Imagine you grew up with an interest in art. It has always come naturally to you and you're good at it. But your whole life, your family and friends have said you need to get a degree and a steady job or else you can't possibly have a happy life. You feel deep down like art is the thing for you, that it's all you will ever be good at, so you set about the hard work of becoming an artist, including the starving and the rejections and the living in crappy tiny apartments. It's not exactly fun all the time, but it's who you are so you go with it. Your family and friends say you're crazy, that you will never be successful, and that you really should get a 9-5 job with a steady paycheck and stop with this nonsense about the art.
One day you decide to take a class in money management for artists and it turns out you aren't too bad at it. You're tempted by the idea of a more lucrative career, so you go back to school and do a lot of really hard work and get your business degree. You get the 9-5 job with the steady paycheck and you are so busy you can't do your art anymore.
When you get your first paycheck, your family and friends congratulate you but it just makes you think of all the times they didn't support your art and scorned you for sticking to it. Even internally, deep down you're conflicted. You like having more money and a steady job, but you worked really hard to believe that you could have made it as an artist...it was part of who you were and, until recently, the only way you knew how to live. But all of a sudden you're this other thing, and it brings with it a lot of questions, like "was I full of crap before, when I was sticking to my guns?", "am I now just selling out to go along and fit in with the crowd?", and "who am I really if I'm not a starving artist?"
This is me, only fat is my art.
5 comments:
i'm going out on a limb here, please don't take offense to any of this: (which immediately puts you on the defense, lol)
you've gone all this time, living your life and accepting who you are, fighting to just love yourself the way you are; fighting for other people to see past physical appearances not only for yourself but for others also. then you set these goals for yourself which don't include losing that identity (because in a way, physical appearance is very much identity - and part of the everyday things you do since you are standing up for people accepting and loving themselves as they are, etc.) and really by achieving these goals you set (running the 5k, for example) you are sort of losing your identity because as a side effect you are losing your physical self. I believe that while it is a confusing time (hello you are losing yourself!) that you need to embrace it. do you sort of feel almost as if you are cheating on your past self, because you had been on the Fat Acceptance bandwagon, and without even setting out to change yourself/weight, it happened? I believe you need to think of it in terms of where you are coming from. You still accept yourself, you were just trying to do things you wanted to do (ex: 5k) and with that came your physical changes. Anyways my point is that if you are feeling apprehensive – that’s totally fine, but in order to really remain true to the fat acceptance movement, you should keep embracing yourself. Honestly I think it should be renamed “self acceptance movement” because while people who are fat may have trouble being accepted or feeling accepting of themselves and their bodies, I think that all people have that, to some degree or another. What does the FAM mean to you? I mean, was it seems based on the principles of just accepting yourself, loving yourself the way you are, being healthy in daily choices (ex: not smoking?). I believe all those principles can be applied to everyone.
Anyways, I don’t know a whole lot about the FAM, except what you have shared here, that is just my take on it. I think what you are doing is great, (achieving your goals) but I have always liked you just the way you are. (yes, fat and all) and I have never felt that it hindered our friendship, or the things we could go do or whether or not I’d invite you to do something (hey we went to house dance party)
Ok and also for the record, I was always taught it’s impolite to talk about weight, and I want you to know this whole comment was completely out of my comfort zone – but as I started out with, if anything sounded offensive or something please don’t take it that way, It is just a touchy subject I guess. *removes foot from mouth*
you're right, I do feel kind of like I'm cheating on myself in a way...like if I like being thinner and more active now, does that mean I was just full of shit when I was espousing all of this 'love yourself the way you are' stuff?
I need to find a way to believe that all bodies are okay while simultaneously giving myself permission to change mine.
Also, I'm still fat and even if I keep losing weight steadily (which won't necessarily happen), I'm going to be fat for a while longer. So it's still incredibly important for me to believe in fat acceptance because even though I'm a slightly smaller fat person, I'm still a fat person.
I always appreciate your insightful comments, X. Thanks for stepping outside of your comfort zone to give them to me. xo
see you sunday for the 5K
xo
'love yourself the way you are'
now why didn't I think of that? ;)
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