Fat

It's not something I usually address publicly or directly. I usually address it from a health standpoint (something I have been conditioned to do from my immediate family) by wanting to lose weight to be stronger, healthier and do the things I have always dreamed about doing. This is in part, true. I would love to be able to go for a jog, backpack, hike, go mountain climbing or surfing. As it is right now, I am not healthy enough for those pursuits. All these things I want to do, and yet I feel like enjoying my life is a secondary priority to other peoples expectations of me. That is, how I look. And how my looks make my immediate family feel about me.

I am fat. I have been for sometime now. There was a point in my life, when I wasn't. I was 150lbs. I was 16 and I looked like your typical American angst driven teenager. I dyed my hair pink, wore fishnet stockings, pouted my lips and showed as much tit as my school and parents allowed. I dated older boys, got drunk and flirted, spoke like a jaded 30 yr. old, and ultimately got complacent with the ideal I had always been searching for. Honestly, I let being attractive and skinny get to my head and got into an abusive relationship that went sour when my weight went up. This went on into my early 20's. ( I am still in my early 20's, mind you.) The point is, between my family and my then boyfriend of the time, I learned that hating myself was expected. That it was...normal? I don't know. Hating myself was who I was.

It's taken me a long time to realize that the people you love sometimes don't know jack-fucking-shit. A lesson I didn't learn as a child, but in my late teens. My current friends don't make any comments or disparaging remarks about me, nor does my husband. My family seems to be the only ones bothered by it. I don't want to get into detail about the specific things that have been said to me. It hurts too much right now. But it's ugly. It's mean and it's ignorant. That's right. IGNORANT. It's the kind of things you would see in a shitty Lifetime movie and think, "No ones parents are that douchey."

The simple thing I don't get, is why is fucking matters. Does it define who I am as a person? Does it make me less beautiful? Or does it simply make you feel like a failure and a shitty parent? I have a feeling it's the latter. Which, you know, I feel bad for them. Shouldn't your worth as a parent be measured by the happiness and fulfillment of the offspring? I guess not. I guess it's measured in pounds. I am not much to look at right now, overall. I am jobless, not in school and pretty much directionless. But I am 22. Isn't that the point? Sure, I want to lose weight, but it's not to feel worthy, it's to lose the baggage people have dumped on me since I was 14.

So as of right now, I am fucking done. I refuse to hate myself anymore. I refuse to not feel like a worthy human being because I wear a size 20. I refuse to be afraid of going out in public anymore because I have been conditioned to be hyper-aware of peoples opinions of me. I refuse to not go clothes shopping because I am afraid people will see me in something I haven't worn into a comfortable oblivion. And I refuse to keep  living for anyone's acceptance. The people who matter, don't give two squirts of piss about how I look.

So......

You guys can all go blow yourselves, I am beautiful.