FAT Is a Statement
Fat is a statement. My fat says of me that "I am here"; "I need and I want space"; "I need to feel sheltered and protected"; "I need to feel safe"; and I want you to see me while I hide.
Fat is a reaction to pain, emotional turmoil, stress and loss. Fat is literally something to hold onto to and it is soothingly-soft, cozyly-comforting.
My fat, inner-child that it is on the outside of me, wants you to know who I am. While I am hiding and terrified that you may actually find out who I really am, underneath it all. My fat feels big enough and secure enough to connect to the world. Fat freely flows to and fro -- bounces brightly back and forth going with me wherever I go. No judgment, my fat softly surrounds me -- with constant care it caresses me - touches me and rests easily on me. I feel my fat and my fat - it feels for me.
Why does it matter to others that I am fat? Why do many condemn me as "less than" for that? Why is there such harsh and negative judgement from those who are smaller than I am -- from those who are not fat? What do they fear?
More people need to realize life is not a pair of pantyhose or a sweat-shirt -- life is not a thing -- it is a journey of experience and being -- life is not one-size-fits-all Part of my being - is being fat.
Feelings and a lifetime of pain and experience rest nestled in my fat. My fat is a part of who I am, where I have been and what has happened to me. Fat is me. Fat is the often the first thing people see when they look at me. I am fat. I am also much more than my fat. Fat is valid. I am fat - I am valid.
If you feel the need to judge, criticize, or belittle me for being fat and for refusing to be ashamed of that -- rather than worry about the size of my body have you checked the size of your mind lately? If you are fat-phobic or fat-prejudiced I do not have to be there with you. I have the right to experience the scope, size and shape of my body, and my reality free of discrimination. In spite of the fat me you see, I am a person just like you. What is wrong with physical difference?
Size is not wrong. Size cannot be controlled in a uniform way. If you cannot accept fat me -- you have not accepted thin you.
I am not a fat person -- I am a person who is fat!
Softly spreading out, growing free to be all that I am in mind soul and body. Rolling-round belly bounces bravely accommodating my motion. To the fat-phobic it causes much mental commotion. Re-claiming the word fat and holding the right to the space I need and from the staring judgment I long to be freed. Not as fleet a foot as I was once but still I get to where I am going -- proudly with my fat showing.
Older, calmer and wiser -- and yes fatter, bigger, rounder. I am living my philosophy just being me, fat and all -- in spite of those who do name-call.
Stretching skin - accepting this fat as it grows - no battle of the bulge here -- no need to win. To battle the bulge is to diet and lose fat only to, sooner or later, experience an ever-growing increase in bulk. Accepting the fat as it increases and stays is healthier than fighting it and yourself.
Greater numbers of people are getting fatter everyday. Whether one thinks it is right or wrong or not there is a tremendous need for bigger spaces yet society continues to make bus seats smaller, theatre seats smaller, the better more practical clothes smaller-- why?
Mountain-like fat freely falling-flowing, rotund-rolling and bouncing boldly through life with me as I own it, wear it, feel it, at times push against it and at other times lye comfortably surrounded by it. Sometimes my belly flows over the allotted space of my seat as my hips are squeezed by the arms of chairs and I sit there as human and feeling as those who are thin to the names I am called and the whispers and the surveying stares.
Can anyone hear what my fat is saying? My fat is a philosophy of sorts. Being fat, for me, is a reality. My fat is a statement. The first statement of my fat is communicated by my biology, my genetics, my relationship to food, my relationship to others, the world and to my body. The second major statement that my fat makes is that it is a part of me -- it defines and delineates me from those who are smaller - perhaps more content, more at peace?. My fat also announces that I am an individual. I am a fat individual. I am a rebel. I am a fat rebel. I still rebel against all the pain. That very rebellion keeps me in pain just as the very food I eat keeps me fat.
Within my immensely-cumbersome-abdominal adipose - layers and layers of billowing bulk -- a colossally-corpulent cornucopia of fantastically-fleshy fat lives a very compassionate soul with a spacious spirituality and an ample awareness of the up-hill climb I take when I face a fat-phobic society by refusing to be anything less than the voluminous me that I must be until I find my way out of a gruesome grimacing grief that encases me in its grip. While I am trapped in the grips of such loss and painful longing anguish I must remain hidden within the layers of my burdened bulk.
© A.J. Mahari - February 28, 2000
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