The Fat Girl’s Guide to the Galaxy

(OK, so it's long.. Suck it up!)

I received a compliment of sorts this morning before leaving work. The guy who came in to relieve me mentioned that he had heard I have a gift for writing. It didn’t go any further than that, but I was still impressed. It’s flattering when you first realize that someone anyone is reading your online blog. It’s even more flattering when you realize that you work with those people and they are constantly commenting to you how much they love your writing style, or your most recent post. It’s mind-blowing when someone you know has never looked at your blog makes a comment like this guy did! So during my hour long trip home from work this morning, I decided I should take it to the next level, but where? Well, best to write about what you know. And I have never been a skinny chick!

School

I grew up in the South, that is, south of the Mason-Dixon Line, yet north of the (less known) sweet tea line. “The fat kid in the suburbs” would be a great title if I were actually going to title this section. Not sure why, but guy with a little bulk on them don’t seem to have as much trouble as girls do. I could be wrong, I’ve never been a guy a day in my life. But school was hell! Chalk it up to post traumatic stress or lack of coffee this morning, but I remember going from a 6x girl size to a 16 women’s almost overnight. Ok, not huge, bet some of you are wondering what the hell I had to complain about. Though add size with self esteem issues and mix in a good dose of shy and you’ll know why I wasn’t ever the popular kid in school. Since you’re not my shrink, I’ll spare you from the majority of details about the crappy life I had while enduring childhood education. Though I will mention that when you add acne to the shy, fat kid, I think it’d have been nicer to let me drop out. The only thing I had going for me at the time (which no one my own age ever appreciated until way after school or if they lost their homework) is my mind.

So the set-up for you if you’ve fallen asleep – short, fat, shy, brainy, with acne. Yep, I had two or three friends as a kid. I realize I could have been less picky and perhaps had a few more, but paste is not and was never in my diet, and flicking boogers for distance is not my idea of a competitive sport! I didn’t date until my sophomore year in high school. And since I have coffee in hand now I should mention that he may have been one of those booger flingers when he was in middle school. Since I am a parent now, I’ll add that while parents will probably not find anything wrong with a girl who didn’t date until she was in 10^th grade, I can say from experience that it does some very damaging things to the fragile teenage ego.

Luckily, although my butt was (and remains) a 2-seater, I’ve got a set of pipes on me. When I was a junior, I was selected to join a very competitive choral group in my school. There were 5 spots open for girls, 2 for altos. Over 150 girls auditioned. I got one of those spots! The confidence boost was amazing! I felt different overnight. People started talking to me. Seniors started talking to me! I may still be the shy fat kid with the big cranium, but I was in with the elite!

Then I moved. BOOM!!! My bubble came busting down around me in a big sloppy mess. But I had been there, I had been on top, I’d tasted what I was like to not be picked on simply because I existed, because I didn’t fit in. And I liked it. So I developed the current bane of my existence, my big mouth. And for a while, I worked. I came slowly out of my shell, met new people in school, dated some. Although I didn’t get invited out to parties much, I still had more going for me by that time. Skip ahead some, and… Graduation.

Real Life

I was never one of those wildly blessed people who had a calling and always knew what they wanted to do after high school. So I didn’t bother wasting time and money on college. Maybe I should have, but school was a trauma that I was legally able to give up, and why mess up a good thing when it’s so new? Nope, I went to work. My first year of freedom, I worked the summer at a local amusement park. That was cool!! For the first time in my fat life, I went from about 180lbs to 145lbs! The Army was considering me, I had 3 more pounds to drop. Easy!! Since I had a very active job, it shouldn’t be a problem. Guys were taking notice on a regular basis. I had a regular boyfriend, and several other new friends who just saw me as… well, me. The big mouth I had mastered (somewhat) helped banish the shyness, and I was finally coming together as a young adult who wasn’t scared by her overly large shadow. Good times that summer!

After the summer, I took a job delivering auto parts. Wasn’t great, but it was enough money to survive on. The weight started slipping back on. Since my Dad refused to sign the papers for the Army, that option was gone. And now, since my daily exercise was reduced to drive a stick, and lifting parts out of the back of a truck, I turned a blind eye. Men were still taking notice, I could still pull my fat ass out of bed, and could even manage to touch my toes. I was fine.

Many years have gone by since I last saw 145lbs. I’m just over 200lbs now. My career path has lead me to emergency medicine and I have found a comfortable home as a paramedic in a fairly quiet rural county that is either really busy or really not. My days in boots are quiet, couch potato types of days for the most part. I know I need to get my butt in gear and drop some weight, but this is a fat girl’s guide to the galaxy, not a fat girl’s guide to a size 2.

Dating

Dating and confidence go hand in hand. As I said before, having a sharp mind is actually attractive to some of the smarter variety of opposite sex types I’ve met. I have had the pleasure of online dating. Let me tell you, you have GOT to be confident with yourself if you ever decide to go that route! There is nothing more interesting to see than a man on a first date with a woman who’s mind he’s attracted to, but is put off by her appearance. Call it cruel, but I will do my best to extend those types of dates as long as I can. Human nature is that you can tell if you are attracted to someone physically within the first 10 seconds or something after meeting them. It’s the next 2 or 3 hours I find the sick pleasure in.

Let’s set this up for you. I am slightly over 200lbs. However, I know where my waist is without a map. I have a very nice hour-glass shape, though more like a 6 hour-glass – as a friend of mine once pointed out. I have big boobs and a ghetto booty that looks like it’s left over from Soul Train. So I list myself as average. No problem cause Honey, if you saw most of the people we have to lift up on a stretcher, you’d know that just over 200lbs is more average than the little stick figure types who seriously need a biscuit! Men do not realize this. Too much time watching the Vic’s Secret models, not enough time with real world recognizance! Now, we meet online, swap pictures, talk some. Most are attracted to my ability to use my head for something other than a hat rack. Maybe it’s the pink painted toenails inside of steel toed boots, who knows. But we meet. Then it’s game on for me a lot of time once I see the look of “this is NOT average!” on the poor, now panic stricken, guy’s face. So it’s going to be one of those…. Personally I think they miss out on so much when they (or anyone for that matter) goes after a person’s looks. Hell, guess what happens in 20 years or so. Here, I’ll help you out with this one. The belly comes out of hiding, wild hairs start springing up in strange places, boobs sag, and we get evil. So what’s the problem? I’m not giving false advertising, I’m actually more truthful, I’m giving a preview!

Call me evil if you wish. You will not hurt my feelings. Thanks to skinny brats when I was a kid, I don’t have feelings about my size any more. I am my typical happy self on dates, dinner, a movie, whatever else. If I can tell the guy wants to get away but it too chicken to say anything to me, then who am I to say that I should cut my evening short? Sorry Babe, I’m out for the evening. You don’t like the way the company looks – you leave!

Clothes

Personal pet peeve on this one, and sorry, but it’ll probably turn into a rant. I am not a skinny chick. I am white, am over 20, and not a prostitute. Why do clothes for fat chicks either look like something my grandmother would have owned in the 80’s or something made by Omar the Tent Maker? One thing that’s an extremely generalized statement about today’s fashion – short fat chicks in bell bottoms or “flare” jean is a sick joke! What were you thinking? Why not give us a 5x too big pair of pants with the hula-hoop in the top and suspenders! I’ve given thought to designing my own clothing line. Designs I can do, heck I can even sew fairly well. But I don’t have a room full of underpaid kids to produce anything like what the current market needs.

I do like a lot of stuff in stores these days. Problems vary though:

Lane Bryant – good jeans, fit the curves in all the right places. See the comment about me not being a “pro” on the shirts, also I’m not a throw-back from the Renaissance. I don’t need sleeves that flutter 3 feet behind me as a walk they’d only make my butt look bigger by flapping in the breeze beside it.

Old Navy – decent selection. Jeans are good but damn, I have ghetto booty, can I get a couple more belt loops in the back, please? Tops – I own several, thanks! The kicker – if you really can only wear women’s sizes, you have to order online. Wow, you saying I can’t fit my fat ass into a dressing room? Or maybe only anorexic chicks like new clothes?

Gap – LOVE your stuff. Can you expand some perhaps? Not your line, just your sizes. Average chick here, remember? Welcome to the US, it’s almost 2009!

American Eagle – If I get something that fits my left thigh, can I get the same thing for the right one at half off?

The major department stores – Please pick up a fashion magazine. Got it? Good. Now, you can’t see any of my ribs, or abs for that matter. But I prefer to wear something that says Nike up the side, not Glad. Not everything needs to match. And NEVER use garbendine! It should be banned!

Target – Nice selection except I’m not pregnant, not into wearing scrubs daily, and not size 16 or below. You have everything else for people in my age group, would a few racks of cute, non-grandma looking clothes kill you?

Walmart – Maybe you can host Bingo in your fat girl section if things get much worse. And I see you also have the line of clothes that the Glad bag people put out.

Families

Just cause I don’t starve myself on a regular daily basis and I spend more quality time with my remote than my treadmill doesn’t mean that I have never been married. I was. The dress was an interesting hunt, but surprisingly only lasted one day. Cool!! The wedding was ok. Wish they had some camera lens for making the people seem smaller. Hell they have that room at the fair. Isn’t it just a matter of a few mirrors?

Ok, I’m not going into much here, except for to say that fat chicks have sex. You want to see demonstrations, go check out a porn site, pervert. Since we have sex, stands to reason that some of us may wind up pregnant. Trust me, it happens. The part I didn’t understand was that no one else realized that someone over a size 14 could reproduce. Yeah, I’m getting back on clothes again. I managed to find a pair of jeans and a few nice shirts that I didn’t mind wearing and I could try on before buying. I’m not in to the whole mail order thing. Especially not buying clothes through the mail, what a pain in the ass! There isn’t really anything else I can say about this without hiring an attorney. It just wasn’t right!

The Serious Stuff

All jokes aside, people have become too happy to be too large. The health crisis affecting not only our country but everywhere is reaching a critical breaking point. It is difficult for people like me to do our jobs at times because, no matter how much we would love to help you, we cannot lift you off the floor. Or even sadder still, no matter how hard we push on you, we will never be able to do adequate CPR do to your size. Health is a big concern for the powers that be these days, as it should be.

My father died when he was 51 from a massive heart attack. I am 33. Although he wasn’t overweight by more than 15 pounds or so, that cardiac history does run in my family. I need to be scared. Not tomorrow after I finish the last of the brownies in the fridge. Not next week after the holidays are done, not next month after my boyfriend’s birthday dinner I’m planning. I need to be scared right now. I have begun to change things in my life, started attempting to make healthier choices, spending some “quality time” away from my remote. Diet is only one letter away from Die. And ending your addiction to food by starting one with some “pill my doctor said would work” is not the way to go. McDonald’s didn’t make me fat, didn’t make you fat either. Genetics did and I allowed it to progress. My DNA assured me that I am predisposed. My choice of drive threw versus cooking something healthy locked down my fat fate. For my health, for my son, and for the patients I take care of, I am attempting to create new healthier habits. Like any other addict I am aware that it takes time. But unlike other drugs, healthy habits are much easier to see when that scale doesn’t tip as far as it did the previous week.

It’s a big world out there, go visit it. Get out and do something! If you died tomorrow, would you be happy with the life you lived? Do you have regrets? We each only get one shot at this, best make it a good one.