do you need to do lose this weight problem?’, if I knew that don’t you think I would be doing it?”

(Oh on a side note, there are times that I think some people who are doctors shouldn’t be, or should at least take some how-to-talk-to-actual-human-beings classes. Once I had a doctor tell me after I told him about my horrible menstrual cramps, that I should just take some ibuprofen and I will be fine. Okay buddy, why don’t I kick you in the balls as hard as I can every time I feel a huge cramp that makes me double over in agony, and let’s see if some ibuprofen makes you feel ‘just fine’. Because I doubt it will, but the act might make me feel better!)  

But when she sat down across from me, and smiled a genuine sweet smile, and introduced herself, I felt oddly comfortable. She asked me what I wanted to do career wise, and I told her I want to be a writer, which made her face light up and said that was amazing. (I later learned that before she was a dietician she wrote thriller novels) She then proceeded to tell me that she didn’t want me to diet. I opened my mouth and closed it again. I wanted to say “Um, don’t you know that’s exactly what you should want me to do? That you are supposed to talk about the food groups, and exercise and all that crap that I have come to think of as crap. And that I can do this! And that it will be hard but it can happen with discipline! All that corny crap?” But I didn’t say that, I just looked at her. She smiled and in her southern accent said “Nope, because if I do, and you start, you’ll stop. Just a fact,” I nodded, still in shock. “I just want you to pick one thing, ONE THING, that you can live without, and try to give it up,” and she said it with such ease and it’s not really a big deal way her accent made it sound, that I just nodded again. I chose eating out, because frankly at the time it wasn’t that hard since I couldn’t afford it. Next time I went in I lost five pounds, and you would have thought that I won a marathon. I wasn’t even trying. It was awesome. I don’t deprive myself, and I’m happy.

I know it must still be weird to hear that I am happy to be a plus-sized woman, but I am! I am confident in my looks, how many people can say that? How many people can say ‘I’m sexy and I know it, and if you don’t think so, well I don’t need you’? Not many. And again that makes me sad. Good people, people who are happy, and loving, and good hearted, those are the beautiful people. The one’s with imperfections, who care about people, about life, and are joyful. Who laugh happily, who smile and flirt and have good times, those are the people who are beautiful. Those are the people that are sexy, gorgeous. Those are the people I love, to me it doesn’t matter what size your jean size is. It matters to me the size of your heart. Does that sound corny? Ah, well, I don’t care; I am one of those people who say the corny things! I write them down and stare at them until they are imprinted in my brain and heart. Again corny? Again I don’t care! I am who I am, and you better love me, because I probably love you, because I love beautiful souls.

Okay, okay! I will stop now, with one last thing. Be who you are, love yourself; love the people who love you. Be beautiful (it’s not hard, believe I am it every single day, and the feeling is amazing!) Oh and peace on earth (I know that has nothing to do with I just wrote, I just thought I would throw it in for good measure, because I think peace on earth is something most beautiful people want!) J

"Is being fat the worst thing a human being can be? Is being fat worse than being vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring, evil, or cruel? Not to me," - J.K. Rowling

Ah, childhood....

When I was little I never felt guilty about eating junk food, but I did feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I knew what people were thinking (and sometimes saying) that I shouldn’t probably eating my CRUNCH bars or pizza (stuffed crust, extra cheese, yum!) my families favorite dessert Ding Dong cake, or just your run of the mill Little Debbie or Hostess cakes, but I still ate them, because why shouldn’t I if the other kids got to? But I knew I was expected not too. To be so worried about being chunky, that I would not eat that stuff. To me I thought it was so unfair. “Why do the other girls get to be skinny?” No one had an answer for me. I played outside, I rode my bike, swam in the summer time, but I always kept gaining weight. I didn’t know what else I could’ve done. It wasn’t like all I was doing was lying on the couch drinking soda after soda, eating crap all the time. We didn’t have crap in the house all the time. So what was the deal? When I was twelve I was diagnosed with type two diabetes (thanks Dad) and polycystic ovaries (PCOS). We learned that PCOS can cause weight gain, and make it harder for some people to lose weight. Okay, one mystery solved. You start to wonder if when all you do is drink Slim Fast diet drinks at twelve years, and GAIN weight, if there’s something else going on. But to the kids that you go to school with, they don’t really care, at least the bullies don’t. I was different, I was their prey.   

I remember being on the bus, the older girls would surround me on my seat (where I sat alone) and would start their daily torture. “Hey, what are you going to do when you get home? Eat all your Oreo’s?” or “Hey how much do you weigh anyway? It’s got to be a lot! Do you break the scale? Hahahahaha!” They would try and poke my giggly flesh, as I tried to stare ahead, to not my tears fall that were burning behind my eyes, to ignore their laughing and poking and pointing. I remember feeling like I couldn’t breathe, like if I just stayed still that maybe they would leave me alone. The seven minutes it took to get from the school to the apartment I lived in with my mom and my brother were the most painful times I can remember, trying to figure out how to wiggle my pudgy body out of the window of a moving bus, because I could not think of a more painful situation than what I was going through on that bus. I would trudge down the steep hill to my home, drop my backpack by the front door and bawl my eyes out on my brother’s chest (secretly a part of me hating him because he was thin) hiccupping and still crying as he called the principle about the bullies. I remember the next day stepping on the bus with my grade school principle and watch her ask the girls if they bullied me. Of course they said no, and that was the end of the investigation. I can picture my eight year self, staring at my principle, the woman who was the boss, and who just accepted the bullies answer.  I wish I could go back in time, back in time to say “Seriously lady? Did you fucking expect them to fess up? What the fuck?” It was at that time that I learned to not tell adults about any teasing that came my way, because all that happens is that nothing happens. I keep getting bullied, but now with the added bonus of being a snitch. Awesome. All this comes back to the fact that I was, and so were others that were different, were brutally teased and taunted because we didn’t look or act like everybody else. Why? Why do people need this power, even at so young an age?

I have to admit that at one point in my childhood I did have the opportunity to bully someone. And I had a rush, I thought “Finally, pay back, here we go!” but I hate myself after I teased this girl. And later I apologized and we became friends. But I still feel guilty over it. I’m not proud of it, and I told myself “Never again, she’s no different from you,” The rest of my school career I would try and help out kids that I saw being bullied, I felt like I had more control if they were attacking someone else instead of me, and would try to be strong and basically tell them to fuck off. Didn’t really help though.

I am very rarely am teased now, but by social norms, I am not desirable. I have family members who to me look like super models. They would never say that, but that’s what I think. They are movie star pretty, and when I was little I was in awe of them. I would feel weird though, like I didn’t fit.

Now? I plop my double digit sized jeaned butt next to them, and don’t feel any less desirable. I don’t feel any less pretty. And I just want to make it clear that they never made me feel less than them, this is just the thought process of a little girl, wishing she looked like her big cousins.

I don’t care if you are plump, a jock, a nerd, a geek, a goth, artsy, dorky, or all of the above. Whatever, makes you YOU, is the most important thing. I DO care however if you are ignorant, bitchy, an ass, a bully, or anything hurtful, because if you are then you are the one who is ugly. I also care if you don’t care enough about yourself to love yourself, because to me that is tragic. 

I know that I am funny, smart, and again I don’t feel like I am awful to look at. I wish all women, could look at them self in the mirror every day and tell their reflections that they are worthy. That they are beautiful, and desirable to the right man (or woman). To not think they are less important than the size 0 models, with their airbrushed pictures splashed all over the magazines. Everyone is worthy, everyone deserves to feel good about themselves, if you’re plumpier or skinny, tall or short, whatever.  I think the world would be a much better place if people stopped beating themselves up over whom they are. Love yourself, I know it’s a cliché, but it’s the most important piece of advice I can give. Thanks for reading!

“So raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways. We will never, never be anything but loud,” – P!nk 

Let's Start At The Beginning

To quote one of my favorite comedian’s Kathleen Madigan “I’m from St. Louis. It’s a cigarette smoking, hot dog eating, beer drinking town,” Now I am not a smoker or a beer drinker, but I do like my hot dogs. And my burgers, fries, cakes, cookies, I could go on and on. Now I am not an over eater, if I was I would tell you. I have no reason to lie, because I am writing this of my own free will and want people to know the truth about me. I am a let us say ‘plump’ woman. I hate the word fat, and that will be the last time you will hear me say that particular word. I have been ‘plump’ since I can remember. As a child other kids would call me that-not-so-nice word, and that’s who I thought I was. Pretty sucky to think that’s all you were. It took me a loooong time to not just think of myself as that word. I don’t like to toot my own horn, but there are MANY other things that can describe me as a person, not just that word. I feel good about who I am and maybe if you see me you would think “Geez, why?” and the answer to that question is simply: I am awesome. Get used to it people! Here is a voluptuous woman, who can look at herself in the mirror and not cringe away from my many stretch marks and my curvier body. I mean seriously, I think I am not THAT bad to look at, but some people might disagree. Or they may say that they “are worried about my health”. Okay listen I get it, I know that for my height and whatever I am waaaay over the healthy weight mark. I have gone to Weight Watchers, and I have read many books and articles about such an issue. Sometimes on my own account, sometimes slipped to me by a “concerned loved one”(such as when my grandmother gave me a book titled Think Thin Be Thin when I was about 13 for Valentine’s Day, instead of the traditional cards and chocolate, since quote “Amanda doesn’t need it,”). This again, doesn’t make you feel great. Oh and there were about million nights that I would pray to God that I would wake up thin and pretty like all the other girls, and in the those brief moments when I woke up in the morning, I would keep my eyes shut tightly and feel my stomach to see if my prayers came true (they didn’t by the way).

 If I want your help or advice I will ask for it. I appreciate your concern, but I am fine. I love my curves. I love my clothes. I love me, and I know that seems impossible, or sounds self-centered, but it’s not. It took me awhile to figure myself out and be good with who I am, and I am not going to change that. I love that I can look on TV and see Melissa McCarthy in Mike & Molly, and in my opinion look totally gorgeous. One of the best actresses of all time, Kathy Bates, is on Harry’s Law kicking ass every night on Sunday, and is a plumpier woman.  I love that my favorite singer, Adele, is curvy and doesn’t give a damn what other people think. It gives me hope that society will start accepting us ‘fuller bodied” women (and anyone else who has felt 'labeled') as the beautiful beings that we are.

And I do want to point out that I am not immune to insults about my weight. I hear them and they hurt, I am not made of stone (although some of my former class mates would disagree, I believe the term ‘boulder’ was thrown around once or twice), but I can get by them more than when I was say six. And now that I am not six, I will give anyone the finger who insults me or any other person, who isn’t normal, cause I know I am perfect, and that’s all that matters.