“Another bag of chips? What are you trying to do to yourself? Eat one more and you won’t even have to walk to school anymore. You could just roll down the hill!” is an English translation of one of the many kind things my loving and caring mother has said to me over the years. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom and there’s no need to call Social Services on her; what she said was said with love (right Mommy?). You see, throughout my entire elementary school career, I was “big-boned”, to say the least, but I never knew it up until I was rightfully told so by mom at the end of fifth grade. Looking back, there may have been a few hints here and there; i.e. the “mooooo” sounds my brother would make when I walked into the room, the fact that he called me a cow, or maybe even when a friend once told me I was “bigger than all the other girls”, but I guess taking hints was never really my thing. I confused the comparisons to a farm animal for compliments because cows could be pretty, right? And I thought being “bigger” just meant that I was really tall; I even went as far as to think that this girl was insinuating that my height could be used for a thriving international super model career one day.

Satisfied with all the “compliments” I was receiving as a kid, I proceeded in eating my daily pack of Cheetos, not even thinking about my waist line. And you know what? I’m happy I didn’t listened to those around me. Granted, it’s mostly because I wasn’t aware of my own weight, but after careful deep thinking, I’m starting to believe I purposely turned a blind eye, or for the love of me, I hope so. Because after all, what if I hadn’t? What if I had realized even earlier that I was fat? Beyond the fact that I would have stopped wearing miniskirts and had a potential weight crisis that would scar me to this very day, I would also have lost out on so much experience. Food is one of the loves of my life, and I really did get to enjoy it as a kid. Now that I’m well aware of the repercussions that come with excessive eating including health issues and the hand in hand obesity/bullying, I wouldn’t dare eat as much as I once did. My obliviousness allowed me to enjoy one of the things I take immense pleasure in, and I don’t care if that meant sacrificing my cholesterol level or even a nice smooth chin (I thought my double chin was a sign that I’d be a curvaceous woman - hour-glass figure anybody?)

So you know what? Maybe I am stuck with five years’ worth of ugly pictures of me forever hanging on the wall of my mother’s room: no regrets. While most of the people out there wish they could be eating a chocolate lava cake but are too afraid to do so because of their weight, just know I had a lifetime’s worth of lava cakes and more from ages five to ten.

That same obliviousness I had as a kid still surfaces even today, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. That isn’t to say I’m unaware of my surroundings. On the contrary, I’m very down to earth and well aware of what those around me think, but sometimes, it’s just a matter of survival; I take it upon myself to not openly read between the lines. “So…you want to be an actress like most people everywhere?”
I want to take advantage of the things I love and live the life I want to lead, but without the criticism of those around me. I don’t need to know if I look pretty, fat, or stupid doing something I enjoy and I definitely don’t need to know what people think is possible for me, so I pretend to not understand what they’re saying – or what they’re trying to say. Naïve, maybe, but at least I’m emotionally stable - some can even say confident. So yes, I did have an ugly phase, but it was relatively easy to overcome (thanks, fatcamp) and I maintained a sustainable happiness. I know I have many more ugly phases to come, c’est la vie. But for the future, I’m just praying they’ll be figurative instead of literal.