"I Look Back at Where I'm From, Look at the Woman I've Become..."

I found this really great post that went viral a year or so ago from a tumblr blog called "The Body Love Blog."  It hasn't been updated for over a year for what seems to be personal reasons.  If she had only posted the aforementioned post and nothing else, I still would give her a standing ovation.  I'm not brave enough to do what she does in that post, but a big point of my blog is to show a lady with a jiggly and imperfect fat body on her journey to getting healthy.  I don't want to show a lot of skin, but some of those pictures I've shared really don't leave much to the imagination.  There are still some things I'm keeping for me.  Chicken?  A little.  Private?  I'm an open book, but I do have boundaries.  Shy?  Most definitely!  Not ready to fend off the inevitable negativity that would come my way by anonymous chickenshit commenters?  Ding ding ding!

I hope to find the confidence that brave women like this blogger have.  I was also insulted quite a bit during childhood through my teen years.  Here are some of the hurtful things regarding weight and sexuality that I've heard over the years:

--In elementary school, I was being teased by a couple brothers in the neighborhood, and as I tried to get away and open the door, one started really pulling on my arm.  My mother tracked down his mother to confront her about his inappropriate and harmful behavior, and their mother just waved it off while saying "Boys will be boys!"  I never saw my mother ready to punch someone like I did that day.  I learned that willful bullying boys with inattentive parents are allowed to get away with anything.  They had made fun of my weight, along with another boy in a nearby neighborhood.  My father tried to intimidate the crap out of the latter boy, but the kid would yell when he saw me, "Your daddy can't help you now!!"  (Though he never really did anything but yell insults.)

--There was a short-lived TV show called Babes in 1990 that centered around three large women.  I was 9 years old and chunkier than most of the kids in my class.  I asked my emotionally and physically abusive father, "Daddy, would you still love me if I was ever that big?"  He paused for a couple beats and said, "No Chris, I wouldn't."  I know he had followup statements, but I was so stunned and hurt that I completely blocked it all from my brain.  For the record, he was a yo-yo dieter/smoker/drug addict that died of a heart attack at 38 years old.  More on that another time.

--After my father died, one of his coworkers came over to "console" my mother.  I hadn't seen him for ages and only knew him by his last name.  He said, "Oh no, you can call me 'first name' " and came upstairs.  He saw my mother and proceeded to maul her face with his tongue.  She was pushing him away, and thankfully my godfather (and fellow coworker) was over.  Thinking back, this loser was in a stained undershirt and was probably drunk.  He apparently lived nearby, and he was tickled pink that my father was dead.  He went on about this in front of a disabled, abused widow and her 10 year old daughter.  People at their work told him to stay the hell away from us, and while he did, I never forgot what happened.  I repressed it to the back of my mind, but I was horrified by the fact that someone felt like they could just come take advantage of a vulnerable woman.

--We moved to a different state where I began 6th grade in a new school.  Middle school students can be the cruelest at that ridiculously awkward phase.  I wore an awesome pair of multicolored flowered leggings and a black top on the first day of school.  A girl who lived in my development and befriended me in class came over that evening.  She snapped (I think she was legit crazy) when I said something she didn't like or agree with and started going off on me.  My mother had to come in and kick her out.  But she called me "thunder thighs," and I hardly wore leggings without a crazy huge shirt or sweatshirt ever again.

--I was a misfit outcast by 7th grade who was starting to really sneak eat at home and overeat at my grandmother's house.  There was this one kid in my class who was new but managed to win everybody over.  He would make lewd and obscene comments about what he wanted to do to my body to make the kids in the class laugh.  Once, I was squatting down in front of the coat closet and going through my schoolbag, and he draped himself over me from behind like "Hey girl, I just want to feel that," to the laughs of other students.  My male teacher was in the classroom and didn't say or do anything.  He never did.  I felt like I couldn't tell anybody.

--I was in a new school by 8th grade.  In 9th grade, I was sitting at a lunch table I didn't really care to be at, and there was a table behind me full of thuggish older guys.  One of them made it his mission to make fun of me every lunch period, and some of the girls at the next lunch table would laugh and encourage him.  One day, the ringleader of the group draped himself over me from behind (what the hell is it with these guys?!) and told me that I should go home and keep fucking my mother.  I don't remember what happened after that, but my friend and I moved to the other side of the cafeteria the next day.  Since two of the guys in the group were on my bus, I was terrified that they were going to torture me as well.  The one didn't care (and passivity is just as bad), and the other one used to try and poke at me every now and then.  One day, I heard him say "She wouldn't be too bad looking if she would just fuckin talk."  Something to that effect.  Gee, how nice that I wasn't hard on the eyes of a douchebag.  I was thought of as a chunky snob because I was shy and quiet.  The rest of high school was ok on the "fear" front, but 9th grade was seriously crappy.

--I got turned down often because guys just "wanted to be friends."  This began when I was between a size 14-16, so you can imagine what happened when the weight started packing on.

--I've had gross catcalls come my way down the streets of NYC.  You could say, "Ok, who hasn't?!" but it doesn't make it right.  It made me want to cover up my body with a hoodie and jeans and sneakers for years in the sticky summertime.  I also had one of the owners from the train newsstand constantly hit on me to the point that he said he was going to take me to his country and make me his princess.  Once he almost beat the crap out of someone for cursing in front of me.  Creepy machismo.

--Mall employees can be incredibly catty, gossipy, and awful.  I endured varied harassment at my store from 1999 through 2006.  It was one of the "cool" stores, so you were expected to just go along with the flow.  I have plenty of blog material for how the mall's junk food combined with my weak willpower and depression contributed to the weight gain, but that's for another time.  I had very low self esteem and was happy when guys actually paid attention to me.  I would cling to nearly anyone at my store who wanted to give me the time of day.  There was one guy that, in retrospect, was such a disgusting pig that I don't know why I let him near me.  He kept trying to get me to sleep with him (I didn't), and he would inappropriately grab me all the time.  I didn't think it was a big deal because he was kinda cute and charming, but (once again, what the hell!), he came in the store some time after he quit, snuck up behind me and started dry humping me in the back of the store.  I pushed him off with a laugh, and yet I still felt flattered.  I allowed myself to be treated like a piece of meat in that store by men far too often, and it's all because I was ashamed of my weight and thought no one would want me.

Tonight, I learned from these anecdotes that guys often tried to attack me from behind.  No wonder I prefer my husband to be the big spoon and to keep me safe from behind.  I've had various "naked in public" dreams over the years, but after I met my husband, he would appear in these dreams to hold and cover me.  I know he has my back if others try to attack.

Damn, this blog is really therapeutic.

I was very wary of people for so long and desperately didn't want to be a misfit.  By the time I got to college and started opening my mind (and gaining the weight), I resigned myself to being the "fat funny friend."  Now, I embrace being a geeky misfit.  I want to be a soft, curvy, retro styled kind of gal.  I'm tempted to get tattooed lyrics from the song "Midnight Radio" from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. I am finally coming to terms with myself as a woman who demands and deserves respect no matter what size I am or what tight pants I happen to be wearing.

Rain falls hard
Burns dry
A dream
Or a song
That hits you so hard
Filling you up
And suddenly gone

Breathe Feel Love
Give Free
Know in you soul
Like your blood knows the way
From you heart to your brain
Know that you're whole

And you're shining
Like the brightest star
A transmission
On the midnight radio
And you're spinning
Like a 45
Ballerina
Dancing to your rock and roll

Here's to Patti
And Tina
And Yoko
Aretha
And Nona
And Nico
And me

And all the strange rock and rollers
You know you're doing all right
So hold on to each other
You gotta hold on tonight

And you're shining
Like the brightest stars
A transmission
On the midnight radio

And you're spinning
Your new 45's
All the misfits and the losers
Yeah, you know you're rock and rollers
Spinning to your rock and roll

Lift up your hands