with much love to xkcd…

Rarely am I a “think first, speak later” kind of person. If I could imagine an aura around my head it would be weather-centric. It would include a storm cloud and a bright sun, haze and possibly rain. It would be intense as often as not. Like Pigpen you could see me coming from miles and miles away. This can be just as awesome as not – Pigpen is easily recognizable as a Peanuts comic character but doesn’t have many friends who can stand next to him. Ache to hide my little storm cloud!

Coming up out of the dervish is an intense desire to sway away from defensive posturing. I read a blog today written by a friend and fellow fattie who is undergoing what she terms a beautiful life project. Described here:

in a nutshell, learning to: Embrace my beauty, Treat myself (and my body) with respect, Discover my purpose, Live out my Dreams and Encourage & Inspire others along the way. I come from a background of extreme self-hatred and self-abuse… including a lifelong struggle with yo-yo dieting.

Ok, I can dig it. I can dig embracing beauty, body respect, purpose, dreams, inspiration (cough) and chewing the self-hatred and self-abuse until love and acceptance are all over the place. That’s why I’m here. I dig it. I don’t dig this though:

There are numerous “fat acceptance” groups out there – who proclaim that they’re happy with their bodies… that they’re happy being fat. I don’t believe them. Apart from the comments and the criticism of others… apart from being unable to fit into aeroplane [sic] seats, movie theatre seats and decent clothing… there’s still the awful physical side of being obese.

It’s not that I feel guilty. I am one of many fatties proclaiming. Rather I’m struggling with the posturing my body is taking, the arch of my back, the desire to spout. Not about love or the amazing journey fat acceptance has taken me on, but rather the ways in which I don’t struggle with what she claims fatties do – the ways in which I am a “good fats.” Instead of reading this comment as an ignorant, fat-hating statement that could use some fats love, I read it as a challenge to my own body, a personal slight.

Not to mention the complete invalidation of my and countless other fats’ acceptance bloggers, thinkers, movers, shakers. I could defensively posture all I want, right? It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t believe me. Like every other doctor, nurse and TLC half-ton program on the television, she is telling me what it is I think, feel and experience. She knows better because she’s got…..a gym membership?

The age old arguments of dieting and exercise, eating healthy and dressing fabulously have all been addressed on the interwebs and tons of awesome fatties do it better than I ever could. You can find them in the blogroll to the left. I feel honored to be amongst these awesome fatties and their wardrobes of love, happiness, fat love. We were a long time comin and we’ll be a long time gone. We have a few short years of breathing on earth to impact one another’s lives for the good and best believe I’m not doing that from the other side of a goalie.

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