The Weight of My Weight

As an adult I have tried not to hide my fatness behind sugary words to make them more pleasing to the people around me or the strangers that see me. Fluffy. “Curvy”. Fun Size. Party Size.

Nah. I am fat.

The words out there designed to make my body more accepted and marketable to potential lovers, bosses, friends, or whoever has the misfortune of getting caught in my personal magnetic field are not my words. They are not the words I choose to define me. I do not care about someone’s discomfort with the word fat or the preoccupation society has with it. I move and giggle and take up space in a world that thinks being fat is the worst thing you can be. I live every day trying to balance the self-loathing coded in what seems to be every cell, every fiber, every particle in me with the urge to love myself and my stretched out skin and my flesh. Most days the balance tips in the direction of self-loathing, all of my progress sliding to the floor and shattering only to make the next day harder; each time asking myself do you need to radically change yourself to love yourself.

The Husband had bariatric surgery about a year and a half ago. He has done phenomenally, sticking to his medical program and shedding weight. He moves better. He feels better. Medical issues he had have cleared up. I went with him to the information session for surgery. I went to the consultation and follow ups for my own potential surgery - a gastric bypass to help with the  weight, pain, and medical issues that can sometimes accompany being fat. Everyone, the medical practitioners as well as myself, agreed I needed to work on my mental health and bring down my A1C before we could really moved forward. I never went back. Not because my process was delayed but because I can’t decide if it is right for me.

I don’t know if I have ever taken a diet seriously when I have tried to lose weight so a step like this seems drastic. I don’t exercise really. I gained back every pound I lost while working with doctors and then some. I am not happy with myself most of the time. But is something like this going to change that for me? Or will I just continue this balancing act at another size?

And then the internal argument bombards me with mixed messages that weigh me down further and make my heart ache. How can you feed into diet culture? How can you go outside when you look like this? Why let society dictate your appearance? How can you be a feminist if you think like this? Why did someone marry you, you cow? Why can’t you just practice what you preach and be stronger when it comes to body image? No one really loves you. No one really likes you, they just tolerate your existence because they feel bad for you. WHEN THE HUSBAND LEAVES YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE SO DISGUSTING, NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO BE WITH YOU. YOU WILL DIE ALONE.

Let me tell you, this shit is exhausting. But I get it. I get why I fight this fight in my head. I preach the gospel of accepting yourself and your body to everyone yet at the end of the day I have nothing nice to say about myself or my body - other than I think my eyes are nice because they are so dark you can see through them to the depths of hell and that I am doing a-ok in the breast department. I try to reconcile this drift between who I am to myself and who I am to others. How can I continue writing as my authentic self if my self is in what seems like a lifelong civil war?

So I simmer, letting these thoughts marry until over and over the same thought bubbles to the surface gasping for oxygen: is thinness the key to happiness?

I can’t believe it is. That is one thought I can reject even if it fights its way to the top continually. Rearranging my organs can’t cause happiness. Starving myself can’t cause happiness. Fighting myself can’t cause happiness. Could this be the moment where I let go of the years of bullshit? The diet culture and shame that seem to be bred into me?  Is this where I lean in to the wind and let my weight, for once, work in my favor - letting it tip me over so I can fall in love with myself?

I will prepare a parachute, just in case.

-MPA

A Re-Introduction

Hello, Friends.

It has certainly been a minute. Life, like usual got a bit outta control. But here I am, attempting this shit again. Is it because I love failure? Is it because I have I am a glutton for beating myself up when I trip up or don't stick to a schedule? Accurate, but no. I just have a big mouth. A big mouth and a terrible desire to clog up the social media feeds of my family, friends, enemies, really...anyone and everyone. #sorrynotsorry

Now, you may be asking yourself "what has brought this broad out of hiding during the dumpster fire that is the year of our Lord 2018?" Maybe your question is "what has Trump shit on lately to make her emerge from hiding?"

The answer? Lately I feel myself being less and less authentically me. Sure, I still have weird hair that is dyed pink and some inability to filter before speaking but… Something has been missing. The blog has always been a way for me to be and feel more authentic in a world where because of work or other organizations or relationships I can’t necessarily be myself 100%. Most people see Diet MPA - just 4 calories and with a lingering aftertaste that isn’t wholly right.

This was not supposed to be the first post back. I had a lovely fluff piece on Mercury in Retrograde as a Sunday special to kick it off so I could pace myself and really see if this was worth it, if this would give me that feeling of being genuine again. I couldn’t finish it. It will sit, in my google docs until I finish it or delete it. Instead, I thought if I yearn for this validity in myself and in what I am reading on my own then I owe it to myself and the dozen people that may read this to do the same. What better way to do that than to re-introduce myself and define myself as I am right now, knocking on the door of 33 and still a mess?

So, that is what you’ll get on my return. Me. As close to 100% as I can possibly be.

I am:

Almost 33

Fat as fuck

Unhealthy

A ball of anxiety and depression

The mother of two beautiful cats

Married to someone that has managed not to divorce me even though I am A LOT to handle

The Creative Director of a Rocky Horror shadow cast

Weird

Nerdy

Confused

A witch

Most likely unable to have children

Tired

Queer

Most of these are no real surprise if you have read any posts before but while we are here, let’s unpack a few of these.

I spend a crazy amount of time in my own head. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? What/Who am I meant to do or be? Why is the world such a mess? Why don’t my cats let me pet them more? Why are corgis the most precious of dog breeds? What am I? WHAT AM I? The world is so much more #woke now. People can define and label themselves in ways that reflect them infinitely better and more accurately than when I pondered this before. Do I define myself as a woman because it is all I have ever known? Am I a woman when I have never felt intrinsically female or male? Am I just performing a gender because it is expected? I don’t know. I don’t know what I am, other than a mess. What do I know? Finding yourself and gaining true identity is confusing and hard and the people that have, who live their truth everyday are brave af.

Yes. I am queer. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY.

Whatever you want to call it. I am it.

The first person I ever kissed was a girl and while I don’t remember it, I have had it retold to me many times. In an act of shame or making fun of me? I don’t know.

But you’re married.

I know it is confusing. So lemme break it down: For many years I clung to “homoflexibility” as my sexuality. That, my friends, is some garbage. Some grade A rotting garbage because it is easier to say you just do things sometimes or when drunk than it is to deal with people’s opinions of your changing. Y’all - I AIN’T GOT TIME FOR THAT SHIT ANYMORE. I define myself, right now in my truthiest truth, as pansexual. No. I don’t think pans are hot. Cast iron, copper, Teflon coating, all of that has nothing to do with it (I am flipping off my laptop right now because people think they are hilarious and ask that all the time). I like to explain it to people as: I like consenting adults. Hearts not parts? It is funny that it took me years to understand this. When I was dating my ex-girlfriend (ESCANDELO!) my mother and brother had a conversation that she relayed to me where he was not surprised because he felt I would look at a person for who they are and not anything else. RIGHT ON, BRO.

Now, let’s add some additional layers to that.

I am on an antidepressant/anxiety medication. If you have been on one or know someone who has, you know that sometimes your mental health improving comes at the expense of your desire for intimacy.

But you’re married.

I am. I had to make a decision to stay on a medication that made me suicidal but didn’t hinder my drive or change medications. I changed medications. Some days I feel like this wasn’t the right decision. Most days I feel like a terrible spouse. Add to it, the large possibility that biologically having kids is off the table too makes me feel like a terrible daughter/daughter-in-law.

But didn’t you just define your sexuality?

I did. Because that is me. When I am well. I suppose you could call me medically asexual right now for the most part. Now let’s smash it all together to create and identity!

I am a 33 year-old fat weirdo, whose gender is …?????, is pansexual but due to mental health issues basically asexual, and panromantic (I like consenting adults for romance as well as other activities). I am loud. I am proud of that identity. I am here to reign fire on issues and type until my fingers are tired. I am here to make delicious food and try crafts on Pinterest that I will ultimately fail at. I am here to laugh, and cry, and be angry. I am here.

-MPA

**side note, I just realized I never came out. I just kind of, started dating a girl and didn’t explain myself. 10/10, MPA. **