On Being a Plus Sized Gal in a Not Plus Sized World

I'm not skinny. In fact, I'm fat. It's not something I'm proud of. It's not something I'm ashamed of. It just is. Do I want to change it? Yes. Do I currently want to change it enough to give up the foods that I love and work out every day? No. I'm not there yet. I picked this year to focus on making changes in my life, and the last 5 months have been all about changes at work. I'm glad I've done that. Being happy at work has carried over into almost every aspect of my life...except my health. I'm happier at home. I'm happier because if I want to do something, I have usually have the money to do so. I'm happier because I don't have the sense of dread getting out of bed to go to a place I don't want to be. All that is well and good, but it's also time to focus on ME. But, that's a little off topic. Back to why I'm writing this: Being fat in a skinny world.

My thoughts on this began when I was looking for something cute to wear out for my birthday. I searched high and low. I knew I needed new jeans, and got excited when I got a coupon for buy one pair get the second for $25 from Torrid. I LOVE TORRID. It's a chubby girl's paradise. They have clothes that fit me, but that my grandma wouldn't wear to church. Places like that make me happy. So, I got on the phone. I called both locations in the area. Only one pair in my size and none on the website. AGH!! They were so awesome. They held the jeans for me for the two days that it took me to get up to the store at Zona Rosa. I was happy. I had my beautiful new jeans, and I got a new top. But I had to drive way out of my way to make that happen. I couldn't just run to Target and grab the first thing I saw. Bummer. Then I remembered...I couldn't go topless for my b-day. I needed something new to wear on the upper half. So I scoured the web for something that would look good on me. Something I wouldn't tug at all night because it didn't fit quite right or it was just a little too short. I finally found something I loved at SWAK Designs (if you haven't ever checked out their site and you wear plus sizes, I highly encourage it. I purchased a cami and a cardigan from there and I ADORE them. They are so soft and flattering.) I asked everyone which color to get and then I waited until payday. And of course, the color everyone said I should get was gone. So I settled. I settled for second choice. Granted, it ended up being a good choice. Apparently orange is a good color on me. But again, I couldn't just run and find something that fit me down the street. I had to order it from a website and pray that when it arrived it would fit, and it would look good.

Please ignore the extra chins and unflattering pose. A few cocktails and I pull back in my pictures...you'd think I'd know better by now.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the big stink about Abercrombie and Fitch comes out. They don't want the fat/uncool kids in their clothes. My only real problem with this is that they are saying someone overweight can't be cool. I beg to differ. My weight has NOTHING at all to do with the number or quality of my friends. In fact, I'd say that because my friends see past it to see me, that makes them better people than the "cool kids" that can apparently only hang out with other people of the same size. I for one never want to live in a world of size 4, blonde hair, blue eyed robot people. So, to Abercrombie & Fitch I say, "that's cool. I don't want to shop at your store anyway. Even if I could." 

So that's what it's like in my world. Constantly being told by the media, by stores that I don't deserve to shop there. That I'm less of a human because my butt is bigger than the average Jane. I panic at the thought of travelling by air because what if they make me buy a second seat? I have to contemplate which table to sit at because what if I don't fit comfortably in that booth? Eyeballing where the bathroom is when I walk into a place to make sure I have a path that I can fit through to get to it. It can be soul crushing at times, panic inducing at other times, but most of the time I just keep on with a big smile on my face.