The Burden of Having a Fat Body

How do you live inside a space that isn’t yours?

Photo by Kaffeebart on Unsplash

A certain weariness of being.

I’ve had a strange relationship with my body for a long time. But as the years go on, the worse it gets.

I wonder how it is for other people.

For a long time, my body has always felt like a thing I possess, rather than an intrinsic part of my identity. It is not who I am, but rather the thing that happens to carry me around; an addend, certainly, but nowhere near the sum of who I am.

And, yet, it is the thing that people notice first.

For most people, it’s the only thing they notice: the big, lumbering, malapportioned, misshappen, becrippled sweaty mass of flesh that says, quite clearly, this isn’t someone you want to know.

And, so, they don’t.

I resent my body for pushing away people before they get to know me.

I resent my body for its illnesses and infirmities, for becoming less and less able to walk, to drive, to stand, to dress, to leave the house.

I resent my body for not responding to diet, for not being able to exercise, for all of the weight yo-yo-ing instead of being lost.