Monday, August 3, 2015

Quarter Century Chronicles I: Ain't No[BODY] Shame!

Baby Gabbie. I think this was my first birthday.
I am not skinny.
I am not thin. 
I am not "a little bit plump"
I am plus-size. Not "politically-correct-she-can-still-pass" plus-size. Like, legitimately plus-size.
My dress size has been a "teen" since I was a teen.
Some would say curvy, and I'd agree with them (thanks mom!). Others would say fat. And that's okay, too. It's not a swear word, people (but you can feel free to insert size-related euphemism here).

Because of this, the assumption most of my life has been:

1. I am overweight because 75% of my check goes to McDonald's and BK, and I am lazy and unhealthy

2. Because my body does not match the narrow definition of beauty, I must have a deep desire to be thinner and therefor have a dissatisfaction with my body as it is now

3. I can have success in other areas of my life, but as long as I am this size I am failing somehow. I must be unhappy deep down inside.

4.  I must lose weight in order to be attractive enough to find love

These narratives are *so* far from the truth and it is exhausting to feel like I have to wake up every day and justify my existence in this body. I am tired of feeling like I have to apologize for how much space I take up. I am tired of people being offended by my audacity to be and feel beauty despite my body, or even more, because of my body.

I mean at this rate, if superwoman was thickums even she'd be undesirable and un-marryable!
So NO...I don't work out every day. YES cookies are my Achilles Heel.  YES, I am so much of a foodie that I start thanking God for taste-buds when the flavor is just that good (hallelujah). YES I love cooking, and (gasp) I like eating!

HOWEVER.

NO, I don't eat whenever I'm feeling emotional. NO, I don't drink soda...I don't even drink juice that has not been diluted. NO, I don't eat fast food. Why YES,  I have impeccable blood pressure and cholesterol (I mean really, it's quite amazing). INDEED, I detox my body with super clean eating every few months just to stay on track. YES,  I love to dance and play tennis even though my tri-sport varsity days are over. And I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and the hormonal imbalance has a direct impact on my weight, as it does for a majority of women with the condition.

If I was a size 6 and said all these things, no one would care. But because I'm plus-size, people feel the need to assume that I hate my body, that I have no understanding or desire to make healthy choices, and that there is no way I could be happy with the way that I look. 
But here is the thing: I have realized that I am perfectly fine with my body AS IT IS, and that is okay!  It is okay to not feel like the need to drastically modify my body. I spent most of my life grappling with this overwhelming pressure that told me I had to want to change the way that I looked. By default, being fat meant being unworthy (unworthy of happiness, unworthy of affection, unworthy of unconditional love and acceptance, unworthy of success, unworthy of self-appreciation, ETC). The only way to be worthy was to be thinner and as flawlessly packaged as possible.  As much as I love to have that "nails/hair/clothes errthang did" feeling, I started to feel like I was a slave to it; as if I HAD to be on to compensate for my size. Because I began to internalize people's projections,  I started to picture a photoshopped version of myself as the only version that would be deserving of the kinds of things I had dreamed of. I can't tell you how many times I heard "you would be so pretty if..." or "you'd have such a nice shape is you lost some weight". I am so tired of unsolicited diet advice, backwards compliments, and sideways comments (Note: Anytime you start a statement with "you're pretty for a _________", YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG!).

Finally, I realize at 25 that I was trying to subscribe to OTHER PEOPLE'S STANDARDS OF BEAUTY AND OTHER PEOPLE'S DISCOMFORT WITH MY BODY. I tried to take on that burden for myself. I felt I had to. But you know what? I don't have to, and I won't. That's not really my truth. 

Stop mixing up health with the incarcerating confines of media-perpetrated beauty standards. Don't police my body under the guise of you "just want me to be healthy" when in reality, my physician isn't complaining and I'm not that unhealthy. I'm just not skinny and that makes so many people uncomfortable. The fact that I am okay with that makes them even more uncomfortable.

Welp. I'm not here to make people comfortable! I'm busy trying to love myself.

Let's be honest here. Are there days where all my flaws mock me in the mirror? Are there moments where I wish some areas were smaller and other areas bigger? If I said no, I'd be lying. Of course there are those days, because I am human! I'm allowed to have those feelings every so often without defining my existence by them.

And are there healthier choices I could make? ABSOLUTELY! And I am working on that. I want to be the BEST version of myself so that I can give God my best. I want to be my best for my future children.  I could totally work out more, drink more water, eat more clean. BUT my motivation is not so that I can have the type of physical attributes that society deems acceptable. It is not to get thinner. It is not so that my future husband can find me attractive. My motivation is me! I cannot tell you how liberating that is.
I have done away with the notion that everything I do has to be in terms of meeting people's ideals. 

"Hit the gym ladies! No man wants a butterball"
"Take care of that hair, fix those nails, clear up that skin...no man wants to marry a mess!"
"Are you sure you want to eat that? You should be your prettiest on  your wedding day, not your heaviest"
"You should learn to take care of the home and finances. That'll make a good wife."

I am all about presenting yourself in excellence, especially if you want excellence from a mate! There is nothing wrong with that and any body who knows me well knows this is true. I am also all for constant growth. However, I have developed this crazy notion of pursuing greatness because I deserve to be great and God called me to be great...not solely because greatness is what a good man wants. We tell women to be well rounded because It benefits a man as opposed to encouraging it because a well rounded woman is an awesome thing to be! I don't think we can ever reach our full potential while our self-perception is so greatly dependent upon the acceptance of males. Male-approval can not be the hinge on which our lives swing. That significance belongs to Jesus alone. The only validation worth having is the one from God. And He ALREADY declared that you are magnificently made, you are all-together lovely, you are miraculously forgiven, and you are worth dying for.
Feeling summertime fine back when I was 21

So yes, I can be great at a size 16. I don't have to wait until I change _______ to be deserving of love.
How about instead of trying to conform, we focus on transforming? And what if we bettered ourselves for ourselves instead of appeasing others? What if we loved ourselves as we are and didn't apologize for our imperfections?

No more hoping my personality, clothing, or pretty face will compensate for my waistline. No more weight-loss resolutions founded in superficiality. No more giving people power they have no right to have. This is MY body. It's the only one I've got. Jesus lives here.  It shouldn't be so revolutionary for me to love myself as I am. It shouldn't be a radical idea for me to think that the person God plans for me to spend forever with will find me stunning, even without losing 60 lbs. Even with stretchmarks. Even with flaws.

Hey, I already do. I will not be apologizing for acknowledging my wonder any time soon.

From my 25th Birthday Party on 7.18.15

Love, Compassion, Royalty

Queen

P.S. Check out This Previous Post which was a response God gave me after a prayer a couple years ago.