Reasons to Hang in There
1
Seeing Your Enemies Fail
I’m petty. I know I’m not supposed to admit it or whatever, but literally WHAT is the point of staying alive and trying to succeed if not to receive a friend request from some asshole who made fun of your gym shorts? Then to scroll through his pictures and look at his gross dog and his weird kids and remember how hard he made your life twenty years ago. And meanwhile his current life, the life he actually put together himself rather than the one that was forced upon him by his broke and unprepared parents, is garbage?! It is the most satisfying feeling, and I’m not sorry for having it! Whatever I looked like or did/didn’t have in the seventh grade was definitely not my fault. I didn’t have a job! I couldn’t make the rules! Would I have chosen to buy bright pink Payless sneakers while everyone else was rocking brand-new Jordans? No, sir, I would not have. But I was twelve. He paid for that shitty haircut and he posted a picture of it on his Twitter? Thanks for this much-needed validation! So, trust me, it’s going to happen for you, too. And it will feel like a unicorn sliding down a rainbow into your heart. Anyone who has wronged you will eventually get their comeuppance. And, thanks to modern technology, you’ll probably get to watch it in real time.
2
Stocking Your Pantry Like an Adult Child
I’m not going to bullshit you and say that I never buy vegetables because listen, sometimes I read articles about how much folic acid a functioning body needs, and information about B vitamins worms its way into my tiny brain, and I think, “Wow, I should buy spinach” while strolling through the cereal aisle at the grocery store; but honestly the Oreo-to-carrot ratio in my house is a smooth 2:1. Sure, I buy hummus and the good kind of organic peanut butter. But I don’t have any kids, and maybe having someone’s behavior to monitor is the catalyst through which you begin to monitor your own, so I just get what I want, and no one’s disapproving eyebrows will rise in judgment as I have cake for breakfast.
3
3 a.m. Is a Lie
When I was a kid, all I ever wanted to know was what happened in the adult universe after 9 p.m. As a rapidly decaying, expired bag of meat I have learned that it is not as scintillating as I once assumed. The universe is set up to trick you into believing that you aren’t cool and that a magical trapdoor of awesome adventures swings open on your eighteenth birthday, or that everything that happens after you’ve already gone to bed is an unimaginable thrill ride, but let me disabuse you of these notions: Every titillating adult mystery is really just a hassle or a bill in disguise. No need to wish on your birthday candles for your exciting adult life to start, because you’re perfect and so is your life as it is right this minute. Besides, adulthood is really nothing but drudgery and hard work masquerading as glamorous excitement, and nothing fun happens for the rest of us while you are young and dewy and going to bed before midnight. I promise you.
4
Talking Back to the Doctor
I mean, they’re gonna say whatever the hell they’re gonna say. And the power dynamic is skewed, especially if you’re sitting there in that crumpled paper gown with the majority of your soft parts exposed. But instead of your legal guardian nodding solemnly along with whatever shitty thing they’re saying about you while placing a silencing hand on your meaty backside, you can interrupt and remind them that you are a person, not just a collection of fat cells, and they need to address your concerns rather than condescendingly schooling you on how calories are burned. There’s a growing understanding that being fat doesn’t mean unhealthy, and there are HAES (health at every size) doctors who will listen to you and respect your body as it is, not as some outdated health manual dictates it should be. Seek out these doctors—the ones you feel comfortable with, who will respect what you’re saying—especially because you know yourself best and should never be bullied into someone else’s idea of how a person should be. Besides, anyone who has so much as glanced at women’s magazines is basically an expert at weight loss, doc, now what about that ear infection I came in for?
5
Decorating Your Own Crib
Did you know that there are mattresses specifically for fat bodies? There are mattresses specifically for fat bodies!!! And you can buy one on your phone and have it delivered to your doorstep in a matter of days. Also, no more couches that your mom won’t let you sit on. You can eat every meal in front of the TV if you want or mix up all your clothes in whatever cycle you want in the washing machine and balance all eight bottles of body wash on the edge of the tub because, Hey, Mom, I LIKE A LITTLE VARIETY. Don’t put a coaster down! Or buy a table that’s made of fucking coasters because who cares? It’s your house! You no longer have to look at your brother’s graduation photo every time you grab a Coke from the fridge. Hate having a dust ruffle? You don’t have to have a goddamn dust ruffle!!
6
Empowering Shit on TV
I loved TV as a kid. Like, really loved it. And I had bad parents, so I was allowed to consume as much of it as I wanted, unsupervised, most hours of the day. But we didn’t have cable, and “streaming services” were a far-off invention of the future (“the inter-WHAT?!”—my mom, probably), so most of the shit I watched was relatively wholesome: cartoons in the morning, All My Children in the afternoons, whatever was on the NBC prime-time lineup at night. Nowadays everybody’s worried about screen time, and I get it, there’s physics homework to do. But we’re also just at the beginning of this golden age of television, where fat people are making shows about being fat and unapologetic, and it’s just going to get better. Imagine what kind of bad bitch I could be if teenage me had had Dietland in my life?! I mean, Heathers did a pretty good job of raising me, but The Mindy Project might have gotten me into a better college. Just saying.
7
Seeing the Character-Building Experiences of Your Youth in Action
Every day at the beginning of gym class this kid used to ask me, in a way that on the surface seemed like genuine curiosity but I knew he was actually being a dick, “Hey, how much do you weigh?” Truth be told, I had no fucking idea because my parents never took me to the fucking doctor and we weren’t a “this scale actually works” kind of household; so when I told him that I didn’t know, that was the honest truth. But I knew what he was getting at: that whatever my weight was, it was DEFINITELY TOO MUCH. At the time that shit just bummed me out and made me throw two-thirds of my lunch into the trash in the vain hope that not consuming six nuggets and a lukewarm milk every Tuesday would result in some lasting weight loss. But now I think that asshole is the reason why I can wear a crop top to the gas station without batting a single eyelash when people gawk or give me those, “Hey, good for you!” looks. It didn’t feel like it then, but that dude was just helping me build my armor, one plate at a time.
8
Plus-Size Clothing Is Marginally Better Now!!!
I’m almost mad at every single person reading this right now who never had to wear an ankle-length, acid-washed denim skirt from Sears to middle school, but I’m gonna stifle that hatred and find the part of me that is genuinely happy that you can be a size twenty-six and find things to wear that don’t make you look like you live on a compound. Especially if you don’t have an unlimited clothing budget. And I know that looking like warmed-up shit is a rite of passage, and if you’ve embraced it—WOW I LOVE THAT—but also, hey, look at that cute crop top!
9
Sexing (and Other Consensual Corporeal Touching)
I don’t know that I grew up with the kinds of TV villains we’ve grown accustomed to (popped pastel collars, windblown hair sprayed to within an inch of its life, 1987 convertibles), but I did grow up thinking that no one was ever gonna want to see my body naked, and that even if they did, it surely would have been as part of some hilarious prank and not because an actual human being wanted to bring it to orgasm. I didn’t ever date anyone when I was a kid, and maybe it’s because I have a shitty personality. But at the time it definitely felt like it was because I was FAT. And not just fat, but fat and wearing men’s slacks with buffalo-checked flannel shirts. No one wanted to kiss me! But then I graduated and moved the fuck on and then I couldn’t stop being kissed, by all kinds of people! And not because I had some magical Cinderella makeover or hatched from my disgusting cocoon a beautiful butterfly. No, I was fatter and weirder than ever before, and that was appealing to people outside of my high school. I had no idea that there was an entire world of people who just couldn’t wait to wrap their arms around my many doughy folds. And if that’s not your thing? That’s fine, too! There are so many people who will respect that and like you and want to chill with you no matter what you and your boundaries look like.
10
Your Body Is Just Fine. You Know That, Right?
If there’s one thing I wish someone would have said to teenage me as I shuffled over the shiny linoleum floors of my suburban high school in steel-toe Doc Martens and an ever-present sulk, it would be, “Listen, dude, your body is fine.” We were poor, so I used to buy my clothes at the Salvation Army, and it’s not like I could have been in charge of my own style anyway. But it was fucking impossible when I was limited to whatever five-dollar big ’n’ tall dress pants and collared shirts I could scrounge up in the husky section. And it’s hard to feel confident and good in your body when everything is changing and hormones are raging just below the surface of your skin. But add to that general awkwardness a lumpy, hairy, acne-prone body that isn’t reflected kindly on TV or the Internet or in magazines and LOL WHAT IS SELF-ESTEEM AGAIN?! But it really is OK; and I need you to really know this, for you to enjoy the body you have right now. To just be cool moving it around and allowing it to be whatever it is, without apologizing for whatever space it takes up. I have no real idea of exactly how to do this, because I’m thirty-nine years old and still find myself apologizing for my horrifyingly damp and awkward existence. But a thing I say in my head on an embarrassingly regular basis is, “This is the body you have, man. Go live your life.” There was definitely a time when I thought that I couldn’t start living until I magically woke up in my body a third of its normal size—that good things wouldn’t happen for me until, I don’t know, my fat wrists got smaller?! Yet here I am, cheeks as chubby as they’ve ever been, and I’m fine. I do fun shit that makes me happy every single day. My friends love me. My body continues to serve its many purposes, chief among them carting this brain and heart around.
So never forget that you’re good. You really are! Keep your (many) chins up.
EVA BLUE
SAMANTHA IRBY
writes a blog called bitches gotta eat.