My brain has been getting stuck a lot on issues of photographs and fatness and just how far I have to go in my acceptance of my body. As you may or may not know, I'm engaged to my wonderful partner. And one of the traditional things that we have decided to do is get engagement photos done. Two rounds actually, we did some in January, with a nice winter-y backdrop, and now we are doing spring/summer ones this weekend. There is something really important to me about having nice pictures of us, I can't wait to get some framed and put up.
Let me start by saying that I LOVE our first round of photos. They caught our silliness, and our love for each other, so well. And I'm excited to have more.
But, they're photos. And somehow in my brain, I still am always surprised by how fat I am in them. I keep expecting to magically trick the camera into thinking I'm thin. I'm surprised by my double chin, my round belly, my chubby hands.
Now let me be clear. I know I'm fat. I see a fat person when I look in the mirror. And when I look down at my body. And when other people point out my fatness (all too often). And I spent the majority of my days okay with my fatness. My foray (chronicled on this blog) into active weight loss was very successful, temporarily, but resulted eventually in putting on even more weight than I started with. I'm not doing that again. I will work on my strength, and work to find joy in movement and in taking care of my body. But I'm done trying to be thin, that's not happening.
But there's still that part of my brain that has an image of what a happy couple looks like in their engagement photos (and I'm sure I'll actually encounter that in my wedding photos). And it doesn't look like me. So when I look at the photos and see my fat body, my brain still fights against it. I rail against the double chin (and the way my weird sticky-outy actual chin looks against it). I wonder how the camera figured out how fat I am. I compare to the model-like engagement photos I'm used to seeing, and wonder why I'm so wrong. I sigh over how the pictures of our hands managed to catch just how round and non-ladylike my hands look. And I don't know how to not do this.
Being okay with my fatness involves a lot of cognitive dissonance. It involves both loving my body, and hating how my body impacts the world's interactions with me. It involves believing that I am a badass fat woman who gives no fucks, while also being constantly hurt by the world that hates and rejects me. And, apparently, it involves wondering how the camera caught my fatness while also being incredibly happy with how well our photographers caught our joy and our laughter.
At least in this next round I'll have a lightsaber, so hopefully that will help.
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