I live my life with no pain.

            Since I was a child, I’ve almost always been on the larger side. Due to this, I’ve also been fairly concerned with what people thought of me, as even I didn’t think my size was normal. In elementary school I was picked on as “the smart fat girl.” To counteract the tears, my mother would always tell me, “They just say that because they’re jealous.” I would always think to myself, who wants to be fat? I never bothered to argue because there was no way she would possibly understand, or so I assumed.

            As I got into middle and high school, I was still overweight, but I started experiencing a change in myself. I stopped caring what people thought. I had large friends, small friends, white friends, black friends, smart friends, not-so-smart friends. The versatility kept me stable in my confidence levels. I had my ups and downs every now and again, but I pretty much blamed my cycle for those mood swings.

            Before I started high school, I moved from California to Oregon. My comfortable little nest that I’d spent so much time building up had shattered. My friends were my safety blanket from other people and from myself. My freshman year, I spent most of my time hiding in my room, sitting in front of a computer, shutting myself off from the world. I didn’t sleep, I ate too much, and I never bothered to try to appeal to anyone because I was so depressed. I ballooned to a disgusting 275 pounds, and that much weight doesn’t look good on a sleep deprived fourteen-year-old. I found further justification in my isolation with all the disturbed looks from peers and passersby, and I found myself imagining what they must be thinking about me. “I can’t believe she let herself go like that.” “Back away from the buffet.” “Liposuction, anyone?” I didn’t even bother to look at other people after a while. I walked around with my head down, my eyes focusing on my feet. I went to a dance that year, in hopes that I might meet someone who’d want to talk to me, or at least try to have something like a good time. The only thing about that night that didn’t “completely suck” (as I had so politely put it) was the boy that decided to come talk to me. He introduced himself as Ben, and I knew him as the smart kid in my geography class. We talked for a bit and then I went home. That was my first taste of acknowledgement. Someone had noticed me, and decided I might be worth talking to, and that changed everything for me.

            Somewhere in that summer after freshman year, I got a little more grounded and managed to slowly lose some weight, settling on 235 pounds. When I went back to school, I found people who were interesting to me and made it a point to make friends. Unfortunately, that boy that was nice enough to talk to me that one night wasn’t around anymore. I heard from classmates that he moved away. It was a shame. But I met a new boy online, on a mutual community, and he was safe. He didn’t know me, didn’t know what I looked like, and the only way he could appreciate me was for my intellect. I thought I was falling in love. The year, other than that, moved along in a fairly productive fashion, in keeping with all the teen drama shows you see. Girl meets friends. Girl meets the male friend. Girl makes the mistake of getting physically involved with male friend. Other friends hate girl. Big fight. Tears. Ridiculous behaviors and bad poetry.

            It was a strange experience, being in a relationship and “in love” with a boy whom I’d met once and at the same time experimenting with a boy I knew nearly nothing about except the way he “moved.” I wasn’t proud of it, but I didn’t know how to handle the situation. There was the boyfriend who claimed undying love and hopes for marriage and children and clouds and rainbows and chocolate bunnies, and that vision was so unrealistic to me. Then there was the “friend with benefits” who opened me up to a whole world of intimacy and physical exploration I never would have experienced with my boyfriend (mostly due to distance constraints, but also because I later discovered my boyfriend would not have done the act of sex any justice being so inexperienced and poorly endowed).

            I finally rid myself of the entire situation. My boyfriend was no longer as loving as he used to be and the cheating made me feel ugly and disgusting. A little more than four months later, I found a new boy, an older boy, who shared all my interests and loved my shape. He made me feel truly beautiful and attractive and desirable for the first time in my life up to that point. He treated me to dinner and movies. He had a perfect sense of humor. We had so much in common. He was a fantastic lover, and made me feel appreciated and wanted. I thought, “Surely, this is what real love is.” And when it crashed and burned, I was crushed. I didn’t know what went wrong. As a defense mechanism, I spent the rest of that summer being “friends with benefits” because I wanted sex, or so I told him. I fooled myself into thinking I could have some semblance of that closeness we’d once shared by being physically intimate with him, but it never worked out.   It felt like forever to get over him. I was selfish and wanted him to want me and miss me. I realized then that I wasn’t moving on, I was growing bitter.

            In my bitterness, I let my weight and my confidence issues creep back up, until I finally weighed in at 240 pounds. I decided from there that I wasn’t going to change, if much at all, and I should learn to at least be comfortable with what I have, if not like it. I experienced many a long night fighting with myself and my insecurities, fighting with my urges to just turn to an eating disorder to control myself at least a little. And then a man walked into my life. Not a boy. Not a guy. A man. A man I met a long time ago, who somehow knew I needed him, and knew just what to say to fix all my long nights and bad spells. He’s the man who knew what I needed, and was the perfect one for the job. He’s the man that made it alright to be like myself. He’s the man who found a way to love me despite all my imperfections, and let me love him back. That man is the boy that made that night my freshman year bearable. The man is Ben, and as cheesy as it sounds, he’s pretty close to perfect.

            I know there will be days that I’ll find myself unacceptable. How do you appreciate what you see in the mirror when there’s so much reminder around you that your shape, your size, you are unacceptable? I know there will be nights where I’ll worry whether or not this relationship, like so many others, will crash and burn. How do you know if it’s lust or love? I know that there’s a lot I can’t control or change. But I know that I’m pretty happy with all of it, and I’m taking it one day at a time, no matter how it turns out. And that’s the best I can do.