Acting As If

For all my bravado about being comfortable in my own skin, I am not.  Not yet.  I subscribe to the "act as if"  school.  If one acts as if something is so, it becomes so.  Or at least other people think so.  Am I being clear?

That doesn't work with pounds or grey hair.  Wishing grey hair brown does not make it so, but the grey is not a problem.  My grey hair is silky, not wiry.  In the sunshine it sparkles like a new dime.  No, grey hair is not an issue.  Pounds are.

Since I first realized I was overweight, it has bothered me.  See "Bugaboo".  Even at 118 I felt fat.  I have lost enough twenty pound increments to populate a small nation.  They keep coming back, bringing their buddies along.

Fat men seem to get along just fine.  They hold powerful positions, show up on television, make a living being obese.  Women, not so much.  We are conditioned to be thin as rails, to avoid second helpings or dessert.  Clothing is designed for the size two, not the fourteen or twenty.  Fat  actresses tend to be comedic, with few exceptions.  Some studies show that the most discriminated group of people for jobs is fat women.  A former state cop told  me recently that he never gave a ticket to a fat chick, only the pretty ones.  He said it was probably the only break they ever got.

Fat does not mean ugly.  It does not mean stupid, lazy or gluttonous.  It does not mean sloppy or not sexy.

I, for one, am none of the above, nor are the vast majority of the overweight women I know.  We eat healthy, we exercise.  We are intelligent.  We are beautiful.  We are sexy.  We are, for the most part, as healthy as our skinny sisters.  If we hide (as I do in my current Facebook picture), it is because someone, somewhere, sometime has made us feel unworthy of a second glance.  They didn't bother to get to know us from the inside.

On my travels to a better self-image, I made some changes.  I am more aware of  my presence.  I am more careful of my appearance.   I soak up compliments like a sponge, often writing them down so I can look at them when I am feeling down.  I try to accept them with dignity instead of the giddiness I am feeling.  I still have trouble believing if they are true, and not cruel sarcasm.

Acting "as if" has helped me in a lot of areas of my life.  I will never be a size two, or even an eight.  I will never have the kind of beauty that will stop someone in mid-sentence.  I will, however, before my journey is over, be beautiful from the inside.  I will radiate faith, love and confidence.  I will be well-loved and well-remembered.  I will be your true friend.

Or I will become very good at acting "as if" .