I’m Fat and it Ruined My Vacation
Yesterday, I came home after spending nearly a week in Orlando, Florida. Two of my best friends and I had our first vacation day at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which happens to be one of my favorite places on earth.
That theme park is pretty magical, not in the literal sense of the word, but in the sense that it suspends your disbelief enough to think “I’m ACTUALLY in Hogwarts right now. This is f**king sweet!!!” I’d visited the park twice before (I already said it’s one of my favorite places on earth, so shut up if you’re judging me) but this time it was slightly different. It was a little less magical.
Why?
I’m fat. I’m really, REALLY fat. And I’ve pretty much always been fat. I’ve been overweight since the age of seven, and twenty years later, I’m the fattest I’ve ever been. I don’t really want to go into detail about my history with weight loss and gain in this post (it’s long, and if someone mapped it out it would look like a child’s drawing of really tall mountain peaks), but I just want to say that I’ve done the “weight loss journey” three times before, so this is not new to me. I’m not approaching this with the hopeful, wide-eyed motivation of someone who’s trying to lose a lot of weight for the first time. I’m a pro at losing weight, but I’m a failure at keeping it off.
I needed something to motivate me to start losing weight again, and this time, the motivation came from a Disney cast member at the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster telling me my harness wasn’t going to buckle, and my two friends and I had to get off and re-enter the ride in the row designated for fat people.
I spent the rest of my vacation panicking that I wouldn’t fit into more rides. It happened a few more times. Another cast member who seated us for a different ride pleasantly told us what row to sit in, and then after looking at me said “Uhh... actually, you guys go to row 3!” (Spoiler: row three had more room. For fat people.)
I’m not even going to talk about the seat belt buckle on the airplane, but I swear mine was designed for a petite elf child and I’ll leave it at that. Also, the flight attendant handed me two bags of Cheez-Its for my online snack without even asking if I wanted two. I think she just assumed. I mean, I DID want two, but the nerve to just assume!
So here I am. Desperately wanting, once again, to lose weight and keep it off. I’ve thought about making a blog like this for a while, but I didn’t know how to approach it. I still don’t, really. Because I don’t want to fat shame, or present the idea that someone isn’t worthy unless they’re thin. Everyone deserves to feel beautiful, happy, and respected. I’ve seen people who are overweight be fully comfortable in their skin, and I think that’s incredible. I admire that, not because they have found happiness DESPITE their weight, but because they are happy exactly as they are, in a world that constantly tells them they shouldn’t be.
The truth is, I’m not that strong. When I really search my heart, I know I can’t be truly happy the way I am now. I’m tired of feeling like I can’t fit into the world. Like every space rejects me because there is too much of me for it to hold. I want to lose the weight, but if I’ve learned anything from my past three failed attempts at keeping the weight off, it’s that happiness won’t be found between the numbers on my scale, or at the end of a finish line where it sits like a trophy over a pedestal that can withstand my (now much lighter) frame. I want to lose weight, but I also need to learn how to be comfortable the way I am now, and every step along the way. Not happy, necessarily, but accepting. Forgiving. Gentle. I need to find worth in myself and let that thrive and grow, and smother the voice telling me I’m not good enough and won’t be good enough until I look like the image of myself I keep tucked in my mind.
For my next post, I’m going to take some pictures so I can document my progress. I’ve never done that before, so I think physically seeing the difference will help me. I’m also going to write down all my numbers (weight and measurements) to keep track of those as well. And because weight loss isn’t just about numbers, I’m going to write about my feelings a lot. Like, A LOT. I am chock full of feelings! I’m really scared about posting all of this, but if I’m going to have a weight loss journey blog, I figure it has to be honest, and it has to be brave.
I’ll try my hardest to be both.