[This feels like coming out, not that I know what that feels like, but I imagine it feels like I feel right now. #shitscared]
My Father was a man who once lived on earth. Today he doesn’t live anywhere, but I imagine him wandering, spooky, hazy, near me as I march around the city he gave me the right to call home. I imagine that when he watches me, today, he observes a woman that would make him proud, a woman who walks with purpose, a woman who in no way resembles the girl he last saw ten years ago, the last time his eyes opened upon the big face that is the spitting image of his. #massivefuckingforehead
I’ve spent ten years becoming the person I am today. I walked away from a very kind man, walked away from my home, from my beautiful loving mother, I walked away from everything I ever knew and loved. I ran to France to chase a fairytale that had kept me company since I was a giggling tween. I was going to live in Europe, marry a prince and live happily ever after.
I had run away from an old life expecting that, if I made a new one smelling of butter, garlic and Cognac, I would be happy. I would love myself and someone else would love me. I would be très chic, I would be the fanciest fucking female on earth and I would rock the modern world. Well none of that happened because I was still fat.
Fat is a vicious word. Fat is the acid rain that stung my skin every single time that c*nt, my ex-boyfriend Nick, screamed Fat Slut across the quadrangle at school. Fat has been my constant, nefarious companion since I was a teenager. I’ve carried the fleshy baggage of a thousand crises of confidence visibly upon my dimpled thighs and wobbly belly. I’ve been coated in a cushiony shell ever since that fateful day my father explained to me that fat meant I couldn’t be loved. #supportivemalerolemodelalert So I ran away to join my own mental Gallic circus and discovered that despite my best efforts, I was still miserable, still angry, still lonely and sad. I’d even had my fairytale romance with a French Prince and hated myself all the more. My fairytale was a horror story coated in cellulite and something had to fucking change. So I did.
I made the decision earlier this year to be strong. I was tired of feeling weak; feeling like everyone else was above me, better than me, more beautiful than me, more loved than me. I didn’t expect to lose my fat; I didn’t start this adventure to be thin. I didn’t expect to be beautiful and I didn’t expect to be loved. I just wanted to be able to carry my own weight without feeling exhausted. I wanted to be able to lift a suitcase into the overhead bin without feeling like my shoulder would evaporate. I wanted to hit a man and hurt him. I wanted to beat my father’s chest the way he used to beat me. I wanted how I felt inside to be as strong as I would be on the outside.
I’m not going to rattle off a list of the usual inspirational bullshit about fitness. I am not going to go all Gwyneth on you and espouse the benefits of agave or quinoa or fucking kale. I’m not going to tell you about how pure and peaceful I feel from all the endorphins. I’m still me; some things definitely have not changed.
I still smoke and I obviously know I shouldn’t because it is killing me. I still drink way to much fucking Pinot Grigio. But I figure I need a few vices since I don’t eat anymore. I still stare at myself in the mirror as I paste on the war paint and see a face that is too large, cheeks that have hollowed and the under-eye marks of a thousand late nights and too many shots of something I can’t even remember. I still gasp in humiliated horror when I stand naked before the full-length mirror that I can mercifully slide away. I still see the one boob that droops lower than the other. I still see the ripple of cellulite across my belly. I still see the veins on my thighs, the dimples in my arse, the ever-swollen right ankle and the railway track scars that wind up my leg.
But then I raise my arms to the side and clench my fists.
Then I see the guns that poke out of my upper arms above the bingo wings. I twist my legs and see the calf muscles pop out to the side and shadow the fat ankle. I bend over, fully in half, and hug my ankles. I wrap my hands around my waist and see the bones pop out of my shoulders. I see a body that is strong.
I see the strength that has carried the wheelie red Samsonite to four different continents since January. I see the line of the jaw that clacks back and forth as I rattle off the verbs and nouns I know in French, or the sweary shizzle I spew when I’m pissed, or the lyrics to the latest from Bieber. I see a rock-hard neck that holds that massive head up high, the head that carries the brains of which I am so proud. I see a strong woman. I don’t see a fat girl. #andifyoudisagreeiwillfuckingdestroyyouwithmyrighthook
This past week I stood up on stage and presented to a room of very overpaid executives on a subject that would honestly bore you senseless. But I was strong. As I marched back and forth, I felt strong. I sounded strong when my voice came out of that tiny wire microphone they wrapped around my face and I felt like I was fucking Madonna and started Voguing. Some truly very kind people told me I was great and I told them all I wasn’t. In the secret space of my mind I still feel a bit like the fat girl and nice things people say are sometimes too quiet behind the booming voice of the Father that didn’t love me because I was fat. To all of those kind people who said I was great, I’m sorry and thank you.
To the lovely woman who is actually named after the singleton who inspires me, thank you. To The Body, and Louis, and Semi, and the hot as fuck guy at work that I’ll nickname AHAF (as hot as fuck) and everyone else, thank you. Bear, my trainer and the object of all my imaginary lover dreams, thank you. Art-sist-olger, Smartarse and Motherbear, thank you.
The Blackbirds that sing in the dead of night whisper the softening words of my Father. And in a few weeks, with a needle, a bubble of ink and a strong arm to bite, the Blackbirds will be behind me. Forever.
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