Pictures capture milestones, experiences, loved ones, friends, parties, graduations, weddings, and funerals. We keep them so we can look back and remember details of those moments.
For some, pictures are a tangible timeline of our own personal history. For others, pictures are painful reminders of a disturbing past. The photo below is something different for me. The photo below is insight into how wrong I was in how I interpreted myself during that time. It is physical proof that I allowed mental poison to paint my experiences.
When I turned about 7 I went to visit my Grandmother Grace. I was only gone for 2-3 weeks, but when I returned my Father looked at my Mother and said, "she's gotten big." By 'big' he was not referring to 'tall.' Now I didn't know that story for some years later; but at that moment battling bigness became a undeniable theme in my life. My mother, not wanting me to go through what she did because of her weight problems tried perhaps too hard to help me.
I wasn't always heavy, there were times I slimmed down, but then plumped up, slimmed down again, repeat. No matter what state I was in I only saw my bigness. My clothes didn't fit right. I hid my upper arms as they were flabby. Even today, I still cling to pillows when I sit so people won't notice my stomach bulge.
As for a LOT of women, and more and more recently, men, my body's condition is something which I'm both haunted and defeated. To be honest I am the heaviest I've ever been. I'm only 20 lbs away from reaching a benchmark of weight gain that leaves me astonished.
You wonder if this is what you are meant to be- and you forget you ever were anything else. I'm writing this now as a warning for those with son's and daughters- maybe even for yourself- that none of us see ourselves clearly. When we don't see ourselves clearly, we give up hope, we give in to temptations, we feel being at home in our bodies isn't worth fighting for.
I'm not talking about looking good or sexy or anything like that- I mean feeling healthy. To feel like you can sit without covering your body from others. To stop letting your 'bigness' hide your abilities, talents, joy, etc. I want you to be aware that the people around you, that you see every day who maybe complain about being fat and you shrug it off because "how annoying- they've thin as a rail," really see themselves through a lens of self-prejudice.
I want this to be a warning to you because the girl in the picture below felt too big. Felt awkward. Felt fat. I wonder if I had let go of this thinking back then, if I wouldn't be obese today.
