YES, i am fat

YES, I’M FAT

Oh, my god. Yes, yes opinionists of the world, yes commenters on Instagram, take notice, I am fat. I have fat. Is that a bad thing? Does this make me unworthy of love? Does this mean I am ugly? No. It means I am fat. And that’s not a bad thing. Nor is it a bad word, it is a description. My tummy shakes when I laugh and my thighs are soft like dough, I have cheeks for days and a chubby finger that no wedding ring is ever going to fit on. I love it.

Making the decision to post body photographs of myself online was one of the most nerve-wracking, stomach-churning things I’ve ever done. And sure enough, the reason behind my nerves were all legit. I get the comments, the messages, the ‘nobody wants to see your body’ letters, I get them all from hateful insignificant people that feel it necessary to let me know that I am indeed fat and therefore not worthy of posting pictures or loving myself.

But here’s the twist, here’s the one thing that these people don’t know. I love myself and my body on days, so dearly I just want to strut around in my best lingerie and scream it from the rooftops. I am fashionable, and yes, yes people reading and shaking their heads; it is possible to be both fat and fashionable. I’m really good at doing makeup, and yes, you can be fat and do makeup. I run, I jog, I use the gym- not to get thin, but to stay healthy. And yes, you can be fat and healthy.

Throughout my life, people have felt like it’s an obligation of theirs to tell me I am in fact fat, to point it out like it’s a sign I can’t already read. And you know, no matter how confident I can build myself up to be, and no matter how much I can love my body the way it is, it still f*****g hurts.  To have people tell me I am unworthy of love, or that I lack any sort of sex appeal, or that I am just disgusting is awful, for anybody of any size. I am so fed up of these comments and these people because it is an idea so old that fat = bad; its outdated, I need to challenge this so badly, I need to challenge the stigma that surrounds people who are overweight or people who aren’t a size 10.

The thing is, is that I need to love myself, not just for myself but for everyone else. I need to show the world, the kids I went to school with, the boys who broke my heart, that my weight is not a ‘make or break’ thing, but it is who I am, it’s a part me and it shouldn’t define me. I am so many other things as well. I am art, and power, I am soft and funny and I am all someone out there needs. But these thoughts get swallowed, minced in to nothing because I am fat.

Well guess what? You can stop telling me because I know! Ha! I know and, I love it. I love the fact I can’t laugh without my tummy laughing too, I love the fact that my thighs are always touching, I love my under arms and the back of my neck. I love every inch of my body for what it is and though years have been wasted in a desperate attempt to bring change- I am over it. I’m here for good. I am so ready to exist and to live loudly and offend people who don’t like my weight or what I’m wearing; I’m so ready to stick my middle finger up at those that don’t respect the love I have for myself.

So, yes, I am fat. That doesn’t define me. I’m going to be a writer one day, and one day I plan on telling people through ink on paper how important loving yourself is. I am going to educate a whole new world of young people with my words and I can guarantee, as true as I am writing this, that they are going to love themselves, whether they’re tall, short, fat, skinny, pear, oval, square, hourglass- they are going to think that they are beautiful.

Because, to be cliché, beauty is within, it hides in your soul like a fire, small burning, kindling flame and there’s no way I want to distinguish that. I want it to burn in to a god damn forest fire. I want to set alight the world with my love and my beauty and you know, maybe I will.

Maybe I will.

#fat #plussize #bodypositive #happy