Fat

I am fat. Yes, you heard me right the first time. Fat. Fuh – ah – tuh. Fat. And no, this isn’t self-pity or anything of the sort. No. I am not asking you to think ‘oh, the poor dear is fat. Tsk tsk…life’s a toughie.’ Oh no. I am fat and I am happy to be fat. Thank you very much.
No! I wasn’t always so self-contained, so proud of my fatness. I tried everything to make it go away. I ate 2 chapattis instead of four, I went for long walks on the beach, I ran, I starved….and I died. Argh. It became an obsession. This craze to lose all the fat, to make it go away. Every time I walked into a clothes store, I looked longingly at all the smalls and then had to settle for a large. Extra large. It was maddening….this urge to fit into impossibly small skirts that barely managed to cover your ass. I wanted to be stared at by all the boys in my class, I wanted to be popular, exchange hi – fives… I began to get headaches, lose concentration….and laughter. I did not laugh anymore. I became irritable and cranky. I could no longer sit by the sea and think for hours on end because I so badly wanted to stuff my body into an itchy black spandex suit and sweat it out. I forgot what chocolate tasted like. I forgot the fun of a good joke. I became a pathetic person.
Then one day as I was on the exercycle at the gym, forcing myself to cycle faster, another two kilometers, my foot accidentally got caught on the pedal and due to the momentum caused, I was thrown on the ground. It was one of those days… I was hungry, tired and scared. Scared of the pretense. Scared of becoming a person I could not recognize anymore. As I lay on the ground, watching the turning wheel of the cycle go round and round…slowing down…now coming to a stop, I started sobbing uncontrollably. Something in me snapped….the tears just kept coming. People stared at me….they thought I was hurt. I was hurt. And it was all my fault. The gym instructor came over and calmed me down. Then she made sure I got back home…and I slept. When I woke up, a strange calmness came over me. I looked into the mirror, and I did not see the fat. What I saw was me, looking tired...yet relieved. I had no point to prove to anyone…just myself. And I had.
You see…I realized that my fatness is there for a reason. It is me. It makes me the person I am. You have to love the fatness in order to love yourself. You can’t just pick the parts you want, right?
I still exercise and go for those long walks...but as a favor to myself. I don’t want to be accepted into a society where young girls starve themselves and disappear. Where is society then? I do not want to take it all off, just a little bit…It does help in that strategic sway, that deliberate curve. Besides... he tells me that he likes his women a bit on the well built side…. (Blackout)