Plus Size: Why I hate the word

When I realized i was F.A.T.

Oh no, someone call the cops; I used the F word in the title. 

I know that a lot of people hate the word fat. In all honesty, I get why. I, too, have been called that word; probably since I was seven or eight years old. So I get not wanting to hear it anymore.

But its just a word. If you take the power away from it, that's all it is. Wish someone had told me that when I was a kid (as if I'd actually listen HA). There is nothing to fear in a word besides the fear you put into it.

Anyway, back to the point here. 

It was Easter Sunday. I was about eight years old, wearing a pink Sunday dress. My sister was wearing an identical dress in white. She was a few years older, with coltish legs and a flat smooth stomach. All three of my siblings were blessed with lean figures and fast metabolisms. 

If only I had been so lucky. 

We were in the upstairs bathroom, washing our hands. I looked in the mirror and realized something. My sister had wrists and I didn't. I had an extra chin that she didn't have. Despite having grown up in the same environment, somehow I was extra. Bigger. Plus size. 

Well, its twelve years later. My sister never grew a stomach and I never lost my double chin. We went through high school, the social outcasts that we both were, the book worms that we both still are, and we both managed to graduate. 

She's an RN now, and I'm quite proud to call her my sister. 

The point of this first chapter is simple. 

Being skinny does not make life any fucking easier. 

My sister was bullied all through life for being too thin. She has long beautiful legs, long gorgeous hair, and she likes to read. She hates people and doesn't form relationships easily. She makes a lot of money, and spends it as fast as she makes it. 

I was envious of my sister all her life for having a beautiful body, I thought it made her life so much better than mine. She was pretty so she got the golden ticket into skinny jeans, short skirts, bikinis, things I wouldn't dare consider wearing or face ridicule for. My sister was never girly and didn't care for makeup or clothes and generally dressed in baggy hoodies and jeans or pj's. This fact frustrated the hell out of me, who wished on bibles stacked four feet high for jutting hip bones and a small flat stomach if only to wear the beautiful clothes I couldn't. 

My entire childhood I was bullied at home and at school for being overweight. I have had lunch trays with half eaten food on them pushed in front of me because 'everyone knows I like seconds'. If only I knew my beautiful sister was getting the same treatment, only in reverse. She was ridiculed and called anorexic by most of her peers. The one difference between us? She didn't, and still doesn't, give a shit what anyone thinks of her. Its one of my favorite things about my sister. During middle school I slowly stopped eating lunch, and grew anxiety when eating in front of anyone outside of my family. What if they judged me?

Well, if you are in high school or middle school and you have that problem, let me safe you years of therapy: no one gives a shit. And if someone is truly analyzing how you eat, then they have some serious issues with themselves. BECAUSE NO SANE PERSON ACTUALLY CARES HOW ANOTHER PERSON EATS. Unless you do something gross like chew with your mouth open or talk while your eating. 

So, you may be asking yourself, why is this stranger talking about weight and her sob story? Well, I'll tell you. I have tried, as we all have, to lose the weight. Truly and earnestly I have tried. But, its too easy these days to make promises to myself. So I'm trying to make it a little more... public. 

The task= run in the Chicago hot chocolate marathon this coming November

The contestant= You can call me E. Twenty year old high school graduate who has been floating ever since graduation and has done absolutely nothing with her life, which has taken a great toll on her loving parents, siblings, and cat. 

So, lets hope that this thing works shall we? Come alone for my journey, laugh if you want, cry if you want (i know i will) and lets go.