Quote:
Originally Posted by apretty
So, how do you let go of a part of you that you have spent so long identifying with?
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WORD. My answer is: I don't know yet.
The fat girl in me is beloved. On purpose and with vigor. Politically and emotionally. Because I've worked at it for years and because it is a sign that I reject the negativity, body hatred, sexism, beauty-ism, and bag of your basic "fucked up shit" that our Mothers and Fathers and the World has handed to us.
She is proof that I am strong. To be fat in this world requires that. She is proof that I have and will continue to survive. That I reject all of that fuckery.
It is a little unnerving to me that a smaller body will have such huge meaning for me and how I move in the world. I am apprehensive about people violating my personal space. I am apprehensive about receiving more unwanted attention than I already get. I am apprehensive about being more visible.
I feel safe in my fat body. Insulated. Strong. Unrepentant. Audacious. I don't want to stop feeling that way. So I'll have to do more work when I thought my "work" here was done. After all, I climbed the mountain of body shame and staked my blinding pink flag at the top and flipped the giant bird out across the horizon. A big ass "fuck you" to what I had to climb over and through to get there. And now? Im looking out over that valley and seeing more scary work ahead. Harder work maybe. And I'm hearing the echoes of "You'll never be acceptable no matter what size you are".
I am finding it a huge battle to let go of my control issues with food.
My personal stuff centers around not having control for a long time and gaining control by being able to choose (with reckless abandon) what I put in my piehole. Being out of control is being IN control for me.
And now, I feel like I have to give that control over to the part of me who wants to be more conscious, who wants to drive the bus for awhile, who says that being an eating machine is no longer acceptable.
Adult me is telling baby me that it's time to wave goodbye now.
I think I'll still be here when I'm smaller. (not in the thread, but here, in this body) The me who did the work. The me who identified with the fat and made it her own.
The reality is that the work I did is not going to just go away because my ass is smaller. I'll still need to reconnect with my body, I'll just have better tools to do it.