My Fat Train (of Thought)

Part 3

          ​I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, or if you recognize yourself in these posts – it isn’t about shaming you or anything like that. It isn’t even about you – not really. Why is it that what I look like feels like a barrier? it is holding me back more than skin should. I am held back, and it hurts so much.
          I was travelling a little while ago, and I was with someone I’ve been interested on and off for a few years. We are alone. We are spending time together. We’ve flirted recently online… and then I was there. I travelled to see them. I was right there, I could have made some semblance of a move – but I didn’t. It was like the last few men, the words of my grandmother had become weights that held my feet down in the pool. Go for it, you’re beautiful.
          No. I sat there, and I waited. I waited while my heart skipped three beats at a time – I waited, and nothing happened. I felt gross and ugly, and instead of going dancing with him the following night – I stayed in my hotel room, I ate food, I went to bed early and spent the while of it crying and upset.
          This was my fault. I let my fears and the voices hold me. I let the posters on the walls, the adds on TV and on the Instagram tell me that I am not a sexual beautiful being. I let it hold me back. But then again, it holds him back. Every him that encounters a fat woman, who doesn’t give her more than a quick glance because of her body. Won’t look beyond the rolls to see the brains, the heart. I am afraid, when I look at you, that that is all you see. I am afraid that my skin is the forcefield around keeping me at arms length, when I just want to embrace.
           Now, many of you know – at least those who know me personally – I recently left a job, where I was constantly let hurt not just of my weight. The amount of times, men would suggest the keto diet not knowing how sick I got on it. I was throwing up and ill and just depressed and suicidal. So, I nodded and thanked them for the suggestion, then went to the back store and cried. Now only were the clients like that but looking on my Instagram and admiring the beautiful plus size women in my timeline and then, having my boss lean over my shoulder and comment about how it’s too bad they have such pretty faces or she’d be so hot is she was thinner. He even so much as made jokes about leaving the mother of his child if she gained weight, that he expects her to be that size since he met her that way. He generally made comments about women constantly. You have no idea how that made me feel, these women, who i thought were amazing - they looked like me... If he thought that way, did everyone else? Did every eye that made a quick glance towards me on the subway also thinking this? How can I even go out in public if these are the thoughts everyone is having?
            So, now you’re all reading this and thinking… what do I do then? Call out people who shame bodies (anyone’s bodies). Tell them it’s not okay. Report them if you must. Tell your friends they are beautiful – not just those who are conventionally beautiful but remind those who may not hear it all the time. It seems dumb and superficial – but let your loved ones know that they are seen, they are beautiful inside and out.
          I don’t know what is going to happen next, and maybe that man I travelled to see, maybe things will happen, maybe they won’t but what I do hope is that as time passes, I’ll have less and less stories and situations like these. That any fat people; male, female, non-binary or trans; regardless of how you identify, that you are loved, that you are seen for every wonderful thing you are. 

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Part 4

Part 1
Part 2