In the wake of yesterday’s big announcement, I received a tremendous amount of support from the family and friends of my social network. It was a joyful experience and filled my heart more than I could possibly express in words. But it also, entirely inadvertently, opened a wound that has been scarred over my heart for as long as I can remember. I call it the “Ley Line of Social Conformity.” Let me explain, and then let me implore.
As a human who has been fat since the age of three, it has been my life experience that the majority of people disapprove of my obesity. – often publicly, openly, and hurtfully – even if it’s unintentional. My first recollection of being publicly treated as the “Other” was at a grocery store with my mother. Another shopper was very concerned about the fact that my mother had me with her at Roses around lunch time on a school day and questioned her about it. To be fair, I was tall, I was chubby, and spoke in full sentences like a much older child. My mother explained I wasn’t old enough for school yet. The lady was clearly surprised. “Oh,” she said. “She must be a very good eater.”
Not… “Oh! Such a large vocabulary for her age! You must work with her” Or “She’s so intelligent and well-spoken for a kid not yet in school.” No. It would be the first slice into the tender meat of my sensitive little heart and set a pattern that has continued for 38 years. It etched the first trace of the ley line. The lie my brain tells me that states, unequivocally, I must be thin, or I am not worthy of society’s approval. And every time someone around me buys into the well-worn theme that fat equals any of the following: stupid, lazy, dirty, ugly, unhealthy, gross, unworthy, undatable, valueless, or less-than, the scab is torn off and another line is carved deeper into the groove.
Now, what does this mean, precisely, for you – my family, my friends? It means I need you to understand that who I am now, what I look like – right now – at the fattest I’ve ever been – is absolutely okay. And that if I made the decision NOT to have surgery and spend the rest of my life in this way, that would be fine and acceptable, too. Don’t congratulate me on making the decision to lose weight. Because being fat is not a crime. If you going to congratulate me, do it like most of you did – for making the decision to be happy/understand what’s right for me/to know my own worth.
When people congratulate others on weight loss, for a fat person, it’s often a Bon-Jovi level shot through the heart. The society-to-fat translation is: “Way to go, former porker, you’re not disgusting anymore!” Do you think I’m any of those things I mentioned in the paragraph above? No. You don’t. (And if you do, this blog is REALLY gonna get your grits. lol) But ask yourself this question and answer genuinely – How many times have you used that language about yourself, or thought it about a stranger? It’s OKAY if you have. I have, too. But you know what? I know better now. Those stereotypes, those tropes – they’re lies.
Health doesn’t look the same on everyone and anyone who tells you it does would like to speak with you about your car’s extended warranty. Humans love nothing better than defining what is ideal and what is deplorable. It’s programmed into our DNA. We live by standards and measures. But it is our job as thinking animals to challenge our instincts and further the progress of civilization. It is acceptable and worthy to be a person of color, when once there was a lie that it wasn’t. It is acceptable and worthy to be a person who loves someone of the same gender, when once there was a lie that it was deviant. It acceptable and truthful to believe gender is a construct and is fluid, when still, people wield their bibles and quote fiction because of ignorance. Yet somehow, we haven’t quite gotten to the point where we understand it’s okay to be exactly the way we’re made. It’s the truth though. I am perfectly made just as I am. So are you. Read that again.
The hardest lesson I’ve had to learn thus far is I am perfectly worthy of love and acceptance precisely as I am. I have to remind myself of this fact daily. It has become a mantra. A prayer. A balm to the Ley Line of Conformity.”
Please don’t congratulate me for my weight loss journey. You’re better than that. Congratulate me for finding joy. We all deserve it.
Life of Riley 