My Identity as Your Fat Friend

I weigh in at just over 300lbs. I have successfully managed to maintain my weight for over six years. Oh! You thought I was going to say I had lost weight? Well, yeah, I lost 40lbs after my son was born three years ago, but I don't count that. No, I am managing my weight with success. Maybe you think I should lose 150lbs, and yes, maybe I should, but I am happy with simply not gaining any.

The most recent selfie.

Wait, you mean you can't imagine being happy with 305lbs? Well, of course not, you can't imagine it because we are surrounded by thin people telling us we should be thinner, and doctors telling us we are obese, and the government telling us we are epidemically fat. And be that as it may, it's difficult to imagine being fat and happy. 

So please, let me explain why I am able to be both fat and happy.

I've been obese since I was in grade school. I started wearing my mother's hand-me-downs in fourth grade before bell-bottoms had come back and I had to wear them to school.At the time, I really hated them, I hated that I had to wear my mother's old clothes instead of my older sister's whose old clothes were amazing and cool (she was three years older than me so everything she did was amazing and cool, including those huge, standing up bangs, remember those?).

In fourth grade, I had one friend, a social reject like me. She was short, thin, and an utter tomboy. The kids in our class didn't like either of us for one reason or another, and we weren't too concerned with them either. We were however, best friends. Our friendship bloomed overnight. We went from strangers to inseparable in a matter of days. I didn't know it then, but now I know it was because I was fat.

Ok, So that was in fourth grade and how could I know it was because of my size?

How about seventh grade?

I really started understanding my role as a human in middle school. I knew I would never be a part of the popular kids clique; I was too interested in learning, too much of a reader, too much of a Christian, and I was too fat. I heard the phrase "fat bitch" a lot during middle school.  A lot. But it never bothered me because I began to understand that I had intrinsic value without having to be valued by every other person in my school. The one person who did value me was my new friend, Nichol. I spent the second half of sixth grade trying to weasel my way into her friendship. I liked her, I liked her friend, and I made my application to her friendship known. I would say hello, see what she was up to, try to be friendly. She wasn't unfriendly with me, but she had her own world she lived in and I was not a part of it. Besides, I was the fat kid and I was grouped with all the rest of the fat kids and social rejects, and she was definitively not in that group.

The thinnest I have ever been.

Things changed in seventh grade. Her best friend moved away, and Nichol was left with me. Suddenly I became a life-preserver to her while she was at school. I couldn't have known at the time because I was too young to understand, but what made our friendship then turn into my longest-lasting friendship now, was that I was comfortable to be with. I was fat, so I couldn't judge her, I would accept her as she was because I had no other social option. She didn't have to work to make me like her, or even really make a huge effort for me to be her friend, and that was a relief! Who wants a friendship that is hard to maintain? Especially after something as traumatic as losing a lifelong friend at an already difficult stage in life (middle school is the worst, isn't it?). Who wants to be required to impress someone else in the name of friendship. I was fat, so I didn't have to be impressed, I was a social reject, so it was a movement up from the losers table to Nichol's company at lunch.

That's just the beginning though. I make friends easily with most people because I am so comfortable to be around. Being fat, people assume I don't judge (which is a safe assumption in my case), and they feel comfortable opening up to me. I don't look like the kind of person who is going to look at you and make all sorts of judgements and assumptions about you. I look matronly, motherly, kind; my roundish face instills people with a sense of ease. Then, after that initial, "Oh, this woman isn't a threat," comes the next stage, where my sparkling personality and wit capture my new audience. Ha. Ha. Actually, I am a really good listener and I empathize well. this skill makes my new friends like me even more, because I am able to make them feel genuinely valuable by hearing them when they speak about themselves.

My listening skills are a result of being fat too. During high school, I thought people didn't want to hear what I had to say because I was fat. So I learned to listen, really listen. It took me going to college and practicing speaking my opinion with my friends before I got over the idea that I wasn't worth listening to. 

A friend posed me and took this picture of me. Beautiful.

After capturing my friends with my pleasant appearance and listening skills, comes the reward, the reason I am ok identifying as your fat friend. So. Much. Love. I love my friends, and they love me, and it is an intense affectionate love all around. Loyalty abounds, compliments fly, entangled lives ensue. I have never had a friend who made me feel less than utterly beautiful. I have always had people in my life who assured me of my value with their words and affection, I can identify as your fat friend and not feel like a clump of worthless mud because you have always made me feel beautiful, at my thinnest and at my fattest, and you have always made my life brighter with your friendship to me as much or more than I have with my friendship to you.

A group of my closest college friends on a spring break in Tampa.