Confessions of a Plus-Size Girl.

My One Thing.

Prologue.

Everybody has that one thing in their life that defines who they are as a person. Whether it be the girl who is blind as a bat without her glasses so everyone calls her four-eyes. Or the girl who always has a book with her, in her bag or under her arm, so everyone calls her the nerd. Or the girl who is really tall so everyone calls her a giant.

See, most of the time, people only get saddled with one thing that makes them stand out in a crowd. God looks at every person he creates and decides that they all need one defining feature that will make it easy for the other kids to pick on them for the duration of their awkward middle school phase.

Y'know, until they decide to switch out their glasses for contacts, their books for an iPhone, or finally come to terms with the fact that they are taller than literally every boy in the entire school.

God apparently decided that he was going to screw me over when he created me because he saddled me with all of the above mentioned characteristics, and y'know what the best part is? He made my eyesight too bad to use contacts, he made sure I had no friends to get social media or an iPhone for, and he kept making me taller so that I would stand out more in a crowd.

But I can live with being called four-eyes. I can live with being called a nerd. Hell, I can even live with being called a giant. Because those are all things that I cant help being.

My eyesight is bad. Yea, it has been since I was 4 and I thought that there werent Individual leaves on tree, just blobs of green. Im smart and I like to read. It's a hell of a lot better than the reality that I would have to face if I ever decided to close my books or set down my laptop. Im tall, really freaking tall, but its been that way since I started 5th grade and there is literally nothing I can do about it.

Those three things, I can deal with. Sure, I get picked on for them from time to time, but they aren't my one thing. They all made an appearance in my life, and for a short period I believed that each and every one of them was my one thing, but they werent. They were only temporary defining features of me. When my one thing finally showed itself, it was hard to miss.

My one thing is my weight.

Sure I have got the other things - the glasses, the books, the height - but those are all things that I can get past. I have come to terms with those things - mostly.

My weight is a different story though. My weight wasnt just a defining feature that made it easy for the other kids to pick on me for the duration of my awkward middle school phase. No, it was so much more than that. Because before my awkward middle school phase there was my awkward elementary school phase. And after my awkward middle school phase came my awkward high school phase. Everyone around me had learned who they were and where they belonged, and I was still sitting on the sidelines, trying to understand where I was supposed to be.

I have always been a bigger girl. Its just how I am. It's just who I am. Its how I have always been. Its who I have always been. It is a part of my identity. It is something that has become a part of my daily life and it is one of the first things that people see about me when they look at me.

"Did you see the bigger girl with the glasses walking down the hall yesterday?"

Or.

"Yea, she seems nice enough but her weight is a little much dont ya think? Some exercise and dieting would do her a world of good."

Or my personal favorite.

"Is she really wearing that? With that body shape? With those thighs and those arms? Someone should really tell her that shorts aren't meant for girls like her."