Today I went to a lularoe party and one of the women attending was bummed that all the great legging patterns were in the tween size and not in the "os" adult size. I bounced over to lend a helping hand -- excited to share that the clothes run big and she could probably get into the tween leggings if she wanted. Even though technically they run up to an "adult size 0," i wear them (I showed her I was wearing them right now in fact!), even though I'm not little...so even a size 6 adult could get into the tweens!
You can imagine my dismay when, dripping with sarcasm, she responded "you're saying you're not small and you're a size 6..."
I got so angry -- at first I went with the facts, "well, i'm not a size 0 as the leggings claim to be," and then rationalization, "well, i did lose 50 lbs recently," and ultimately straight emotion, "i'm NOT SMALL, i mean i'm 5'6 and 155 lbs."
I completely spun out.
How and why did I get so angry about this?
After some deep thought, it occurred to me that she was who I used to be. Up until the past few years, my M.O. was to seek out those similar to me so we could band together under false pretense of "comfort," commiserating about how "other" women were just "lucky," and didn't have the "right" to complain about their own bodies - since they had better ones than we did, it must be "genetic," or they were "freaky workout chicks..." or worse.
When I started my health and fitness journey, my goal was to look like a Victoria's Secret model - I figured women wearing and modeling lingerie had the ideal body type. Then I started losing weight, and my biology, as I saw it, started to betray me. My muscles started popping out and I realized I was never going to be long and lean.
As I started to go through my transformation and the physical changes in my body, I fought with the girl in the mirror. I refused to see the progress looking back at me - picking apart my hips, thighs, muffin top, and any other parts of my body I still saw as unacceptable. For a long time, I still saw myself as "fat" and felt like I ,was hiding in my changing body, expecting to wake up one morning having gained back all I lost, like it was all a dream. (I used to read word up magazine...sorry, couldn't help it).
It was a long and hard-fought battle to come to love what I have - my curves, my hips, my thighs, being "thick." I've fought so hard to be PROUD of my shape and love it for exactly what it is - which is NOT small, that when someone called me out as "being small," I took it as a personal assault.
But really, I was picking up on the familiar vibe of girl-on-girl crime.
It doesn't have to be that way. Let's lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. Love all sizes, and be respectful about how we speak about each other -- it's not about "skinny" or "fat." it's about owning what you got and encouraging each other to do the same.
It's the only way we can collectively grow.
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