You Can't Touch My Hair Anymore

Once again summer is here and time seems to be flying by and that leaves me feeling highly reflective. One of the greatest liberations since shaving my head Memorial Day 2016 is that I no longer have to endure the entitlement that white folks have always felt to shove their grimy hands, root deep into my curly crown and pet me like a dog. It was a liberation that -to be perfectly honest- I had not anticipated. Originally, I shaved my head for personal and style -aka completely vain- reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with race. I had dyed my hair shortly before making the decision to go natural and my hair was fried at the ends with bleached red hair. I didn't want to Big Chop for fear of being “ugly” with such short hair or even a bald head so I transitioned slowly and got the red cut out little by little until finally in a fit of frustration I tried to hack out the red and jacked my shit all the way up. The resulting botched hair cut left me feeling really insecure about my looks and I had already been debating shaving my head for a little over two years. It was a style I was nervous about because the thought of “looking ugly” or “not right” floored me. It had nothing to do with anything political. However, I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore.

If anyone will bother to recall, I wrote a blog post awhile back called “Kiss my voluptuous Mulatto a**” in which I touched base on the isolation that I have felt from my POC community where I live. That deeply rooted feeling of isolation gave way to me feeling highly alienated and unidentifiable. I felt like an Other. To whites, I would never be white, and to blacks I was always simultaneously not black and not black enough. That’s what, for many years, almost forced me to take the term “mulatto” a word with a deep, hateful history of colorism and reclaim it for my own. I felt, that given my circumstances of exclusion and isolation that I had to reclaim, recycle, and give new purpose to a term just so that I could feel slightly more complete and actualized because for practically my entire life -in my community anyhow- when simply using the term “mixed” I was told repeatedly that I wasn't mixed, that I was white.

Many people expressed anger, hurt, and even disgust that I chose to refer to myself as a term dating back to slavery. For many people it further solidified that my body had no place in the realm of blackness. To be honest, I contemplated deleting the post but thought better of it. People tried to make me feel horrible about the choices that I tried to make in order to feel more grounded in my identity. However, it was those same people that demonized me that made me feel misplaced and unwanted in the first place.

I spent the first nineteen years of my life feeling as if I had no racial identity because the people that surrounded me told me I didn’t belong anywhere. So, as people are often wont to do, I tried to create a space for myself. I tried to find my own belonging. It was a solitary belonging but for quite some time it was all I had. It was the only space that shut the door -if only by a smidge- on the hate filled memories of being teased and ridiculed. It dissolved a small fraction of the insurmountable shame I felt for things that I could not control. I felt shame for being light skinned, for being the “little white girl,” for being “stuck up and boujee” because I “talked white,” and for a while “mulatto” dissolved this ever present, incessant need to prove my blackness.

Finally a victory. Though as small as it was despite many years of struggling I felt as if I was discovering myself. It wasn't perfect and some days I still yearned for a community that would welcome me with open arms and raised voice but for the moment it had been enough. It was enough until ultimately it wasn't enough. I had created a space for myself, this was true, but somewhere around my 25th birthday when I had a five course meal of spiritual revelations; I came to the conclusion that I needed more. I felt comfortable but I was far from feeling whole because in the back, crowded, and dark spaces of my mind I still felt immensely….inadequate. I still felt, despite my age climbing ever higher, like I wasn’t enough, like I wasn’t good enough because in the back of my head I knew I wasn’t black enough.

Fast forward to the weekend of February 17th when I attended MBLGTACC 2017 with a group of my peers in my college’s GSA. For those who may not know MBLGTACC is the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference and a GSA is a Gay Straight Alliance both of these things strive for feelings of inclusion and love. The theme of this years MBLGTACC was “solidarity” and, given experiences growing up it was a word that I understood intellectually, something I craved, but had rarely felt. At MBLGTACC you are invited to attend lectures going over a wide variety of Queer issues and, though my heart did the Samba, Zumba, and Jumping Jacks in my chest all at once I decided that the first lecture I would attend would be on QPOC (Queer People of Color) solidarity. Immediately I felt frightened. Just looking at the title of the lecture made me uneasy because I felt like simply by gazing upon it I was a criminal trying to deface something that did not belong to me.

I was not a person of color; this was something that had been instilled in me since the ripe young age of seven. If I went to this, in my heart of heart, I knew that I would ignite in myself a wave of insecurities but I had to take the chance. My spirit called for me to take a leap of faith and for once I listened no matter how much fear I felt. I'd been rejected before; I could take it, even though it would hurt like hell…

Walking into the room, I felt relieved to see people as light as me, lighter than me amongst the beautiful sea of black and brown faces. For a brief moment I didn't feel alone. I still shied away into the back of the room though, straining to see the two gorgeous lecturers past the magnificent afro of the handsome gentleman in front of me. I liked that. His afro felt like a shield protecting me from my frightful memories that dared to boil over the surface of my memories. Two white girls came in late with -no joke- Starbucks cups in hand and I wondered with a dull ache if I had gotten lumped in with them. A trio of white girls paired together not because of any proximity in relationships but because of the glaring, obvious, paleness of their skin coming to a lecture about things they could never possibly understand. The thought made my heart race into its frenzied Zumba dance again. I focused on the handsome individual in front of me. He was -unbeknownst to him- my protector for the first portion of the lecture until we were asked to get up for an activity.

The activity? Graffiti Wall. There were large strips of paper scattered around the room with different prompts on them and we were asked to respond. I clutched my little marker and wandered around the room aimlessly as I answered each prompt to the best of my ability. The last wall felt fifty feet high when I read the words “barriers within the QPOC community” and someone had spoken the words that had resounded in my soul for years. Written in quotation marks were the words “you're not black enough/POC enough” and when asked to share our opinions about each wall prompt something snapped inside of me.

For those who don't know me personally; I have Anxiety. Volunteering to speak in public is an absolute no-no for me unless I am otherwise forced like at school or something. I don't like speaking to large groups of unknown people, I can barely tolerate speaking to large groups of friends and family. Yet, here I was, brazenly asking to speak and share my truth.

I broke down.

To a room full of strangers I bared my soul and openly sobbed as I admitted my struggles of racial identity. I told an entire group of strangers of how my entire life I had been Othered and cast aside by my own community because my Blackness was labeled as both less than and non-existent. I was the white girl for liking anime, video games, and fantasy novels. I was the white girl for loving to read and write and not “talking” or “sounding” black. I wasn't black because I had “good hair” and “good skin.” I told a room full of strangers the pain I had harbored in my heart for years and instead of laughing and telling me things like that couldn't have happened….instead of telling me that I was being sensitive, instead of invalidating my experience; that day something truly remarkable happened that touched me to my core.

People listened to me, not only that but they rallied behind me. For the first time in my life I knew what true solidarity felt like. I had a group of my beautiful QPOC family telling me that I was worthy, loved, and most importantly enough. I received thanks for sharing, words of encouragement, I was told how brave I was for speaking my truth so openly and without abandon, and best of all; I received some great hugs (I'm a hugger) y’all. The lesson that I cannot other define me no matter how badly they try to beat me down and shove me into a mold that they can identify me as finally stuck. That lecture put roots deep in my spirit and I'll never forget the beautiful faces that made me feel -for the first time ever- comfortable and actualized in my own Blackness, the beautiful faces that stripped away the sense of Otherness and the rubble left behind by society, and gave me the access and confidence to sculpt my own beautiful identity.

My shaved head has helped a lot with giving me a sense of connectedness with my identity. It was completely unexpected but something blossomed within me when I shaved my head. As each chunk of my hair fell away I felt like I was shedding my skin, my past, and feelings of inadequacy. Gone was the notion that I am my hair and that it had to define my identity and my beauty. Gone was the notion that I had to keep my hair in order to fulfill some convoluted concept of self that was completely centered around the only thing I was told my entire childhood that was good about me. The best part was no more white people wanting to pet me like I was a dog or some type of exotic, foreign creature. Even better than that? No more men telling me I couldn't be mixed with black; that I just had to have some Puerto Rican in eme, or Indian, or something else other than what I was. My hair became this political force that snapped in front of me like a shield. No more unwanted touching without my consent and no more backhanded compliments that were actually insults, and no more comments of how I “talk funny for a black person.” Ever since shaving my head -though assholes will always be  prevalent- I feel as though I've stepped into a space where I am free to simply be. Be a person, be human, be a genuine and nothing feels better than that.

FAT! Live and In Concert

Hey, so, remember when I would actually post stuff to my blog? Hm? You don't? I don't blame you, it has been eons since I've posted anything. This little thing called life got in the way, sorry about that. I keep telling it that it's a bitch, but it just keeps on moving without any regard to how I want it to move.

Anyway, back in March, I went to my very first concert ever. Yes, that's right, I was 24 when I broke my proverbial concert cherry.

I saw Rihanna during her Anti Tour, live at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan. To anyone that knows me and anyone who doesn't, Rihanna is bae, AF. Of course, I couldn't go to a Rihanna concert without making a bold statement with my outfit. I smeared on a dark green lipstick called Dr.M courtesy of Colourpop, wore skin tight leggings, a thong, went sans bra, and wore the top you see to your right. I was sexy, I was fierce, and more importantly it was the first time in a very long time that I felt very exposed about self conscious about my fat. But this was Rihanna we were talking about, I either had to go big, or go home, and I wasn't going to chicken out.

 This is the look I was trying to emulate with what I had in my wardrobe. I didn't have the jewelry, nor the time to put my hair in bantu knots, but my outfit was something daring, something I would never have the courage to do if Rihanna hadn't been involved. So, I took the plunge, grabbed my ticket, requested an Uber and headed out into the world feeling extremely exposed and uncomfortable in my body. However, I was determined to enjoy myself no matter what, because bae.

Walking into the arena was torturous. Everywhere around me, I saw girls of all different shapes and sizes pulling off the types of outfits my broke behind dreams of wearing. For someone who is confident in their body about 60-70% of their time, I felt out of my element. I felt like a shy little turtle, cautiously poking my head out of my shell every few minutes to see if I was reading to come out. I go braless all the time, like, ALL. THE. TIME, but rarely in public and that one deviation from my regular routine set off a domino effect of insecurity that I was nowhere near prepared for.

We got to the venue early, because I'm me and I'm punctual, forever on time lol. I remember feeling a rush of adrenaline when I got my ticket. The realization that I was going to be in the same space with the woman that I admire so. However, the moment that sense of euphoria and perfectness wore off, I was right back to being all too aware of how my breasts were jiggly around beneath my shirt. Instinctively, I began tugging at my shirt in every way imaginable, pulling it down over my butt to hide my thong that wasn't showing, pulling it down over my stomach that wasn't showing.

I tried to literally wrap myself in a black cocoon with my Torrid caged tank top. As you can imagine, it didn't work. From about 7:15 pm to about 9pm I sat, hot and sweaty, eyes darting this way and that, trying to hide my body from a world that -surprise, surprise- wasn't paying attention to me.

It was at that moment, that Rihanna came onto the stage, lifting out of a podium in the ground that the crowd went bonkers and I remembered why I was there, why literally everyone else came there that night. To see Rihanna. No one was paying attention to me, my fat, my flaws, my insecurities and that realization made me remember all the body positive love that I have instilled in myself over the years.

I felt my own comfort wash over me as tears streamed down my face because my excitement was that paramount. I looked good that night, hella good, I was fierce and even though I spent a long time trying to get over my negative emotions I didn't allow fear to allow me to shy away from bold fashion choices. I proved to myself that I can be just as daring as I want to be.

Mission Unlocked: Life Lesson.

Where do I go from here?

Yo!

Yup, despite my absence, which Blogger tells me has been for almost a whopping three months: I am not dead. Well, I'm not dead, but I certainly don't feel like I'm very much so alive either.

Where do I begin?

The past few months have been especially rough. When I say rough, I particularly mean that I feel as though I've been body slammed by a monster truck that -when seeing my twitching limbs denoting just the tiniest spark of life left in me- it then decided to do a complete u-turn and then ran over me again, and again, and again....and one more time for good measure.

In other words, as of right now, my life stinks right now. I am a few months shy of reaching my 25th birthday and I think it is officially time to declare that I am having a mid-mid life crisis. And it stinks, in case I haven't mentioned that enough times already. Oh, I did? Too bad, because you'll be hearing a lot of that because despite its simplicity it's extremely accurate as well as loaded with all sorts of emotions.

If I had to put the emotions that I've been feeling lately into a neat little list, they would go as followed, in chronological order:

1) OVER IT
2) Fed up
3) Tired, so, so tired
4) Depressed
5) Lonely
6) OVER IT
7) Angry
8) Confused
9) Lost
10) OVER IT
11) Not like myself and generally disconnected from everything around me
13) OVER IT, hm, I think I'm starting to see a pattern here...

I'm not okay, I haven't particularly been okay for a while, which is a decent chunk of the informational pie as to why I have been gone from the blog for so long. I'm like 90% sure that once this blog post is up and live that my mother and sister will read it and probably feel bad and junk that I haven't been talking to them about how I feel, so let me write this now and get it out the way.

To my mother and sister, whom I love dearly:

I'm weird as shit, you guys should already know this by now, ya think? I don't always like sitting down on the couch, bed, kitchen, living room or whatever the hell and just opening up about my feelings. That shit is stressful af. Like, the amount of stressful that is is pretty ridiculous. I'm an introvert, I'm quiet yet loud, I'm open, yet helluh reserved: I'm....me. For some Rachel-y unknown reason it is eighty times easier for me to pour my heart out to a computer screen where I don't have to deal with interruptions, platitudes/"mom statements" like "I'll always support you/be there for you/love you/ you can always come to me, etc." Yes! Those things are lovely to hear but are typically the last the I want to hear, like, at all. I have anxiety, guys. When it comes to my emotions, I'm a picky conversationalist, and usually writing out how I feel and letting you read it and talking about it afterward so I don't have to go through the physical exhaustion of trying to explain it to you face-to-face, and make all that awkward eye contact, and feel all those squishy, sentimental bonding feelings when I really just want to rant and rave and explode and then sit there in a heap afterward.

So, in short, I freaking love you guys. I really do. My unwillingness to come to you guys for comfort has nothing to do with you, anything you did, have down, or will do. I know this sounds like a super cheesy "It's not you, it's me," break up type deal, but it's honestly not. I'm just a weirdly open, not open individual. So just think of this blog post and my ability to put my personal business on the internet for -god only knows how many people to see- as my way of also reaching out to you guys. Trust me, it's super better this way.

Love, Rachel

And done!

Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah, my life kinda stinks right now. There's a lot of reasons for that, goodness, but I think that can be broken down into three effective categories: love, passion, and time.

1. Love

My love life is in shambles, yay~ story of my freaking liiiiiiiife. My love person? Friend? Ex? I have no idea what we are right now. I have no idea what we will be in the future, if we will even have a future: I am currently in an agonizing love Purgatory and, guess what? You guessed it: it stinks. Shit has been rough for a while with us. Hm, by while, I more so mean the past two years of our existence together. I could probably fill up (and will in my private time) an entire five subject notebook on my feelings toward the state of my love life right now. Here is the condensed version which puts my, our, business out there but not too much; she and I have a lot of fucking issues and recently she has undergone a series of serious health complications that make us being in a relationship right now a really terrible idea. There's a lot more to it than that but that's letting everyone in just a tiny bit too much, yanno? But to keep it condensed lets just say that relationship goals, some major and varying boundary issues, respect, body image issues (on both our parts), sickness, and active listening issues are the broad, volatile factors that play a key role in our break up, separation, break: whateverthefuck this is...

However, as you can imagine from the bit about Purgatory, I still love her, dear god, I still love her with every ounce of my being. I also just kind of hate her a little bit too. Love is messy and complicated that way, isn't it. I love her with all my heart and despite our many, many, many, many, many problems my heart is still like "go get'em champ," while my soul and mind are more like, "bitch, here, please take several seats. kthankbai." As much as things turn to shit, as much as I want to kill her sometimes [ memo to self: edit out incriminating evidence in case of premeditated murder charge]; she is the absolute love of my life. I know that I'm young and most people will tell me "you don't really know anything about true love yet." To the people that have that bit of advice to say to me, I will kindly ask that you fuck off.

I'm an extremely emotional, empathetic, deep feeling, personal, and soulful person. When I feel things, I feel them to the absolute divinity of my core self. As you can imagine, this makes having Depression and Anxiety, super happy fun tines...but that's another grueling story for another day. That being said, I have a very old, archaic notion of love; I want to grow old with someone, I want there to be that "one", I want to have someone be "my first, last, and only," heaven forbid but I still believe in monogomy, I want to know someone on a level of totality that no one can touch: spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, soulfully, I want to be a priority, a first choice, I want an "old school" kind of love that the era of fuck boys, side chicks, and cheating through "sliding through" someones DMs rarely affords anymore. And for a very long time, I had that with her, we had a crap which seems like absolute child's play to the issues we face now, but once upon a time she and I were happy, people in our community that knew us looked at our relationship with pride because most lesbian relationships in our town don't make it past six months let alone a year, two years.

We've been together for five years. We have broken up both publicly and privately a lot within that time, if I had to say how long we have collectively, legitimately been together without the "off" part of the on again, off again relationship thing getting in the way; I'd say it's really been more like three and a half years. Relationships are tough, and they can be especially hard when one person is fighting more than the other but I'm like Drake in his verse in Rihanna's new chart topping single "Work."

"When I see potential I just gotta see it through, if you had a twin I would still choose you."

As much as I mildly hate her guts right now, I still want her, so bad. I spend night alone wishing that I could put all of our problems on a gigantic white board between us and just wipe them away, literally just put them in the universe and wipe them away. But life doesn't work like that. I just want us to be okay, but I'm not sure if we can be and guess what....that stinks.

2. Passion

Another thing that really has me down is that I feel a major disconnect from all the things that once used to make me so happy. I know that part of it is due in part to my relationship, another part to my depression, but damn it, I am just not as invested in my passions as I used to be and it stinks. I feel like I have lost a piece of myself and struggling to get back to that has been a major pain. I used to write, draw, do nail art, and within the past year blog: A LOT. Now, I hardly ever do it. I feel like a ghost of my former self a lot of the time. 

I feel like life has just....gotten in the way of me actually living my life. I feel like my life has become this pitiful mass of going to bed early, waking up early, going to school, doing homework, taking care of my partner while she was going through her sickness, missing homework, playing catch up, being stressed out about playing catch up, breaking down, building myself back up from backing down, the continuing to play catch up, and repeating the process. Before my partner got sick, there was always something that was keeping me from my passions. Last year, it was my involvement in a group on campus that literally ate away my free time quicker than Pac-Man could gobble up white dots and fruit. The year before that, I was coming out of a supremely long depressive period that just hindered my entire existence. 

It was ALWAYS something, it's always been SOMETHING, to the point where I don't really know if I want to even pursue these things anymore. Which is a BIG deal for me, because no matter where my life has taken me up until this point I have ALWAYS wanted to be a writer. Writing is what I'm in school for, it's been the only thing keeping me going for years and now it just seems like something that is so ridiculously un-me, like my memories of loving to write aren't memories but just something I remember a friend telling me about their life: not mine. The mere thought of not wanting to write anymore, kind of floors me.

3. Time
  
I've always been a bit of procrastinator, who isn't, am I right? But within the past three years it has gotten ridiculously bad. This is due in large, major part to my depression which has been a nightmare off and on for the past two years. My depression leaves me completely unmotivated. I mean, unmotivated to the point where GROSS ALERT:  my record for consecutive days without bathing because the thought of standing in the shower for 10-15 minutes was unbearable: 12. When my depression is waltzing in like a 'roid monster and screwing up my motivation it leaves me feeling like I have no time for anything in my life that makes me happy: at all. That's kind of where the whole eat, sleep, go to school, play catch up at school, come home, go to bed early mindset comes in. Time is our most valuable asset and I know I'm not alone in feeling like there is never, ever enough of it. Especially not when it takes you three hours to gather motivation and then four to eight hours to complete a long string of tasks, or it takes you two hours to commute by bus after you've spent four hours on campus, and then still have to come in, cook dinner, and then do homework before going to bed. Feeling like you are constantly running out of time is seriously a good way to put yourself into an early grave, because man I swear, some days I feel like I'm just going to be on the bus and just plotz.

So where do I go from here?

So, I've finally shared with you guys why I feel like absolute crap as of late, why I've been gone so much despite the fact that I've posted semi-frequently on the Facebook page and while hemmed up in the hospital with my partner last week also created a Tumblr page (which is oh, so uncensored) and now I bet you are expecting me to say something truly inspiring and beautiful and uplifting....

Sorry to disappoint, guys, but the truth is "I have no fucking clue." I wish I could tell you that I'm super far down my mental health pathway but the truth is I'm only 24 and I'm struggling and just trying to find what works for me. There's no right or wrong way to get better, by get better I mean feel better because there's no easy, permanent fix. However, the most important thing to do is try. 

Actually, legitimately try. No more baby steps, no more tip-toeing into the murky, muddy waters that is self care, body love, mental health, and generally fucked up emotions: it's time to cannonball into that shit and dive in. Grab your issues by the nape of the neck and repeat after me:

"Listen here, you little shit....."

When I'm feeling especially down, even though I LITERALLY have to force myself to function....a lot, I find ways to live my life. I try to find JOY, meaning, I actively look for it. I use uplifting essential oils (which I can do an entire blog post about if anyone is interested), I make things, I write, hate what I write, and throw it away, I draw, hate what I draw, and throw it away, I watch Netflix while I do my homework, I read a book (currently been reading "Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls" by the phenomenally amazing babe Jes Baker, more on the awesomeness later), I listen to Spotify on my one hour bus ride to school, or the hour long bus ride back, sometimes I take a shower and just sit in my room naked; I search for happiness.

Will that work for you? Probably, I don't know, but there's only one damn way to find out, huh?    
  

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