Grannie, I love your fat arms!

Grannie, I love your fat arms.

How sweet is that? Through all my ups and downs in weight, my arms have always held onto being a fat girl. They are the reason ¾-length sleeves were invented. To be brutally honest, I suspect they are also the reason airbags were invented, as I’ve certainly been known to throw my jiggly arm across a passenger to ‘protect them’ when I was braking. A fortune lost from not patenting the idea before airbags came along.

My godchildren, then my grandchildren and now my grand godchildren, like to take a big pinch of that juicy flesh and admiringly tell me, “I love your fat arms.” I can’t help but smile.

It’s another one of those darn contradictions. I hate my arms because they are proportionately bigger than my body. I love my arms because they get to hug all the people I hold so dear.

It’s taken me a lifetime to make peace with my body and accept its changing forms. I was taught to hate it as a child. It was an embarrassment, a reason to be ashamed and withdrawn.

Those are lessons imprinted on my heart at such a young age that they are hard to unlearn.

I learned to swallow my pain—pain caused by trauma and the longing for acceptance and belonging.

I learned to give away so much of myself striving for the next achievement that I felt safer keeping a bigger body to insulate myself. So the world could see my accomplishment without looking too closely at me.

I learned to detach from my body, genuinely believing that its size and shape were outside of my control.

My mother used my body as a weapon. “Your breasts are too big, boys will think you’re easy.” She screamed at me about my weight, using height and weight charts to prove I was fatter than her. Perhaps she hated herself—it felt like she hated me.

When I started college, I will never forget the cashier. She was a big woman; she was tall and broad and different from any fat woman I’d seen. She was confident and stylish in her body.

I did a little plus-size modeling, being a live mannequin in a department store. I learned I was photogenic and decided that being fat wouldn’t be so bad if people would only notice that I WAS PRETTY—and not in a ‘such a pretty face, too bad about your body’ dismissive kind of way.

I still tried this diet or that one, living on liquid, going to Weight Watchers, hypnosis, and support groups. I’ve had a gastric bypass and been on a weight loss show on TV. And yet, being comfortable in my body eluded me for years.

I’ve been on a prescribed anxiety med for many years. I know the med contributes to my weight. I also know that I would rather take that pill than lie in my bed in a fetal position crying. If it’s a matter of pounds vs. sanity—I’ll take the sanity. I value my peace.

I think getting older and finding my voice also helped me find self-acceptance in my body. Bring on the aging, I am all in. And not because a fat grannie cooking big meals for people she loves is highly rated. It’s because my voice has taught me better boundaries.

I completely believe you have positive intent when you comment on my weight loss. It is not something I’m comfortable discussing. You might see a smaller size where I see healing from something private. And after all these years, I still believe being pretty in spirit is enough. Weight, color, and wrinkles are evidence of a life lived and cannot hide someone’s spirit from shining through.

I just want to be seen for me.

The same me at any size.

The same me that all my kids affectionately jiggle.

The same me that finally knows I’m loved and I deserve it.