fat girl

After all of my years, (35 of them), I often, very often, think about my body...what I look like, what other people see...and I worry.
I no longer binge and purge. I am no longer skinny...and still think I'm fat...
At 117 pounds I remember thinking I was fat, feeling fat, looking at my body in the mirror, finding the flaws, obsessing over the scale.
I haven't had a full-length mirror in years, and no scale either, for that very reason.

And here I am, at approximately 170 pounds, only 5"1, and I usually embrace my curves much more readily than I ever did my body before. The thing is, I still worry what others think. It's actually very disconcerting. When I asked some friends I hadn't seen in many years, what is different about me, they said I have better self-confidence. And this is true...most definitely, but I still don't feel "as good" somehow, as the skinny girls, like I don't exercise enough, which I don't, but can still keep up with the best of them...hiking the AT, doing 2 miles on the elliptical, living, really living my life.

I don't see myself as God does, and I too often DON'T see my beauty. When I do, it feels good, but then I look at pictures...of me now, or of me "before." I remember, when I look back at those pics, worrying about what other people thought, not feeling "good enough" and thinking I was fat. I look back at times when I knew I was thin, but still felt fat. I mean, I guess it is a disease.

And now, at my largest, I guess, I can see my beauty in ways I didn't. I love my big boobs, and talk about my big butt and wear revealing clothes proudly, but I still see it, and still feel "not good enough."

I'm not gonna blame the media, or culture, or society, or whatever. I know the factors, and I know myself, well enough to know that isn't all there is. There is God in my heart, trying desperately to show me my SELF.

I can exercise, and the endorphins help, and I lose weight, and that IS a good thing on many levels, but my heart...it's my heart that needs exercise, and not in looking to other people for some sense of self-esteem. The more I love myself, the more I will want to go out, get exercise, and be the woman I know am.

Looking back on those pictures of the "skinny" me was hard, even harder knowing I felt fat even then...I mean, whoa.