Growing up, I was always the smallest kid in class. My mom is only 4'11" and my dad is average height, so I was never going to be super tall. Plus I was a gymnast for years and years, so that kept me compact.
But then puberty happened, and birth control happened, and all of a sudden I had boobs and hips and ass and a round tummy. I was just over 5 feet tall, about 110 pounds, and already I felt too big.
So then I went to college and wasn't doing as many sports as I had in my youth. Add that to stress, never having eaten particularly healthily, a penchant for comfort foods, and a newfound love for alcohol, and you get the ol Freshman 15, which actually took me all of college to gain. I fought with body image the whole time, but by the end felt pretty confident in myself nonetheless.
Now it's been almost 7 years since I graduated, and somehow I'm 25 pounds heavier still. 40 pounds heavier than the girl I was in high school who thought she was too big. And yes, some of it is the muscle I've gained from aerial training, some of it is naturally developing a woman's body. But I exist now in a body I don't recognize.
I was always tiny, some might even have said skinny. But now I'm definitely not. My BMI (which I'm aware is bullshit) puts me in the high end of overweight. I buy clothes in sizes that feel huge to me but still sometimes end up too small. I was always small and thought I was too big. Now I'm fuller-figured and can't figure out how to live with that.
But here's where the title comes in: I don't think I'm fat, either. I feel like even if I wanted to reclaim that moniker, call myself a proud, fat, BBW, I would be criticized because I'm not that either. Like when a magazine puts a size 10 woman on the cover and calls her plus size, and then there's major backlash.
So I don't know where that puts me. I don't know how to be proud of this body. I don't know how to shop for and dress this body, how to love this body. I don't even know if I'm seeing my body right. I still feel like someone small who only thinks they're too big, but I don't think that's the right kind of body dysmorphia I have anymore. It's like, I look in the mirror, and I see this:
And I see the thickness of my thighs, the round protuberance of my belly, the fullness in my arms, and my first thought is "I hate that I see myself this way" because that used to not be my reality. But... it is??? I can't make this make sense because I don't really understand it myself.
But I also know I take more photos of myself than ever. I can do cool things with my body, and it never lets me down. I just can't figure out how to accept it because I don't know if I'm seeing it right, or feeling it right.
I feel like it's just me, but I know that's not true. Any other in-betweenies out there who just don't know what they're looking at when they look at themselves? I see you, and you're beautiful and unique. I'm trying to say the same for myself ❤
