Here, have something to kill boredom.

If, for whatever strange and unknown reason, I were to have someone describe me they, would list my physical appearance.  Dark hair, dark eyes, average height, “plus” size (in an attempt to be nice, they would say “fat” or “over weight”).  If I were to ask my friends to describe (or, you know, so it’s not so awkward, I’d have someone else ask my friends) they would say that I can drink like no other, that I’m good with animals, that I have a six million dollar ranch sitting in Meeteetse, Wyoming slowly decaying because my Great Aunt is a dip shit.

My closer friends would say that I listen to dorky Japanese music, or I deliberately wear mis-matched socks, and that bacon and I are best friends.

If my sister were to be asked, she would more than likely say that I’m a troubled person with a messed up past that has issues with people in general.

The point is that physical appearances aren’t all that important.  Sure, they identify you.  To a complete stranger.  The people you have around you, and those that you choose to be around, aren’t looking at your hair, or your skin.  They look at the person inside, the person that is loud and obnoxious and never shuts up.  Or maybe that person is cowering behind a rigid wall, scared and confused.  

The whole reason that I started thinking like this is this article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/teresa-s-porter/so-youre-feeling-too-fat-to-be-photographed_b_4351360.html.  I found it on my Facebook feed, shared by an incredible woman who has helped me far too many times for me to count.

 

Because of my “history”, I kinda have a shitty outlook on life.  I see the worst possible outcome in all scenarios (case in point:  it’s snowy as balls and Stu decided that now would be a good time to go grocery shopping.  That’s just my deal, others would probably see it as:  Well, have fun!) and I tend to be very down and somber when it comes to social activities.  I’m constantly afraid of pissing people off, of making people happy, which kinda explains my past.

Anyway, because of what had happened, I gained weight.  When I was younger, like seven or eight, I was your average weight; maybe a bit chunky but I blame my lovely Father for that.  In fact, I have a picture of my when I was about nine in a swim suit.  By the standards in 199-whatever, I was a healthy girl.

But, then I deliberately started to gain weight, in an effort to become “ugly”.  I had grown up to my mother constantly telling me, “In order to make it in this world, you have to be pretty.  Find a good, rich man, and marry him.  But, you have to pretty.”  

I didn’t want to be pretty.  I didn’t want to deal with men.  I didn’t want to do anything with my life.  In school, when we had to draw a picture of what we would look like in ten years, I drew me and my animals on the ranch.  I wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was the ranch.

But, after reading that article, it occurs to me that I still haven’t done anything with my life.  While I’m mostly healed, I’m lazy.  Soft.  I made a decision to be “ugly” and it will stick with me the rest of my life.  Which is fine…if I’m gonna be judged by my weight, then I’m gonna be judged and there will be no shits to give.  I can’t change them, or their opinions.

When I moved to Nebraska, I made a lot of friends.  At first, it was friends of Vicki’s.  Then it was friends of Mat’s.  Then it was friends of Karlon’s (which is sad, but true).

And now I have a crowd of people I call friends.  I have best friends, even.  In my whole life, I’ve only ever had two best friends.  Peyton, who was technically my sister’s friend and my step-mother thought I was stealing him from Vicki, and Sami.  She was very first friend after the divorce, back in the third grade.  She has been there for me through thick and thin.  Granted, we don’t talk much anymore, but when we do it’s full of memories of when we were basket ball managers together, or the time we decided to live in Los Angles in houses that were right next to each other.  She would decorate them and I would fill them with my art.

Random musings of my past.  I do miss it, sometimes.  The schedule of school, the free food, the trips to see my Grandma Tina in Meeteetse.  My horses and dogs.  But, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the life I have now.

 

Which is pretty freakin’ awesome, if I’m to be honest.