Holiday Confessions of a Fat Girl

Hey all! I hope you all had a marvelous Thanksgiving filled with good food and good company. I, myself, ate my way into a dressing induced coma that last for about an hour or so. Mmm, Thanksgiving. All the laughs and good times that I shared and experienced on Thanksgiving made me start to self reflect.

I've been neglecting the blog; let's just call it what it is and be done with it.

I have been neglecting the blog. Between keeping up with school, trying to fix things with my partner after a particularly bad rough patch, and my Depression and Anxiety rearing its ugly head at the most inconvenient times I have been -in short- completely, utterly, and ridiculously unmotivated and uninspired to write anything for you guys. It sucks, but it happens. Life happens. Life is full of as many trials and tribulations, fails and fallings, and other such nasties as it is the joyous, wonderful, breathtaking moments that make us love the Land of the Living.

Life knocks you down a lot. It happens to everyone and when it does, the best course of action is to just brush yourself off, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and get back up. Though, you may have to get back up several times before you actually stay up, and staying up sometimes can be really hard; it is even harder, I think, when you suffer from Mental Illness. However, at some point, no matter how difficult; you do have to get up.

So here I am, world. I am dusting myself off, pulling myself up by my stylish bootstraps, and thrusting myself back out into the public eye knowing full well that I may, and more than likely will get knocked down all over again.

So, in the spirit of the holidays -a time where we are often flooded with just as much joy as we are sorrow- I've decided to share with you all something that has been bugging me while mixing it together with something that I am thankful for.

I have saggy tits. Tianna (yeah, yeah, I know, you hate when I call them that, but it's my truth, you know?). My partner particularly hates when I say this, if you couldn't tell, But, whatever I call it, I look down at my breasts a lot of the time and I'm unhappy with what I see. Sometimes, more often than not -especially as of late- I feel like they look like sad, squished pancakes. I have cried over my own boobs before: literally, and I mean that in every sense of the word.

I have cried over my boobs. On my journey of self love and body acceptance, my boobs seem to be this gigantic, fleshy, wiggly hurdle that I just can't bear to jump through. I used to not feel like this all the time, but you know how the mind works. I started comparing myself to other women a lot. I know it is foolish, I know that it is pretty much everything that the Body Posi movement stands against but that doesn't mean that some days it isn't the hardest thing in the world.

That is why, this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for my partner. Despite all the love and self confidence that I have gained over the years, I am still very much so, at the beginning of my body acceptance path, I have such a long way to go and the thing about my partner is that she keeps me grounded in that regard. She recently went through her own stint of booby hate and is slowly coming out of it, making leaps and bounds compared to my run-of-the-mill, day at a time progress with loving my own fun bags.

We just talked about this topic last night while I sat on her bed, staring down at my chest in dismay, describing the space between my breasts as a "gaping, cavernous gap." She told me that I needed to stop looking down on them, for one thing, literally and figuratively. Most of the time that I look at my chest, and most of the time that I hate it, I'm looking straight down at them and all I can notice is all the things I wish I could change. She recommended looking at them in the mirror, facing my breasts from a frontal view to really see them for all that they are worth. I tried that this morning and even though I'm still generally unhappy about the whole thing, I'm a little happier than when I went to bed last night.

Along with her list of suggestions, she also recommended that I start to lotion or oil them more to increase physical contact and gain a familiarity of my own body. I haven't done that yet, in all honesty, I think I'm too afraid. I've spent so much time lately hating this one specific piece of myself that touching them that much seems daunting and terrifying. What if I do all that and I'm still unhappy? What if I do all of that and still can't bear to look at this one piece of me?

I don't want to be like that. I honestly don't, I wish that I had never started to feel the way that I do to begin with, but you know, comparing will screw you over every time. You see, the thing that I love and am thankful for about my girlfriend is that she knows how insecure I can get. Despite the confidence that I have, despite the fact that my Pete is in my possession -though not firmly in my pocket where it belongs- my Depression and Anxiety can make me neurotic as hell. Yes, despite my loving, caring disposition, despite my determination and ambition toward my body positive goals; in a secret dungeon of my soul is a table which holds enough vials of neuroticism, anger, and insecurities to morph me into the stereotypical "crazy girlfriend" and every so often, an asshole cat jumps up on that table and decides to knock one of those vials over until the contents spew forth from my mouth.

My girlfriend puts up with it. Doesn't mean she always likes it, doesn't mean she always handles it as best as she could but she handles it. It means the world to me. Even though she won't say it, I know that it is probably something that she doesn't particularly like about me. But still, day after day, year after year, she somehow find a way to put up with it. She's a pretty girl, she has options, she could leave me with no problem. But she doesn't. Despite all that we have been though, and for the sheer unwanting of putting my business out there lets just say we have been through a lot, but, she is still here with me. She's still here at 5am when I'm crying over my boobs and looking down on them with hate, she's still here telling me to love them and by extension love myself more. She's still here to love me, or love parts of me when I don't particularly love them myself. and well....

who wouldn't be thankful for that.

Make Me Divine

Hey y'all, first of all, I'd like to apologize for being so M.I.A lately. Truth is, I lost two really great people in my life, very close together at the end of August. That combined with school work, preparing for a huge event my partner was involved in, along with some bumps and road-blocks down Lover's Lane, have lead to me being pretty preoccupied. I'd like to say that I have been managing my time to the best of my abilities, but ha! I haven't. But, I'm trying to do better. 

With that being said, Halloween is just days away, which gives me the opportunity to share a story with you guys about my body journey as I have traveled into adulthood. 

When I was about twelve years old, I wanted to be Ursula so bad. I don't particularly mean I wanted to be her for Halloween, no, I wanted to be her. I wanted to embody everything that she represented for me. It was a deep, secret wish. Most young girls don't go around blasting their aspirations to be a villain, let alone a fat, purple sea witch. So, it was something that I decided to be tight-lipped about.

Ursula as a character was everything that I was fishing for within myself. Fishing for...ya get it? *crickets* oh, never mind.

Anyway, what drew me to Ursula and kept me so enamoured with her was her personality and her appearance, believe it or not. Her skin may have been lilac, her hair may have been white, grey, silver, or whatever the hell it was supposed to be. But, if there was one thing you could say about Ursula; the chick had moxie. Her six tentacles just gave her more appendages to shimmy and shake with enough quick-witted sassiness to make the drag queen Divine -whom she was inspired by- swell with pride. Those wide hips went ba-da boom, boom all over the place during one of the greatest Disney songs of all time -in my not so humble opinion anyway. Those red lips, so full, looked as if they'd uttered a million spells that has recited a thousand secrets. Not to mention that very Marylin Monroe-esque mole, am I right? Her sarcastic cackle and inappropriate truths were humorous and well, true. Ursula was the original bada** who refused to mince her words when telling Ariel about the dangers of the world above. Ursula was everything that I wasn't.

Well, we did have one thing in common; we were both fat. Ursula was the first character in a Disney film, or animated thing that I watched as a kid, actually, who I could identify with. I would watch "Poor Unfortunate Souls" over and over again, twirling and sloshing my hips around as I mimic every line Ursula had. She was my very first spirit animal. It was the first time as a child that I felt like my fat existence was being personified on screen. It felt great. You think Ursula would have cared if some boys at school bullied her about her weight? Huh, no, she'd turn them into helpless little creatures to stick on her cavern wall before the words couldn't even form on her lips.

Ursula was powerful. Not just with her magic but just her sheer being. She was the fat, proud, take me or leave me role model that I wish I could have had more of growing up. I didn't care that she was a villain. I loved her, I wanted to be her. I wanted to be that confident, I wanted to be able to sport a strapless top and not feel the need to cover my body. When I first wanted to be Ursula, I was at the height of my childhood weight gain. I was beginning Junior High and my discomfort, disgust, and disdain for my body had been kicked into full throttle. My sole mission, aside from passing my classes was to hide my body in every way that I could. Every last school memory, for two years straight, involve my body being shrouded by my grey hoodie.

My grey hoodie....I have come so far in my body journey that I can honestly say that I don't miss that damn thing. But back in Junior High, that thing was my security blanket. My mom bought it for me at a store called AJ Wright in the early 2000s and from the day she bought it, I hardly ever took it off. Every outfit I ever wore would get covered up by it, zipped up beneath a heavy force field of shame. See, I wanted to be Ursula, but I wasn't. I wasn't confident in my body, I wasn't powerful, I wasn't any of the things that I needed to be, or wanted to be. So, I did what any young kid does; I hid.

I hid beneath a hoodie so that no one could see me. So badly did I want to be invisible that I did everything within what little power I had to make it possible. It was my greatest fear that if people saw my body, they would do what so many had done before. I would become defined by it. I would stop being Rachel and instantly become the fat girl.

The fat girl. We all know what that means. The fat girl means the one who gets teased, taunted, bullied, belittled. The one they throw food at in the cafeteria, or make noises as she walks down the hall. The fat girl whose walk they imitate, and immediately turn into a waddle. I spent so much of my life afraid to be the fat girl because I thought that being the fat girl meant forever dealing with a life of pain.

But it doesn't have to be. 

Over the years, I've learned to reclaim the word fat. It isn't the worst thing to be in the world. I like the way my fat feels, it's soft. I like the way my fat jiggles and shakes when I'm having sex. I like the way my fat looks under all my pretty dresses. Do people still snicker, or point, or laugh, or shout obscenities when I walk down the street. Sure, of course they do. People hate people who are different, they try to squash that quality, they try to make different people feel less than. But you aren't. You are as less than as you allow yourself to feel, and after years of feeling like less than less, I made the conscious decision to not want that any more. 

Loving my body is hard. It is a decision that I have to roll out of bed and make every single day, 365 days out of the year. Some days I do, and it's easy, it's wonderful. Some days, it is the hardest thing that I have to do. But you know what? That is my decision to make, day in and day out, no one can make it for me. I may not have ever gotten a chance to be Ursula, but hey, I'm me and it took be twenty-four years to be as okay with that as I am now. 

Stories like mine and so many others I have heard is what makes me realize how important representation is for children growing up. We as humans, even adults, are so impressionable. It means so much to us to see idols that represent us in the media, portrayed in a positive life. Ursula may have been a villain, but she was the only big girl I'd ever seen doing what she does best. She was the firs raw, representation of what I looked like and embodied everything that I wanted to be. She gave me a push in the right direction. My journey is far from over, I have no clue if it will ever be over. What I do know, is that without having Ursula in my life as a child, my secret little wish, I'm not sure how I would have ended up. 

Me and My Fat

News flash world: I actually like being fat.

Do I like every single aspect of my fat body? No. But hey, guess what, did you know that nobody does? You didn't? Well, guess what again? Now you do.  However, by and large, me and my big, squishy, fat body are pretty cool amigos.

I love being fat.

Living in a diet and beauty culture that isn't always the easiest thing to do either. We live in a society where it is anticipated, no, demanded of us that if we are fat; our greatest priority should be to lose weight. Well, I can't speak for every fat woman in the world but I can speak for myself. And, let me tell you, losing weight takes a really low place in my priorities right now.

Don't get me wrong, I do want to lose weight. However, when I do lose weight, I still want to be fat. I know, shocking right? As far as priorities go my biggest ones right now are: taking care of myself spiritually and mentally, building better relationships with my family which included my mother, Mary, my father, Michael, and my sister (who is an annoyingly five years older than me) Tiffany, repairing the bonds of love between me and my significant other, Tianna, and finally getting some of my fiction published. Being able to fit in smaller clothes doesn't even hit the top ten of crap I'd rather be doing with my life right now.

But Rachel, you're fat! Aren't you worried about how this will negatively impact every avenue of your life??? Some may ask that. But gee, last time I checked; my family loves me unconditionally, my partner thinks my body is a proverbial wonderland, my professors don't give two craps about my weight, I'm healthy aside from having asthma which I was diagnosed with as a child back when I was a little wisp of a thing. So, that being said, aside from having days when I look in the mirror and see a gelatinous blob instead of a sexy fat girl; my fat actually has a pretty positive impact on my life.

My fat makes me soft, which makes me feel more feminine, more womanly, which automatically makes me feel sexier and more comfortable within my own skin. My fat makes me jiggly which, when it comes to rolling around in the hay, is freaking awesome. My fat has put me on the receiving end of a lot of hate which has not only made me a stronger person, but also more compassionate and empathetic toward my fellow humans.  My body has carried me throughout my entire life and I spent a large portion of my life hating it and mistreating it. However, when I finally came around, after years of neglect and abuse my body was still here and it loved me for all that I was and wasn't.

My fat makes me feel like I can conquer the world because I know, that simply because I am fat, I will have so many people working to fight against me. It will probably be a long time before people stop looking down on me for my weight. As the years simultaneously inch and leap forward, I'm sure that there will still be days where I am told that I should lose weight because I'm fat. Not for my health, not for the longevity of my life, but because for some crazy reason; fat is just the worst thing any human being can be. But that's alright, I've never been one to back down in the face of adversity. I have days when I hate my body, but like any couple, we metaphorically kiss and make up, we move on, get over it, and continue to love one another.

I'm not "glorifying obesity" or "promoting an unhealthy lifestyle," all I'm saying is that I have one message" if you have a body, love it. Short, sweet, simple, and to the point. If you want to lose weight, do it because it'll make you happy. If you want to eat a pizza, do it because it'll make you happy. Be mindful of your health, that's all I ask. As for the fat shamers that make people feel like sh#t for their weight, what you fail to realize is that health is far more than just physical, and by damaging someone's emotional, mental, or spiritual health all for the thinly veiled, malicious "concern" for someone's physical health: you are the ones promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.

mic drop

artist: Tyiama Turner

This picture was drawn for me by my partner's cousin, she posted it to Facebook for me and wrote me the sweetest message. I look at this picture about once a day, and I'm determined to live my life by this message: don't let anyone dull your sparkle. Why should I diminish myself so others may shine? Why should you? 

I call bullsh#t

Hello lovelies, it's been a while since I've done a blog post. I've been going through a lot of stuff in my personal life. Recently, I've had two deaths hit me tremendously hard, and to be honest, it's been kind of hard for me to get back on my feet. Plus, school is back in session. So, yeah, you know, there's that.

However, upon my nightly surfing of the interwebs, by that; I mean wasting my free-time stalking Facebook like I don't have other, more productive things that I could be doing. But, I digress, I wound up finding this. This is a video by Youtube personality Nicole Arbour entitled "Dear Fat People," with a caption underneath that reads: What we've all wanted to say to fat people.

I read a lot of comments online before actually watching the video. Tons of body positive activists that I follow shared the video and they all had their own bit to say about it. I read good comments, bad comments, and a lot of stuff in between that sat somewhere in between. Going into this video, I pushed the comments aside and decided to have the most open mind and clear head that I possibly could.

Until.....I was able to call bullsh#t literally under a MINUTE into the video where Nicole Arbour states and I quote:

"Fat shaming is not a thing. Fat people made that up, that's the race card with no race."

-Nicole Arbour, September 4th, 2015

Okay, so fat shaming just "doesn't exist," right? That's what Arbour would have you believe. Though I vastly disagree with this notion, I tried to keep an open mind and say to myself "okay, I don't agree, but she is more than entitled to her opinion: it isn't my job to like it or agree. However, when, only a minute later Arbour completely contradicts herself. Within one minute she completely throws her argument out the window by pretty much saying saying "oh yeah, fat shaming, that's brilliant we're going to SHAME you until you change."

Well, Ms. Arbour, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion, duckie, that's all well and good. However, I am also entitled to mine, and I have no problem expressing it:

After watching your video, I have this to say of you, yanno...since we want to make assumptions about an entire person's dignity and humanity off of only one, singular aspect of their bodies: you are a deplorable person. You say first, that fat shaming is a made up concept and wave it off as if it means nothing to no one, then comment on it's sheer brilliance.

Well, you see, the issue that I take with that as an English Literature major? Is that EVERYTHING, LITERALLY EVERYTHING that we do, say, and comprehend in this world is just a man made concept. The fact that you are called thin, is a man made concept, the fact that I am called fat or obese is a man made concept, the fact that we call the sky blue, grass green, and people with mental handicaps are all man made handicaps. That's why; dictionaries are constantly changing, that is why they have words consistently taken in and out of them quicker than a two bit whore can turn a trick, and that is why our language is so magical, irritating, and complex. 

May I ask you why, a woman who seemingly displays so much "confidence" -because I'm sure that's what you like to call that- would disable comments for your video where you publicly shame an entire group of people. Hm...."Dear SLUTS," and many of your other videos no not have disabled comments yet this video does? Yet, you say that you're just trying to be people's "ride or die" someone who will always keep it honest and tell you the gut wrenching truth that all of us fat f*cks needs to hear, right? Well, what if your new found obese ride or dies need to leave you a Youtube comment? Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot, disabling Youtube comments would force them all to get off their lazy arses and burn some calories by switching from Youtube to Facebook just to get a response from you, my bad babe.

I want to be mad at this video, but I'm not. I would like to say that I'm surprised, but I'm not. You are the type of person that people like me have to deal with all the time. The thin, beautiful, girl who thinks that she can rap being a gigantic bi*ch in a pretty ribbon and present it to the world. Meghan Tonjes said it best in this video that she made in response.

"It's the mindset that I find really upsetting...lazy comedy wrapped in health and concern trolling tied in a fucking privilege bow."

-Meghan Tonjes. September 4th, 2015

Tonjes also points out that changing your body on a diet that is fueled by self-hatred and shame will get you no where. I can personally attest to that. I grew up shamed. As a young girl, growing bigger and bigger due to steroids being pumped through my body to get my asthma control, and the terrible, terrible relationship that I had with food; from binge eating to starving myself, shame did nothing for me. Yes, I lost weight, five pounds here, ten year, but when the weight of that hatred, that self-loathing, that immense, and painful shame that I carried with me in my heart, soul, mind, and body took its toll I showed my body the utmost hatred and harm in response. I did things to my body that I can never take back, yes, scars fade from the body but the mind never forgets that pain, neglect, and sorrow. 

So, fat shamers, you can come at me, I'll leave the comments open, I have no problem with wasting my breath trying to educate as many people as I can. I'm not going to hide behind fake concern. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that being fat hasn't had it's challenges. HOWEVER, the number one challenge that I have with being fat is people like you. People that share your poisonous, harmful, and degrading mindset. People, like you, who decided that SOMEHOW, my fat is magically your problem or issue to deal with. The people who hide behind their fortified walls of concern for people's health the world over when in all actuality, they want to use social media as a means to try and destroy the dignity of other humans. 

Yeah, your body has to carry you to the end, so what does it matter to you what mine looks like so long as it gets me where it has to go. Did you give this little Youtube speech to the "fat family" at the airport, I mean, they were so gargantuan I'm sure you were flooded with immense concern, right? Yeah, thought so. 

I won't be a hypocrite

This post is really hard for me to write.

This post, is an open letter to my Depression.


Dear Depression,

I've never been the type of person to beat around the bush, or at least I try not to. So, let me say this loud and clear: I hate you. You have been with me for so long, since I was young, since I was about seven or eight. I remember the first time you came to visit me. You stole everything from me. You stole my joy and happiness, you stole my smile, you stole my laughter and you stole my ability to see anything good. You are a miserable, disgusting thief who preys on my thoughts. You stole a piece of my heart that I will never get back and leeched yourself in -like the parasite that you are- into its place. I have tried to pry you away, smash you, burn you, cut you loose but you have clamped yourself into my heart and become a part of me that I will carry for the rest of my life.

I hate you for that.

The other day, you came to visit me; you are a selfish bastard for that. You reminded me how hard it is to be the strong one in my relationship, which currently resides in shambles and heartache. You reminded me of the insurmountable pressure that boils within me when I have to wear that strength on my shoulders day in and day out. You reminded me that normal humans feel weak, that normal humans have vices that they get to indulge in when times get heavy. You reminded me what your vice is.

I can't remember the last time I cried the way that I did the other day. I'm sure, however, that the last time I did cry like that; you were to blame. My entire soul felt like it was abandoning me. I felt lost, I felt weak, I felt helpless and instead of helping me you wrapped me in your cocoon of darkness. You blinded me from light and went about your thieving ways. You stole my reasoning, you stole my strength, you stole my sanity. I felt insane sitting there: rocking, sobbing, thrashing. You put those scissors in my hands and made me believe that it was okay to go against everything I stand for.

"Do it," you whispered. I hate how your voice sounds so comforting. I hate how your voice feels like the only love that I will ever feel. I hate the way you hold me in the pitch blackness of my heart and convince me to do the stupidest things. You are a leech.

I sliced a cut on the top of my hand. Five days later, it is still visible. You leave me with these scars, these reminders that no matter how abusive our relationship gets, no matter how much I want to leave: you never will.

I hate you.

I hate how much I wanted to stop but no matter how many times I tried to, I still fought back for those scissors. I wanted those scissors more than I wanted anything in life. I didn't want life at all, you stole that from me too. My will to live. You make me want to die. You leech, you liar, you thief.

You try to tell me that everything will be okay if I just give in. But it isn't. You make it all so much worse. Everything within me that you touch turns to rot and rust. It takes so much love, self-love, romantic love, platonic love, to restore what you destroy. So much effort goes into fixing what you break and you just love that. You love it because you know that after so many times of having to be fixed it will all become too much for me. You know that once I start thinking that it is too much work for me, that I'll start thinking about the people I love and the things that I put them through. You put my emotions on a loop, this endless cycle until you can crawl your way back into my life and reign supreme.

You lie to me and hurt me, Depression. I never asked for you to be here, I never wanted you around but you waltzed into my life and decided that I deserved pain, chaos, hurt, and tears. You made me hate the people around me. I have lost people because of you. You made me hate myself, you made me try to take my life more times than I can count. You try to take everything that is good away from me.  My self-love and acceptance, my friends, my motivation and drive for excellence, my passions like writing and drawing. You have stolen so much from me, you piece of sh#t.

You are nothing more than a bully. You have pushed me around and made me feel less than for so, so long. I can't stand it. I hate the way you make me feel. You cannot have me. Do you understand me? You cannot have me. I may be stuck with you, you may forever be a piece of me but hear my words and know them to be the absolute truth: YOU.CANNOT.HAVE ME.

I will not die because of you. I will not wither away into nothingness because of you. You may cause me to have breakdowns, missteps, setbacks, and relapses but you will NEVER conquer me. I will take back the things you rob from me, day in and day out, I will wear my strength as a badge of honor, no matter how it burdens me. And when you snatch it back from me, I will fight like hell to have it restored to me.

You will not win.

You will never see me hopeless for long.

You are nothing more than a monster under my bed and I am not afraid of you.


Sincerely,
The Fat Girl Who Will ALWAYS Fight Back

On the blog, I talk so much about loving yourself and all that you are. I talk about overcoming a lot of the things that we, as fat women, get bombarded with on a daily basis. I talk about having strength and confidence. After indulging in my terrible, terrible vice, I felt like a hypocrite, I felt like I didn't have the right to tell anyone who reads this blog the things that I have. It made me feel like crap about myself which only made what I was going through worse.

But I am human. I am strong but I am not invincible, nor indestructible. I break, cave, cry, bleed, dream, hurt, wonder, learn, grow, revert, change, morph, and stay the same just like any other person on this planet. My struggle is one that effects so many people. The fact that I DO struggle gives me, not just a right to advocate for the body positive, self love, and self-acceptance movements, but it gives me a duty to do so.

I have to have the strength to admit when I screw up, when I crumble, and add my voice to the darkness so that the next person knows "You are NEVER alone."

If you need me, if you need someone to talk to, if all seems dim and scary, if you are afraid of yourself, get help. Talk to me, talk to a friend, relative, psychiatrist, someone, anyone.

Depression is real. Depression is scary. But you are never alone. I promise.

A Passion for Fashion on Pathetic Funds

Whaaaat? A blog post on a Tuesday? Perish the thought! That means that I actually rolled out of bed and did something productive with my life! Gasp! Shock and awe! 

As shocking as it may seem, yes, I am indeed here on a Tuesday making a blog post. I have some things I would like to complain about and unload onto the willing masses.

I have a passion for passion! On very, very pathetic funds, and when I say pathetic, I use that term very loosely. What I literally mean is next to no funds. I'm a college student and I live in a small town where for the most part you're either in one of the following situations, you:

A) are stuck in a seemingly perpetual loop of being in college FOREVER

B) become a nurse

C) become a nurse

D) become a nurse

E) get stuck in the incredibly soul-sucking worm hole that is food services 

F) actually manage to somehow find a decent job, most of the time through happenstance

G) collect SSI though there may, or may NOT actually be something "wrong" with you or...

H) (my personal case) NO ONE WILL HIRE YOU!!!!

If I were my own country, this would by my flag. Fat Bastard in all his glory would hang high from every flag post my nation over. This is the literal story of my freaking life. From fast food joints, to the Goodwill, to Kroger, you name it; they have declined me. I was recently turned down for a job because, get this; I was too close with two of their employees. Never mind the fact that those two employees are amazing friends and for most jobs would be FANTASTIC references, but they didn't want their co-workers to be too chummy. Sorry, I thought friendship, teamwork, communication, and comradery were supposed to be healthy and beneficial in the workplace; my bad, bruh. The constant slue of rejections has made me one tough cookie, I'll admit. However, that doesn't change the fact that it sucks beyond anything that I could ever describe. It's also highly depressing...

Especially for a person like me who loves clothes..... it's like the universe is legitimately and purposefully toying with me and treating my life as if it were some kind of eternal, cosmic joke. Why?....No, seriously....Why? 

I get a student loan refund check....that's the extent of my meager "income" which isn't even income, it's money that I'm going to be paying back for the rest of my life. And sure, the overall hope is to go to college, get a good job, and pay all of it back in a timely manner. But, in case you didn't notice, life is the biggest a**hole on the planet who just so happens to have a never ending case of "The Mondays." So, as you can imagine, for everyone, that plan doesn't usually go as followed. 

The reason for this rant is all Chastity Garner's fault. Garner Style. Curvy Con co-creator, and one of my all time favorite, bada** fashion bloggers recently did a collaboration with Rebdolls, a plus clothing company that literally has me drooling into my Samsung Galaxy S3 about once a week. 

  

 

 

Again....I pose the question: why? Why must I be so broke? Why must my wallet be so incredible empty, nothing rattling around but bus fare, yet my eye for clothing draws me to some of the most expensive, gorgeous, drool-worthy clothing that I can find. It just isn't fare. I feel like my brain and wallet need to catch up to one another. Preferably, my wallet catching up with my brain. 

End Rant. 

You can shop for this collection here. You can also follow Chastity here, here, and here.

Also, don't forget that you can like the blog's Facebook page here and catch lots of content that doesn't wind up on the blog!

Thanks for reading XOXO

I know you are but what am I?

We've all heard this cliched adage; whether we have used it ourselves or have seen it in at least one scene of every TV show ever, we have all heard it. It's used as a comeback for an insult. Someone calls you ugly? "I know you are but what am I?" Someone calls you annoying? "I know you are but what am I?" But how about we take a more adult, a more real stance on this age old sentence.

"I know you are but what am I?"

This sentence can speak so heavily on the character of a person. I was scrolling through Facebook the other night and I read a post by the lovely, Aarti Oliva from Curves Become Her. This is the post here. This post broke my heart. She spoke about how a person that is -astonishingly- the same race as her, who went out of their way to demean her due to her weight over social media.

Stuff like that breaks my heart and makes me want to go on a "Hulk Smash" rampage at the same time.

No. He did not bother to find out.
He did not care for who I was. What my life has been like. Where I am with my life right now. Why I do what I do.

All he and so many other fat hating eejits saw was an unacceptable body size. An unattractive shape. That scares them because I have made peace with myself. If they can't accept me, how am I accepting myself?

Even if it was "just over social media" Aarti Oliva, a beautiful woman who has struggled, like many of us, with her body acceptance stood up for herself. My heart broke for her pain but my soul beamed with pride for her bravery and courage to in some way take a stand. It made me think of my own life experiences over the years. It made me think of all the times that I had been demeaned or belittled by people, made to feel small and how I never said a word. One instance in particular still stays with me to this day.

I was a senior in high school. Now, to set the scene; I am overweight, asthmatic, wearing glasses that should have been replaced years ago, and I go to a school where a dress code was enforced. This of course meant that my uniform consisted of baggy, ill-fitting colored shirts and tent-esque stretch pants from K-mart. I was often ridiculed and mocked, I was often told that I looked like a teacher and was openly shamed for it. This one day in particular however, my bullying turned physical, it turned into sexual harassment. 

At my school, fights were a very common thing. So common that campus wide "lock outs" were instated. For those of you that don't know: a lockout is when any student caught outside of their classroom after the tardy bell rings is "locked out" of the class room and are immediately sent to the small school leaders (I'll explain that in a moment) and are reprimanded in some way. This punishment usually included either B.I.C (in school suspension), detention, or suspension. My school, which consisted of three usable floors was divided into three "small schools" meaning that each floor of the school was ran by different people and focused on a different job prospect. One day, due to the issue with fights breaking out during the time where students commuted from the first floor to their respective floors after lunch, all the small school leaders decided that they were going to herd students in one direction.

Yes, you heard me correctly. Gone was the students freedom to roam the halls as they pleased, we were herded like cattle up the stairs on the far left of the building, our teachers standing like obedient and observant dogs making sure one of the flock doesn't run off. It was horrible. It always didn't stop bad things from happening in the hallways. If anything the cramped congestion made things worse. On this day, I had stopped on the second floor because -thankfully!- my best friend's locker was near the stairs they herded us toward. I had to grab a text book from her locker because I had forgotten mine that day. It was sitting on the floor of the locker and I bent over to pick it up and....

WHAMM!!!

My head smashes into the back of the locker because some boy smacked me on the butt so hard I tipped over. My butt stung and I immediately felt this insane sense of vulnerability that I didn't even have the day that I lost my virginity. I heard this insane cackle worse than Ed from The Lion King and turned to see the back of this boy who was running like a bat out of hell through the crowd. I'll never forget the crisp color of his blue polo shirt, or the way his dusty braids seemed to stand out among a sea of raven colored hair. A fight broke out seconds after he'd done it and I remember standing their, frozen, as pandemonium broke out around me. I felt vandalized. 

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have said something, I would have hung my head low, kept walking and just tried to forget it. But that was the problem, I couldn't forget it. I couldn't let something like this go this time. I felt so much fear and shame in my heart that I felt as if I would explode. So, with my book clutched to my chest, I marched straight to my small school leaders and told them what happened. I was shaking like a leaf, to the point where they allowed me to stay in the office my entire fifth period. They got all the details from me that they could and then sent me on my way. They assured me that they would find who did this to me and I believed them. My heart was still wrapped tightly in a blanket of fear, but I believed them.

I spent the next three days walking the hallways in a state of constant fear and panic. I didn't know if this boy would hit me again. I didn't know if he would threaten me not to say anything. I didn't know what could happen, so the uncertainty drove me insane. Finally, I got called to the office and I was told that they found the boy who did it on the school's security cameras. I felt so relieved, I felt vindicated. Only to have that small moment of triumph ripped out from underneath me. 

"He's frequently in trouble," I was told. So they slapped him on the wrist. He got three days suspension. My parents weren't called. His mom was called to come get him but she never said anything to me, never saw me, never tried to force him to apologize or apologize for his actions. Their decision was made and final. So, I hung my head, nodded and returned to class. It took my small school leaders three days to find him and by the following Tuesday, he was back roaming the halls again. I could have passed that boy every day for the rest of my year there and never known it. But that wasn't the point. That didn't take away the fear that I felt, wondering if it would happen again, knowing that he would just get away easy. It didn't take away the fact that someone had touched me in a way that made me immensely uncomfortable and afraid, and I felt like no one cared, that no one was on my side. 

That boy saw a fat girl with a fat bottom, bent over, a** up, and what he saw was an easy target. He saw an easy target and he took advantage. He didn't care to know anything about me, just that he could abuse me in any way that he felt like. He did it, he got away with it -in my eyes at least- and he probably did it again to someone else, and got another slap on the wrist. I have held so much anger and hurt around because of this situation. Feelings that I didn't even know I had until Aarti Olivia wrote the words that I wish that I had the courage to say back then:

I will not shrink in oblivion. There is much work to be done. More people to reach out to and empower. More heading to process.

She was absolutely right, and this is why we need the body positive movement, so that young girls and women, and young men and guys the world over don't wind up feeling the way that I felt that day. I will not shrink into the oblivion for you. You have no power over my right to love my body the way that it is, was, and will be. So you can hate me, say that I promote an unhealthy life style by trying to get people to love themselves at any size, you can call me fat...."I know I am but what are you?" 

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: Who has the jiggliest bits of all?

Looking in the mirror and liking what you see can be tough. We have all heard about magic mirrors growing up. Mirrors do have magical powers, too bad they are used against us. Mirrors have this splendid, magical, fantastical way of zeroing in on every insecurity that we have with our bodies.

You hate your stomach, you say? Oh, well let me magnify the fact that you gained ten pounds. Let's also not forget to show you that third fat roll forming. Oh, oh, not to mention, BAM, fat dimples everywhere!
Oh, your boobs not looking the way they used to, huh? Well, let's see, let's make it crystal clear that there is a grand canyon of space forming between them. Add that to the fact that they aren't as perky as they used to be. Hm, let's sprinkle some stretch marks in there. Feel terrible? Great, my work here is done.

Jiggly thighs getting you down? Hm, you seem to be pessimistic about this body part, let me help that by showering it with shadows! Lookie! There's a crater here, here, here and here. Hm, let's dump a boatload of cellulite over the affected area, that should make you feel right as rain.

Mirrors can be complete and total jerks. It is because of how my boobs and my thighs have looked in the mirror that has caused me to hate them over the years. When I would look at my boobs, all I could ever focus on was the fact that they looked nothing like what I had hoped they would. They didn't look like any I'd seen on a regular basis. They were saggy and sad, and that made sad.

I spent a lot of my time in the mirror examining them. I pushed them this way, that way, lifted them up, let them thunk down. I'd mash them and massage them and a lot of the time I'd just sit there and look at them. I would think about how great it would be if I was a witch. How cool would it be to wiggle my nose, or wave a wand and they would be the boobs I always envisioned? Or that I eas like Jeanie and I could cross my arms, blink and nod, and there you have it: perfect boobs. I spent so much time hating my body parts that it didn't dawn on me that I should love myself as is.

Getting to that point was a long struggle. One that, as many of you can guess, my partner helped me through. She has loved my chest ever since she first saw them. The first time we ever saw each others boobs is an admittedly funny story, involving a bathroom stall in a Japanese restaurant. That is a story for another day however. The point being, she made me feel better.

From admiring them within a bra and naked, from showing them some TLC, she made me realize that if she loved this piece of me so much, that there had to be something I was missing. So, I went back to the mirror, and I sat there gawking and for a long time I couldn't see what she saw. I tried to, but it was no use. But the love just kept coming, and coming, and coming.

There just had to be something that I was missing. Some piece of the ever complicated self love puzzle that was just beyond my grasp. So I kept going back to the mirror and eventually it clicked.

She just loved me.

That was all I had to do, to conquer the mirror. I had to love myself unapologetically. I had to look at my naked form in the mirror and not feel sorry about what I see, but to feel love and comfort in the person that I am. I conquered my first demon that day, and I haven't looked back since. 

However, my thighs and I are still locked into a love hate battle. Growing up, if you saw my mother's legs, you would understand my deep seated fascination with gorgeous legs. I would have killed for my mom's legs growing up. Fat, but slim, powerful, smooth. It was the smoothness of them that got me. I knew from a young age that I wanted smooth legs; just like mom.

What I got growing up.....not so much. My legs are chunky. My legs are fat. My legs are riddled with fat dimples and cellulite, and a little chub of fat hangs over my knee caps just slightly. My legs look like adult sized, chubby baby legs and it bothers the living hell out of me.

Once again, I was back into old habits and me and Mr.Self-Hate Mirror were back to being chummy pals. He would point out all the things wrong with my monstrous thighs, and he would laugh. Meanwhile, I felt like I was breaking inside. It wasn't fun. But I couldn't tear myself away from my magic mirror of flaws.

It's taken me a lot of honesty to admit that I still hate my thighs/legs as much as I do. It's taken a lot of power not to sneer at my reflection in the mirror. It has taken a lot of strengthen and courage to become okay with what I see when I look into that mirror each day. My thighs and I ate still on a journey, but I'm not going to walk down this road telling them how much I hate them along the way. Ultimately, they carry me down this road. I can get nowhere without their love and support.

My body is my temple and I should treat it as such. That means shattering the illusions that I see within my mirror each day. That means, waking up each and every day to a perfectly imperfect human being and learning to love that being.

My boobs are saggy. I have a fat stomach, my a** could stop traffic, and I hate my thighs. But I love me. I am unapologetically myself and that is something that a mirror can never take away from me again. If you had told me six years ago that I would have the confidence and the love for my body to post my naked legs online, in a blog post, for a blog that I created. I would have laughed in your face. But there they are, read'em and weep. My fat baby legs, uncovered and unashamed.

Will I hate them for a little while longer? Probably. Do I still love them, despite hating them? Yes. Your relationship with your body can be as complicated as any other relationship in your life. That doesn't mean that the love isn't there however. My legs are a piece of me, and I am pretty damn awesome.

Sorry not sorry: honor my curls, curves, cunt and cranium

As some of you may know from the blog's Facebook page:

I had a very interesting conversation today. I was told (just by the name of my blog alone) that it sounds like a Human being that has given up. The person who brought this to my attention was very nice, very genuine, and was just trying to offer a simple suggestion (a different name), by the end of it, I opened their eyes. That's all I've ever wanted from my blog. To open people's eyes, to explain how I view the world, and to make people feel good about themselves. I explained my blog name through my own eyes and I want to share that with you today:

I HAVE given up, that's the thing, something that, and I say this with much respect, but it is something that only plus sized women and men alike can truly understand. I have given up on seeing fat as an insult. I am tired and have given up on acting like it is the worst thing one human being can call another.Being called "fat" is not an insult, there are so many things worse than that: monster, bitch, pedophile, murderer, racist.

I feel, in my opinion, that "Overweight, but still beautiful," conforms to societies standards of what beautiful is. When I read that, it sounds so much like an apology. To a person like me it reads "I'm fat, but let me try to convince you that I'm still pretty."So again, I have given up. I have given up on constantly feeling the need to apologize for my existence. I have no reason to feel bad, feel sorry, or feel ashamed for being unapologetically myself.

So "f*ck it, I'm fat" and, your point is? Is the entire attitude behind my blog.

#effyourbeautystandards #unapologetic #sorrynotsorry

After posting that, the phrase "sorry not sorry" stayed stuck in my head. So, in light of my last post, I thought I'd tell the world some things that I'm NOT sorry for.

Curls

From a young age, my hair has been the topic of discussion. I have what has been referred to in my community for many years older than myself as "good hair." However, what people really mean to say when they sashay that sh#t pile of a "compliment" my way is that I don't have: "black hair", "nappy hair", and "thank God you have a white parent or else that sh#t would be a wreck hair." I have gotten this, pretty much my whole life since about age eight. My hair was the topic of envy and as a little kid that made me feel really, really bad. I couldn't control how my hair was, it was just kind of there. But so many people made a fuss about it.

I started to feel ashamed about my hair. People were constantly making assumptions about me based off the length and texture of my hair. I just had to be stuck up. I of course thought I was better than everyone. Everyone wanted to touch it, braid it, comb it, touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it, and I even had a few people threaten to cut it. As a precautionary measure, my teacher made sure to seat me around boys. This ensured that no hair obsessed eight year old would "Harriet the Spy" my a** and hack my hair off during a classroom movie.

I started wearing my hair pulled back in a ponytail from age eight to about, oh, 17. I tried to make my hair as unassuming and unthreatening as possible. It was difficult for me. I gave up my beads, berrettes, colored hair ties, and scrunchies of yore. I blended in, I cowered down, and I submitted to the masses. Talk of my hair, aside from people wanting to touch it, and complaining that I never wore it down, died down after that.

Cue the day almost two and a half years ago when I found out about the natural hair movement. My hair was in terrible, terrible shape back then. I was very self aware and self conscious of my hairline. My hair was falling out like crazy. I had so much fall out that I could collect the hair coming out in my brush, burrow a hole through the center and make a bracelet. Yes, you heard me, a bracelet of hair. It was horrible. My hair was weak, dry, brittle, heat damaged, chemically damaged from dye, frizzy, thinning, and I had more split ends than there are people in China. It was in a sad, sad state.

I attribute my current natural hair prowess and hair health to the wonderful information gathered from both CurlyKikki and KinkyCoilyMe respectively. To these two brilliant women, I owe a huge debt of gratitude. My hair would be nowhere near as healthy as it is now if I had not learned so much about hair from their pages.

Of course, when I went natural, I caught a fair amount of flack for it. Even my own girlfriend told me, once upon a time, that because of my hair type I couldn't go natural. Comments like this are something I briefly touched bases with on the Facebook page. I'll leave that link here for your viewing pleasure, but to recap:

A lot of people think that mulatto people such as myself cannot be natural. I have had so many people who either think:

1) think it is impossible

2) think that it is simple

Nothing is impossible nor is anything in this world simple. I have been natural for 2 years now and it has been an incredible journey. I have said goodbye to sulfates, good bye to heat tools (I flat iron my hair once, maybe twice a year). I said good bye to hairspray and other harsh products. I stopped brushing my hair while wet. I started deep conditioning and doing protein treatments, respectfully. I started sleeping with a bonnet or silky pillowcases. I started taking vitamins. I read, I gain knowledge, I experiment.
Overall I became more conscious of what I was doing to my hair. All the stress I was putting it under was doing a number to my mane, it was torture. My two biggest things that help me combat my hair issues are: coconut oil and egg. There are two great articles about that on the Facebook page, yanno, I'm just sayin'...

So, to anyone that has ever thought I couldn't go natural just because I'm mulatto and have "good hair" (cue epic eye roll) here: f*ck you, I can and I did. Sorry not sorry, boo.

Curves

There are so many factors that attribute to people being overweight, mine are due to a lot of emotional trauma at a young age, but that is the story that no one one the outside looking in wants to hear. It is far easier for them to imagine that my day consists of me sitting on the couch, stuffing my face 24/7, round the clock, but that isn't the case. With my blog, I am trying to be honestly, fiercely, unabashedly myself so that hopefully it gives others the strength to say "You don't know me and I'm done caring SO much if you like me. Your view of my own body should not validate my entire being."

I used to cope with my heartache by eating food. I felt worthless and alone, I wanted someone so bad to just hold my hand for one moment and tell me that everything was going to be okay. But no one ever did, and it just reiterates how unlovable, worthless and pathetic I was. So I ate, I ate and for a few brief moments everything was okay, until I stopped eating. When I stopped eating, I would feel horrible for overeatting. I would feel inflated, bloated, large and it reminded me that no one wants a fat girl. So I would feel like sh#t all over again and pick up a fork, a plate, anything to stuff those feelings down again.

It's something that would start, and start, and start, and start, and start, and start, and start, and never stop. Round and round, pound after pound, tear after tear, I ate my feelings to this body. I would try and fail to lose weight, starve myself, and when the weight wouldn't come off, I ate some more to make myself a numb, hollow husk of a spirit.

I spent years apologizing for my existence, for taking up space. For eleven years of my life I felt that my weight was the main, determinant factor in my right to live, to love and be loved. I was was an excuse that needed to be apologized for: everyday. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was unlovable, but I had to convince myself that I was pretty just long enough to nab me a lover so that I could spend the rest of my life apologizing for tricking them into choosing me.

What kind of life is that? I'll give you a hint. It isn't one. This blog is all about coming into your own and loving every single bit of yourself like you never thought you could. It's about looking in a mirror and not wanting to turn away, to not be ashamed. This blog is about being the you that you always thought you never could be.

If anyone takes issue with me wanting to spread that message? Sorry not sorry.

Cunt

I do not shy away from that word. It isn't a dirty word to me, never has been, never will be. I have mentioned Pussy Manifesto by Bitch before and I will directly quote her now:

"I am sick of my genitalia being used as an insult, aren't you?"

I love having a vagina. It is the one thing on my body that unequivocally makes me feel like a woman. Most people shy away or turn their nose up at statements such as this. But I'll proudly say it:

I love having a cunt. I love the way it feels and smells. Smells, every vagina on this earth is like a snowflake. No two smell the same. Growing up, I remember being ashamed of my vagina. Who wouldn't? I wasn't supposed to talk about it. I wasn't supposed to touch it. Thanks to those two things alone, I didn't even comprehend until an embarrassing age (12) that you were supposed to actually wash the damn thing. I just kind of....let water run over it for lack of anything better to do.

My period made me hate being a woman.

Discharge in my panties made me feel like a freak of nature.

The scent of it made me feel filthy.

I spent a large portion of my life hating my own vagina.

It took me a lot of online articles, a lot of chats with friends online, and a lot of orgasms for me to realize: "Holy f*ck, my pussy rocks!"

So, I wear my cunt on my sleeves...Sorry not sorry.

Cranium

Since this is a body positivity blog, I talk a lot about my physical body, duh. However, I would like to point out, that there is more to me than that. I (obviously) am a writer. My love for writing has surpassed any memory lodged in my head I don't know when it started anymore, it has just always been a part of me. I love crafting an intricate web of a story, to draw people in and trap them. I love creating this cozy little world where it is just my voice in someone's head. I love the invisible connection that I feel.

Growing up, I was always made to be an outcast because of my bookworm-ish qualities. I spent a lot of my time reading as a kid. It was a way for me, outside of food, to escape my own reality. I couldn't have love and acceptance in my own life, but books always had tales of it to spare. It made me feel close to the world despite my physical distance from it. I was reading books like Lord of the Rings by the time I was on fifth grade. I wanted to absorb all that I could.

I'm still trying to absorb all that I can. I'm not the best writer, but I'm always willing to learn. I'm always willing to know what I did wrong so that my skills can grow and flourish. I may have a stack of rejection letters but hell, at least I tried. And for that? Yup, you guessed it, sorry not sorry.

Photographer: Michael Warner

MUA: myself 

I'm sorry

This past weekend has been hectic. A barrel of fun, but hectic. I had a charity benefit to attend on Friday, terrible weather, Autism meltdowns and a movie on Saturday, and a photos shoot followed by another night at another bar on Sunday. I had great moments and terrible moments this weekend. The highlight of this weekend however was getting approached by a friend whom -to be honest- I am not as close to as I would like, and getting the most profound shock.

To give some back story, this friend is both a man and a drag queen. My blog is, naturally meant for everyone, but marketed toward women. So what he said to me that night took me a back first and foremost because of his gender. With that being said, sweeter, more uplifting words have never been spoken to me before that moment.

He told me that he read my blog. I was shocked. My heart reached out to him when he told me that he was being willfully single, it was time for him to get back to himself, yanno? Without anyone else, because love always starts from within. I was in tears when he told me that, because of my writing, this thing that I started doing without direction, he was able to look at his naked body in the mirror. He was able to look at his naked form in a mirror and compliment himself because he has been reading this blog.

I sobbed. We wept together, hand in hand, in the middle of a crowded gay bar as money was being raised for an organization trying to help homeless LGBTQ youth, while the world around us celebrated the Supreme Courts decision to legalize what can now be called the nation over: marriage, marriage for me, marriage for you, marriage for ALL of us. Never had I felt more validated as a writer than when I sat with him crying.

I got called an inspiration, words I have longed to hear since the first time I picked up a pencil to write. I was told that my writing was touching lives in a way that I couldn't even comprehend. That is all I have ever wanted, even when I wanted so desperately to kill myself, I just wanted to feel connected.

That moment made me think of everything that I have gone through in my life. From about age eight to now, I have struggled with my weight, with my family life, with depression and anxiety, with self doubt, self harm, self hate and I have this to say about it.

Dear Body,

We have been through so much together, haven't we? I'm twenty-three now and you have been here all my life, the only person to truly be with me, to know exactly I go through on a daily basis since day one. The older I get, the more that I realize and truly understand that I have not been good to you. If I saw someone on the street treat a person the way that I have treated you over the years, I would call that person a monster. I would intervene, I would stand up to that bully. I would try to protect that poor person....I have been that bully. I bullied you for years, I didn't protect you from the outside world, but the most heartbreaking thing is that I never saved you from myself.

I never saved you from myself and for that I am sorry.

I am sorry for all the times that I insulted you. I have called you fat, I have told you that I hated you, I have tried numerous times to take you away.

I'm sorry for the three times I swallowed that fist full of pills out of the medicine cabinet. I'm sorry for how terrible that made you feel. I'm sorry for the way you had to vomit, sweat, convulse, and shit in an attempt to save me. You realized my worth when I was too blinded by my sorrows to see it.

I'm sorry for all the times I let the shower, or faucet run with hot water that caused steam to billow out and stuck my hand in, an arm in, to burn you, to cause you pain. I just wanted to feel something to prove that I could. I couldn't feel anything but the pain and it made me feel more human. I didn't want to be sad, I just didn't know how not to. So I had to feel pain to feel like I wasn't drowning anymore.

I'm sorry for all the times I have intentionally ground the razor blades into your flesh as I shaved, watching the blood run over Strawberry Skintimate shaving cream. I just wanted to feel. But it wasn't right to hurt you.

I'm sorry for all the times, I sat in bed late at night and grabbed you, squished you, flattened you trying to imagine what my body would look like if almost every aspect of you was changed. I shouldn't try to change you, not like that, that isn't how a healthy relationship works.

I'm sorry for all the times that I starved myself thinking that I would become this vision of beauty. I would sit for hours on end, with you crying for help but I ignored you. I ignored you and I'm so sorry. I thought that if I ignored you, my stomach growling, my insides feeling like they were going to scrunch together so hard that they would obliterate themselves. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry for all the times that I made you feel worthless in comparison to other women.
"She has a better shape than me."
"She is so much prettier than I am."
"I could never look like that."
"I will NEVER look like that."
"She has everything I want but will never get."
"I hate that she looks better than me."
"She looks so much better than me."

I'm sorry for all the times that I told you weren't small enough, that you couldn't dance like that so you weren't fit to have fun at a club, or that your thighs were too thick, misshapen "baby legs" to ever rock that dress, that skirt, that outfit that you wanted to. Body, I have been so cruel to you. I have made you feel like nothing, I have had no regard for how I treated you and I am so sorry.

For so many years, I have harbored so much hate and resentment for you in my heart, looking back on it now, thinking about all the things that I have said and done breaks my heart. I hated you and you did nothing wrong. I cast you aside over and over, and when I finally decided to love you, you welcomed me back with open arms. You took me into your heart again as if I had did nothing wrong, as if I hadn't broken your heart, let you down, riddled you with scars, and bad memories. You loved me when I loved you.

So, I want to make you a promise, Body, if you'll listen to it and allow. I promise, that I'll always love you. I know some days I will have missteps, I might say something that I don't mean. I may have a bad day and act like an a** and have to come crawling back for forgiveness. But I promise that I'll never forget how much I love you. I promise that I won't try to change you by drastic, dangerous means, but as a collaborative effort between the two of us: mind and soul. I promise to never harm you again. I promise to accept you for what you were, what you are, and whatever it is that you may become. I promise to stop having hate for you in my heart.

Please believe me....

You mean the world to me. I can't lose you, not until the very end. I love you, with all my heart, and I promise that things will get better for us. It won't be easy, even though we have come such a long way together already, but I promise that I will always try. I'll never stop loving you, not now, not even again. I swear it.

With the utmost love,

Rachel Furr

P.S This is the you that I always want to embody: confident, full of love, striving to make dreams come true, accomplishing goals and paving a way for myself in this world with my ambition, dedication, and journey. This path is long, this path is hard, but it is my path, our path, to travel together. I cannot wait to see how this journey ends.

My Big Fat Fantastic Sex Life

Let's talk about sex, baby! Why? Because, let's be honest with ourselves; who doesn't love sex? The champion reliever of headaches! The stress-reliever! The intimacy, romance, the heat, sweaty bodies, heavy breathing, and the insurmountable passion! Ahem....err....I think I got a little carried away for a moment. The point however is this: sex is amazing. This blog post is not for the faint of heart, nor the overly religious, nor is it, by any means necessary meant for prudes.

I like sex. Hm, maybe like isn't a strong enough word. Love sounds too generic and clichéd...I am enchanted with sex. I have no problem admitting it, see no point in denying it. My adoration for sex doesn't make me a slut: it makes me HUMAN. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about plus size women, sex, relationships, and love. Well, listen up all you fat shamers, because boy do I have news for you: contrary to popular belief, fat women get laid....A LOT.

Before I started writing this blog, I had already gotten laid twice. It felt phenomenal, if I do say so myself. See, the thing about sex, is that just like the above gif "If you say you haven't, you're a prude. If you say you have, you're a slut. It's a trap." My question is, why the hell does it have to be this way? We all have or are going to have sex at some point in our lives, except those choosing to be celibate for whatever reason. Some of us have a lot, some of us have a little, and some of us meet comfortably in the middle. So why is talking about sex so taboo? Why when I decide to have an open and honest conversation about sex on the bus or in a public space, why oh why, is that considered indecent?
"
This is the year 2015 and people still recoil at hearing the word "clit" in general conversation. It's a crying shame. Clit, clit, clity, clit, clit...there, I hope I made you all sufficiently uncomfortable.

Moving forward. When I reached high school, a point in time where most of my peers had already had sex, or at the very least done something sexual, I was probably already pushing 300 pounds. I was still more trapped in the proverbial closet than R.Kelly, I had no boyfriend, and naturally boys didn't look my way anyway. But, I had the internet and I had stumbled upon erotica at an admittedly young age (about twelve, don't judge me ha ha) so I knew a fair, fair amount about sex. I would frequently day dream about what it actually felt like, how good it would feel, how close and connected I would feel to the person making me feel so incredible, how sexy it would make me feel. I spent, like any other teenager, a mass amount of my time thinking about sex.

Regrettably, like most teenagers, high school kind of ruined my life. High school and the people within it are what helped me to formulate my screwed up perception of how I was and what I needed to be. High school is where I learned that everyone thought that when it came to sex, fat girls were desperate. No one is going to love them, so they have to be super freaks in the bed just to keep a man. But they can only keep a man on the side because, you know, who wants to be seen in public with them? Fat girls have to try ten times harder to be in any type of relationship and are destined to forever be either the side chick, or the one he settles for.

Day in, day out, I was always overlooked. I was taunted, teased, harassed because of my weight, and all the while, my self esteem was chipped away like a raging storm washing over a rock until the end of time. I had my little change purse of sexual experiences, but I remained a virgin, I told myself on a daily basis that I was unlovable, that no one would want me for the long term and if that was the case, I never wanted to have sex. I stuck to that too. I got myself a B.O.B and the rest was history. I tried to put everything that surrounded me out of my head but it was impossible. I spent a lot of time with my toys, and play time was fun, but I never achieved an orgasm. I tried and tried, but it, I, would never come and I was left with nothing more than mounting frustration and disappointment.

I didn't feel worthy of one.

It's a messed up thing to say, it's messed up that we as women can feel that bad about ourselves that we don't even believe that we are worthy of pleasure, to feel good about ourselves in the simplest of regards. I didn't have my first orgasm until I was nineteen, when I lost my virginity. It was absolutely incredible. I saw stars, rockets, the whole shebang, it all went spinning across my vision followed by an intense, lasting flash of white light.

My first orgasm literally changed my life. Granted, my life was already beginning to change because I made the conscious decision to say "f*ck it!" to the rest of the world and love myself. However, my very first orgasm changed me in ways that I never quite knew imaginable. It felt as if something magical within me had finally been unleashed. I felt like a dragon breathing fire for the first time. I was unstoppable. I actually eased into it so naturally, rocking my hips with abandon that my girlfriend's nail nicked me and I bled. I didn't even care. Up to that point my body felt like this radiating power house of energy that was rushing through me at speeds that seemed inhuman. Never have I felt more like myself than when I am having sex. Doesn't matter the kind; a quickie, slow, passionate lovemaking, angry, make up, it doesn't matter.

I once hated my body. I would look at myself with such disgust and scorn, I was ashamed and I had no problem with letting it display. Once upon a time, I used to be a really shitty person to this body of mine. I'm so sorry for that. My girlfriend makes me feel like an absolute Goddess in the flesh. The way she has to show restraint before entering me, so she doesn't get too eager, so it won't hurt makes me feel so desirable that I almost melt. The way she can barely keep her hands off me makes me feel like the most desirable woman on the planet. We all deserve to feel like that. I will be the first to tell you that it's a wonderful feeling. But it is a feeling that has to start from within.

I don't think my first orgasm would be anywhere near amazing if it hadn't been for the fact that I actually decided to find a way to love myself first. Having someone to share your life with, share your bed with is great, but you have to want to share everything with yourself first. Being a plus size woman is difficult. We are constantly told that we are lazy, worthless, and undeserving because we do not meet a standard of beauty that was constructed. When, in truth, beauty is within the eye of the beholder and who beholds your body more than you? Loving your body when you have spent so long not doing it is difficult. You will have days where you slip and slide up that slope to the point where you won't know what the point of it anymore is.

But the point is being happy. The point of climbing over this mountain of self hate is to be happy and to the love the body that you have now: not the one you will have or the one you used to have. There is a whole other side to life when you begin to love yourself. And let me tell you, the sex gets so much more spectacular than that. There are few things as gratifying as grabbing your sexual confidence by the horns and owning that sh#t because it feels damn good.

I know it is hard to wash away all that negative thinking, but there is so much more to life than the negative comments of fat shamers and people who should really remember that your weight is none of their business. So go on now, wear stripes, wear crop tops, wear bold colors, draw attention to yourself, laugh loudly, dance like you own the place, and always remember;

Verbal Respect: You're not FAT you're PHAT: P-H-A-T

So all last week I was super sick. I spent an entire week just gross, disgusting, bored, and sick. That's why there was no blog post for last week. Boo immune system, you suck!

With that being said...

I want to start this blog post off by saying how much I absolutely adore all of my friends and family. However, no matter how sweet the intentions, I take issue with people trying to give my fat a persona that I simply do not care for.

I AM FAT.

Am I pretty? You bet your sweet ass I am. Am I hot? Scorching baby, just stepped straight out of hell; and am I thick? The answer is a resounding "yes."

This does not however change the fact that I am fat. I weigh three hundred and seventy six pounds. 376 lbs. Six years ago, I would have burst into tears trying to admit that aloud. Six years ago, I would have gone into a spiraling depression if I heard someone call me fat. But I am. This blog isn't called "F*ck It, I'm Fat" because I picture myself as a beautiful, "chunky" fairy princess or a "plus size" diva. This blog has the name that it does because I believe that we should be perfectly able to reclaim words and be comfortable doing so. Reclaim the words that have hurt us so that they can never be used to hurt us again. This is a lesson that I learned from listening to the song "Pussy Manifesto" by Bitch.

There is so much power in the reclaiming of words. Why be distraught and broken up over a word? Without we, as humans, words have no meaning. It's all just gibberish that we strung together in order to communicate with one another. Language as we know it is just the pretty, dolled version of the "ug uug ughn" caveman speech of yesteryear. If you are an American, and you go to China and speak English. Will they understand you, no. Your words mean nothing to them. If a Chinese man were to go to Guatemala and speak Mandarin, would he be understood? No! Because his words wouldn't mean anything, and they wouldn't make a lick of sense.

You guys see where I'm going with this one?

I am fat, and if I want to call my fat that, then let me do it. I don't need comments like:

"It's not fat, it's fluff"

What am I? A marshmallow?

"You're not fat, you're just big boned/thick/got cushion for the pushin'".....just......no, could you not?

I completely respect people's right to refer to my body how they wish. So long as they are respectful, mind you. However, when I speak about my body, this thing that I have carried around with me since before I was scientifically even considered a human being: don't correct me.

You can call it fluff if you want. Chub if you want. You could call it banana for all Is very well give a damn, but when  I refer to my body, don't correct me because your correction is made solely on the assumption that I do not like my body. My comments are not made for your assumptions. There are, sadly, plenty of women who are completely insecure with their weight, but I am not one of those women. I was one of those women for most of my life, it began when I was seventeen but I didn't completely come into myself, truly, until I was 19.

That was five years ago. I started getting fat when I was about nine, was fat by age ten. So for nine years of my life, I was this person, this girl I so self loathed.

I was the girl who called herself every word but "fat." I was/had:

Chubby
Chunky
Big boned
Curvy
Heavy-set
Plump
Juicy
PHAT
Fluffy

This asshat right here compiled an entire list of "funny" euphemisms for fat. I can guarantee you that when I was that girl; I like to call her Rachel 1.0, I probably called myself everything on that list at least ones. Some of them I used because I hated my body and some of them I used because it was easier, safer, better to call myself anything other than fat. I could be a juicy, plump, chubby little girl and stay in my little bubble of self-hate forever so long as I didn't have to hear that dreaded, painful three letter word.

F-A-T

I hated my body and I did terrible things to it trying to deny what was right in front of me. I'm not saying that everyone has to go out and go around calling themselves "fat" all day. You can call yourself whatever you like, so long as you treat your body with the same verbal respect that you require and expect from other people.

Verbal Respect. I like that, excuse me while I go add that to the title....

And I'm back!

I am fat. I'll say it until the day comes that it isn't the truest statement that I know. I am fat, but I am also many, many other things. I am a daughter, sister, lover, student, writer, artist, aspiring model, nail fanatic, nail obsessed, natural loving blogger who thinks that the media, society, and the people who follow these two things religiously can go suck an egg and choke on it.

Life is too, you only get one and no matter what you do, what you say or what you think, there is always going to be someone out there who is going to hate you. It sucks. It hurts. But does that mean you should be any less happy because of it? No! It means you should live your life for the only one that matters: you. So hold your head up high and splash on some fire engine red or bright pink lipstick, that is our shield against the bullsh#t of this world; with that, you are unstoppable and no force, no word, no person can touch you.

I don't want to be Rachel 1.0 ever again and even Rachel 2.0 is getting a major update. Pouring my heart out to anyone that reads my blog, knowing that even if I don't know it, that I make just one persons day brighter makes me strive to be a better person. I have so many dreams and aspirations in this life, one of the biggest ones is to take you all with me on this journey

:-)

The Struggle for Beautiful

I just got done crying.

I could sit here and pretend that it's because of something major; a love one passed away, I had a stressful day, I just got into a fight with my girlfriend, but no: none of those reasons are why I just got done sobbing like a squalling newborn still drenched in my mother's innards. I just got done crying because I don't always feel pretty or liked.

Now, we can all sit here and pretend like we're all too grown to feel like that, or sh#t can get real for a second and we can cut the crap. I don't care how old you are, how much bullsh#t life has thrown at you and how much you have over come: we ALL have those days.

Those days where nothing fits right no matter how many sweaters you shrug over your broad shoulders, or jeans that you shimmy into just to find that they won't button, or tank tops you slither into like a snake just to end up looking like a busted sausage casing.Those days where friends leave you out of plans and even though ANY other time it doesn't bother you, today it makes you feel 13 all over again, sitting home alone on a Friday night while you're friends are at the mall.Those days where no matter how many people you logically know love you, you spend the entire day walking around feeling like you have the word "loser" rubber stamped to your forehead for the entire world to see. Those days where you feel so unpretty, uninteresting and unfunny you feel like you should have your own D List satire sitcom....until you remember that no one would watch, because you suck.

It's hard being a woman. Hell, a person.

There is so much pressure to be pretty, to be beautiful and there are so many f*cked up notions of what that means that the word "beauty," at least for this fat chick, has really lost most if not all of its meaning. I want to be beautiful. I want to feel beautiful all the time and I struggle so hard with finding what that really means. How does one become beautiful? I suppose it all begins by definition.

What is my definition of beautiful? 

For me, being beautiful means expressing yourself, your true self to the world and not caring what any shmuck has to say about it. I can usually do that, but at the same time I can't. I like to express myself through my appearance, the clothing that I wear, but I don't have the means, the money, the resources to fully do that. I have a big, bold style. I am so inspired and influenced by Chastity Garner, Georgina Horne, Essie Golden, and Tess Holiday....but you would never know it. I can't afford to show it and it makes me really sad....

I could pretend it doesn't, but I would be lying through my slightly gapped teeth and that just isn't something I will do. My closet is a mix matched war zone of handmedowns, pulling my style in the direction of three different people, one of whom hurt me so badly but I needed the sweaters to help keep me warm through the winter.How can I feel confident, feel beautiful, feel like myself in clothing from someone who hurt me? Someone I don't speak to anymore.The other handmedowns are from my sister. Some of the pieces in my closet have successfully managed to survive the 90s. I love my sister, we grew up five to years apart from one another and although at ages 23 and 28, I can finally both love AND appreciate her; I am well past the age of wanting to be just like my "big sissy."

Then there is me...desperately trying to peak through, to take charge and command, to break through the hangers and kick a** and take names. I have pieces in my wardrobe that I'm really proud of. But not many. Which means that most of the time. I'm either smoking hot, or a socker mom in my Lane Bryant T3 jeans which fit hug my curves in the wrong way and my famed striped sweaters....because that was what I wore to the bar Sunday night. I told myself I didn't want to "get cute" to go to the bar on a Sunday but the second I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror I felt deflated.

Should I have put on a bodycon dress and some slinky heels? No, probably not, but I bet anything else would have made me feel better than what I ended up with. Am I saying that being beautiful is the only thing a woman should aspire to be? No, and if you get that from this then, please, I say this most sincerely: f*ck you...

What I am saying is that to every woman, man, genderless person out there who doesn't always feel the greatest about their looks, expression, likeability and certain social circles: you are not alone. I am right beside you. I am right with you when you are crying. I am right there with you when you feel like crap. I am here and I will love you if you let me, and we can feel like sh#t together so long as we remember one thing.

This pain that we feel is only temporary. We are all beautiful. So let's stick together so we can always remember that.