The F Word

Let's get something straight here.

I am fat.

This is an objective fact.

I'm not "curvy" or "husky" or any of your other empty platitudes.

I am fat.

Don't tell me I'm not. And don't immediately follow it up with "you're beautiful!"

I. Am. Fat.

And I am beautiful.

One does not preclude the other.

My body is large and round and soft.

It has carried me through nearly 29 years of existence.

It has been broken. And hurt. And told over and over again that it's somehow worth less than someone who has a smaller body.

My body requires more fabric to clothe it.

And as a knitter, a maker of things, I have had to learn how to change and adapt my craft to accommodate me.

Because designers don't care to include people with bodies like mine in their works.

So when you marvel at how easily I seem to be able to magically make what I want appear off my needles, know that it's from years of tears and frustration and looking longingly in the distance at the straight sized bodies on parade with their perfectly fitted garments.

I don't love my body every day.

Sometimes I hate it.

Because I've been told since I was seven years old that I needed to be skinnier. That I needed to diet. That because I didn't want to be in sports, I was useless.

And gross.

And deserved to be ridiculed.

I've only been taught to hate myself.

Never to love myself.

By family. By friends. By strangers.

Don't think I've forgotten about the mother and daughter who laughed at me openly when I dared to look at a shirt in the straight sized section.

Or the kids on the playground who would run away from me because my fat body was an object of disgust to them.

Or the caregivers who tried to starve me into acquiescence of their designs for my person.

A lifetime of these stories and experiences.

You tried to shape me into a ball of loathing and disgust.

You tried to beat my spirit into the ground.

But in the dirt is where life grows.

You told me I'd never bloom into anything beautiful, but I defied you.

I grew into a vibrant and untamed bed of wildflowers.

I am all of the beauty that the sad and barren dirt patch of a heart you have wishes it could be.

And spare me the bullshit of "but your health!"

I don't owe you my health.

I don't owe you anything.

I am not your before picture, your dieting failure, your bad example, your cautionary tale.

I am a person.

I am a human being.

With thoughts and feelings and a thousand different dreams.

And none of those dreams include you and your ignorance.

I have had to fight so hard to love myself.

A veritable gauntlet of education, self-reflection, and conquering my inner-hate.

Of tears, and self-harm.

Of looking at myself and wanting to rend the very flesh from my bones.

But now, when I look in the mirror, I don't see the monster you have so long claimed me to be.

I see me.

All of me.

All of my wonder and beauty and creativity and intelligence.

Shining out from this body of mine.

And if we are all stardust, comprised of the universe...

Well, that would mean my greater concentration of mass makes my star outshine all of your loathing and hate.

I am me.

I am worth everything.

I am fat.

---------------------------------------------------------
Like my writing? You can help support me and future writing projects directly by donating through the links below!

Ko-fi link: ko-fi.com/blackgoatknitting

Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/blackgoatknitting