Why does being fat seem to offend people who are not fat?  This guy called me fat once and I didn’t even get mad.  I learned a very important lesson that day:  Only skinny people get mad when you call them fat.  Go ahead, try it.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t huge.  I was apple shaped; skinny everything and a round tummy and I had absolutely no problems with that.  It was mean comments from other people that gave me negative body image, not the media like they would lead some people to believe.  In fifth grade this girl told me I had a big stomach.  In my mind, I was like “yeah, and?”.  Then she laughed.  What was funny about my stomach?  It was just a freakin’ stomach!  Then in the seventh grade a guy told me I didn’t have the body for my outfit and a girl said my butt looked like a biscuit in my mustard colored jeans (it was the 90s, lol).  I was thick and I had boobs, so I got mostly compliments.  In eight and ninth grade I was feeling my body.  I started to wear clothes that complimented my assets.  In the 10th grade, I had a style and that all came to a halt one day when this guy, D, made a very sexual comment about my body.  D and I had quite a history and I was a little afraid of him.  He was a very handsome guy but he was aggressive, a bad boy, popular, and outspoken.  Me, I was the virgin, bookworm with a nice rack.

We were in math class (I hate math), taking a test.  D sat directly facing me in the classroom.  I would catch him staring at me sometimes, licking his lips.  The teacher stepped out of the classroom.  Ten seconds later, D said loudly, “Damnnnn, Cleonette got a fat ass pussy!”  My mouth dropped open, my legs snapped closed, my eyes bulged, horrified seeing the lust in D’s eyes and the eyes of every boy in the room staring at my lap.  I dressed in baggy clothes until senior year.

In college, I lost weight. My dad died.  I lost weight.  I didn’t have a car so I walked everywhere. I lost more weight when I was 20.  I liked my body, but the belly was still there, just easier to hide.  My style was crazy. My friends called me “the diva”.  I was.   I bought 3 or 4 new outfits every weekend.  I gained it back when I got sick.  Gained some more when I got on the birth control shot.  When I was 26, the scars came.  A love/hate relationship with my body became a hate/hate.

The scars, the weight.  The weight, the scars.  Now if I had to choose, I would rather just have the weight without the scars.  Fat and beautiful.  I could handle that.  So next time you look at your fat ass and hate it, thank God you don’t have scars all over your body…