an old blog: pretty, for a fat girl.

My whole life, or at least for the length of my cognitive memory, everyone has always told me that I'm pretty, for a fat girl.

I'm sitting here today, trying my best to reconcile what that actually means.

Essentially, what it boils down to is this: I am pretty in spite of something. That I somehow am able to project myself through my layers of chubby insulation and shine through, in some kind of resplendant fashion.

I assure you, I am not pretty in spite of being fat physically. I am pretty in spite of the way that I've been treated most of my life. In spite of my cousins teasing me as a five year old for having lumpy thighs. In spite of being publicly denied cheeseburgers at family functions for years. In spite of always wanting to be held, and never holding on for fear I might crush something. In spite of always feeling like the bull in the china shop. In spite of only enjoying myself on very rare and private occasions. In spite of always feeling so judged by the general populus that at twenty-six years old I still haven't managed to develop any truly useful social skills.

Before too long, I'm not going to be physically fat anymore. I don't worry about my "pretty for a fat girl status" so much, because I know that there's something more troublesome ahead of me to deal with - even if I manage to whittle myself away into a pair of size 4 designer jeans (don't worry, it's not likely) I will always be fat on the inside. I worry about how to deal with that. I worry that my old fat self will feel betrayed; I worry that my new healthy, possibly thin self will still not know how to function socially; but then I realize that the before and the after, they're both me and not separate from each other.

Maybe "pretty" isn't in spite of anything. Maybe "beautiful" is because of something. Maybe beauty happens because we are each given a divine spark of hope, of kindness..... of grace.

While I don't profess to be any kind of beauty queen, I admit to being beautiful. And I'm promising everyone, right here and now, to continue to be so for the rest of my life through hope and kindness and grace. And not in spite of anything, but simply because it's true and I believe it.