My Life In The Fatosphere

If you are totally confused as to why I’m on this route – go back and read my last entry - now continue.

I’m fat, I’ve always been fat, it’s not what I am it is who I am. I’m assuming a good comparison would be people who are gay or blind, it becomes who you are, not what you are.

There hasn’t been a time in my life that I wasn’t fat. I remember several year ago Lu looking at baby photo of me in full happy Buddha glory and proclaiming, “Like your Mom was surprised that you would never be a size 6 ?” (btw – this was not a jab at me) Oh Mom…. I knew she meant well but she didn’t know what to do with a fat daughter. She herself was the daughter of a woman who triumphed in the fact that she never weighed over 98 pounds, even pregnant. Yes this was my Tab addicted chain-smoking tight-assed grandmother who grabbed my 7 year old thigh as I sat shivering in an over air conditioned car and hissed, “How could YOU ever be cold, look at this.” – then gave my squishy leg a squeeze.

Being fat my entire life has formed me into the person I am. At age 40 I could not imagine my life as anything (anyone) different. And would I want to? I don’t know. Sure if I magically dropped 70lbs I assume my life would be easier, but would I still be me?

This influx of self reflection is the direct result of my recent diagnosis, it’s so conflicting to know that even though I am NOW contented with who I am (the majority of the time), was it all an unfair joke of the universe to grow up in this body? I don’t think anybody who has ever been thin would understand this feeling. To them a body is something to be conquered, or changed, or controlled. Mine is not. Mine is like an annoying tagalong that finally became accepted into the tribe out of mere exhaustion.

Last night at the gym while I was losing a lung and ¾ of my fluids I wondered what does it feel like for the people who were once skinny and now fat? I think there is a difference between people who have always been fat and those who once lived the life of a skinny person and now have chunked up. Do they harbor self hatred for what time and age has done to them? Do they long for something that used to be? Is it like how I feel about the bags under my eyes and my bitchy gray hairs, it’s annoying, it’s not “me”, but we age and things change? Maybe they used to be school athletes and now they wish for the past, maybe that’s why they are fighting so hard, to get BACK something. I never had that something, my past body and my present body are one and the same, this is all I know. This is me, it neither makes me happy nor sad, it just is. Over the past 30 years I’ve tried to morph my body, but I’ve never experienced any outcome from my labors, oddly though I’m at ease with this non-result based physicality, or maybe I’m just living a delusional existence in my self created reality.

Now with my thyroid diagnosis and medication I wonder how or even if my body will change. I’ve googled extensively and it seems that the only thing that MAY happen is that I go hyper anxiety wacky (great) or bloat out my belly (hot). **Side note - Yet again my Masters in Childhood Education does NOTHING to help in my non professional internet medical research – one day I will find a use for that 40K piece of paper.** One would think that by shooting up my body with the thyroid hormones it’s been lacking for 30+ years I would somehow jump start the whole system, but strangely (from what I think I understand) your body finds a “home base” and even with the hormones my body will fight the change tooth and nail. Long story short - I’m a store house, not a burner AKA I’m built for comfort, not for speed.