I Am Fat And That Never Defined Who I Am

This is a ridiculously massive post. So skip it if you want. But don't leave meaningless comments which would make it clear you have not read it.

It's an afternoon and we are having a rare nice conversation and suddenly it takes a turn and I end up telling her, "I don't even want to be with someone who won't love me just because I am fat. I don't want to be with someone who doesn't see I am so much more than my body size!" and all she does is stand there with a blank look and I know she is doing what she always does (not just with me), she is mentally somewhere else and thinking something else, not even listening to me.
Some other things I have heard - 
"I was not that fat at your age"
"Look at your friend/best friend and look at you. Don't you want to look as good as they do?"
"Look at me! Even at my age I am so lean! How does a 20 year old be this big?!"
Concerned relative before leaving the house, moments after I thought, "thank god I didn't have to hear a pseudo-concerned slightly sexist rant about my weight," concerned relative goes, "I told your mum to buy you a tread mill this time instead of anything else."
"But no guy will like you!".. isn't that the sole purpose of  my living? Isn't that the only reason I have educated myself? Isn't it?
"It's good you can cook well but don't go eating everything you make all the time," with a twinkle in their eye
"Next time I am making you take the stairs along with me!"
"You need to shed of those kilos. You should walk every day for an hour at least," says the mother of a morbidly obese family who won't stop feeding butter to her sons and sugar to her diabetic husband.
"You are saying my dressing sense is out there? What about that fat-ass Debiparna who wears those shorts at tuition classes?!" in a squeaky high pitched voice as someone told someone in the presence of my friend when I was still in school
"It seems like her button is going to burst!" said by an extremely bitchy girl and a girl I thought was a friend for the sheer purpose of being mean..their excuse-it was just a joke. I am the one with an uber sensitive hide.

Really I have received all these comments from various people throughout my life! When I was in school, actually ever since I was a kid and could rationally understand this irrational world I have had bigger problems and issues to deal with. And it wasn't until I quit dancing in 4th grade that I started gaining weight. I had a major weight gain in 10th grade and then again in 12th. While in college, life got much more relaxed, the 12(to14) hours a day 7 days a week crazy schedule in school was gone and naturally in such a relaxed environment I only gained more weight. I noticed after a couple of those years in college that I was one of the very few people who had gained and not lost weight. The last years in school were emotionally draining for me since I was studying something I had no aptitude for and felt pressured to get the minimum grades I would need to get into a good college with my choice of subject. This affected me in many ways that mixed with the other things going on all around me turned me from this really extroverted person to someone who barely spoke with anyone. I have never felt sorry for myself and I have never felt victimised for being just a bit bigger in size than my friends. What always annoys me is the ignorance from which such comments come from. The general inability to accept something or someone that is different saddens me, pisses me off more than anything else. As I said maybe the reason why my weight has never been an issue with me is because I have had other bigger fish to fry. But I have let some of these comments stick with me as you can see. Not in a self-harming, mental torture kind of way, I remember every insult and who made it. I can get back at people for making such remarks now but when I was in school I didn't know this. Unconsciously I think I felt jokes about my weight came with the territory so as to say. Even now if someone says something about my weight I don't know how to react. I am torn between outright indignation and utter apathy sometimes. I feel like I should make an outraged statement and they would magically start thinking positively about different bodies from then on but, then again in milliseconds I am reminded that they didn't even think before they said what they did and also I don't really care.
Because doesn't being fat automatically give every random hill-billy the right to be concerned about your weight? No. It doesn't.
The reason I started posting my own pictures on this blog was because I had discovered this amazing thing bloggers were doing and thereby spreading encouragement all over the globe among lots of girls (and even guys) who struggle with either their weight or these stupid comments - there were various topics about body acceptance which made me go, "oh hey I am not the only one who thinks being fat is not that big of a deal!". And the very fact that the wonderful fatshionistas(a term I did not know exists) posted their own pictures in these gorgeous pretty/feminine/trendy/edgy outfits and they looked so brilliant! When I first started following blogs they were all amazing and made me want to blog, but I was just going to post written content. Then I got to thinking, these bloggers are real people, then there must be some out there who are as big as me or bigger and I never looked back! Gabi of Gabi Fresh was the first fatshion blog I started following. Her motto is not only to ignore the rules, she actually doesn't believe in dressing for your body type and wears whatever she likes. I love that about her. I like that she doesn't use any euphemisms for being fat because I never shied away from the word. It's an adjective not an insult! Some of us are thin, some fat, some in between and that says as much about who we are as does the chalk about cheese. Being fat doesn't automatically make me cute, sweet and everything nice nor does it make me lazy, sloppy and everything ugly. I talked about these perceptions based on weight in this post of mine.
I know this was a long post. But reading this incredibly honest post from LuAnne - Being the Fat daughter - brought back a lot of things I have faced in my life and though it didn't affect me as hard as it would a normal person, I identified with lots of things written here. We scar for different reasons sometimes and I have had to deal with plenty of the issues mentioned here but for other reasons. This was a very personal post from LuAnne and I am happy I know her. And I love her style. I am not going to stop wearing some things just because someone thinks my body is not suitable for it. My style is a reflection of my personality. My words and opinions are a reflection of who I am and what I believe in. My weight and size are mere numbers and I don't use numbers to express who I am or to vent bottled up emotions (unlike some...true story -a teacher actually suggested I do that in order to be better at math...I didn't get him either..until recently; you see we all have our own ways of showing who we are, he had numbers and I didn't get him then because I was told math is not a subject to express yourself. You solved problems and got high scores).
This is not a rant. I don't write much usually but that post got me going this time. Life has taught me ever since I was a kid to accept the different without even ever considering the other options. I have and always will have an open mind and I love surrounding myself with people who are different than me (provided they are not moronic, narrow-minded idiots) . I have it in me to accept people as they are whether I like them or not. I have always had that quality in me and I have dealt with things on my own in my own ways, I have had help and support and everything that has happened so far is the reason I am the way I am today. I am a good person, I am a loyal friend, I have secrets I will take to the grave, I will always stand up for you if you are being bullied and be a bitch to me or the people I care about I will forget I have manners. My weight is not an issue as it should not be to any of you out there. I am happy I have this blog because without this I wouldn't have discovered so many good things going on in corners of the world I have never been to and perhaps will never go to. I honestly think people who don't read blogs are missing out on something big happening in the world right now.

Thanks for reading this post.

Love yourself and be kind to others.
All women are real women, curves or no curves.