I'm a big girl.
It's taken a very long time and many failed attempts at loving and accepting myself for who I am, but I say it without a single hint of resentment or shame. Just like my hair color, or my eye color, or my height, or my shoe size, my build is just a part of me. My weight is just another number, just another measurement. Most importantly, it doesn't take away from the person I am. It doesn't make me less-than anyone, I mean technically it makes me more-than.
My hair is brown, my eyes are brown, I'm 5'6, my shoe size is an 8, and a half and my jeans are a size 12. That's it, that's all it is. Just another surface value.
All my life I felt like I took up too much space. I felt too big and too much, all the time. Shopping was a nightmare because not only was it more difficult to find my size in everything but even then it wouldn't fit right. I had to pretend that it was okay that I couldn't borrow my friend's stuff and that they couldn't borrow mine – unless they wanted to look like they were swimming in material that is. I avoided the plus-sized section of stores like the plague because if I went over, I'd feel like I'd lost. If I gave in, I would be admitting that I am unnaturally larger than the rest.
It was terrifying.
There's nothing wrong with shopping in the plus-sized section, absolutely nothing. All bodies are different and all bodies are beautiful, but they definitely made it embarrassing, didn't they? I would have to leave my friends in Forever 21 and head to an entirely separate size of the store – a section that basically advertised my weight – and pray that the cute top I'd seen downstairs came in a size larger than an L that should have really been marked an M.
All of that takes a toll on a person. The exclusivity of being in the normal range of clothing sizes, the constant feeling of discomfort, the comparisons, and the pity – it changes you. It turns this thing, this random, natural, insignificant thing about you into everything. It made me feel ashamed and like I needed to make myself smaller to be liked – by my clothes, by my friends, and by boys.
Moving to Europe, I feared that it would only get worse. I thought that because Europe was known for high couture and fashion and models, I would be in for a rude awakening when it came to shopping. I teased that I would meet my very own British soul-mate and elope. I let myself fantasize about all the cute things I would find in shops that America didn't have, but wouldn't be able to buy.
I thought that it would be another few months of being hyperaware about the ways in which things fit me differently. I thought I would spend my time here just as uncomfortable and weary of the way I looked to others. I thought that I would be perceived in the same way I was back home.
But I was wrong.
I am one person and this is one story based on a single experience, so I won't speak for the entirety of the thick girl community, but I will say that England has made me feel more at my home in my skin than home had ever done. In the weeks I've been here not only have I not needed to look in plus-sized sections, they don't exist. The XL or XXL version of that very same top is in the same section as the S and the XS.
There's no separation; no them and me.
Here being bigger, or thicker if you will, isn't something to be ashamed of. It may set me apart, but not in a definitive way. It doesn't make anyone's life harder, and it doesn't inconvenience anyways. I hardly ever hear talk of the difference between a girl and a 'thick' girl, because we're all just girls.
In the end, we're just people with bodies. Those bodies have personalities and that's what matters.
My experience isn't universal, nor is it perfect. It still has kinks and flaws. For all I know I could be the only person in the entirety of the world that feels this way. All I do know is it was a breath of fresh air. It was a welcome confidence boost because those are hard to come by.
Most of all, it was a reminder. A reminder that we have so far to go in body image portrayal and acceptance. That we're just bodies, and that that's okay.
