2020 has definitely been a year to remember.  The world has changed so much since my last post.  Nearing a mental breakdown towards the end of March, I was quite relieved when the pandemic shut down most of the dental world.

I realize how devastating the pandemic is and has been to so many people – but to be honest, the shut down ultimately saved me.  There has been a ton of controversy surrounding the virus, the shut down and everything in between, but I am thankful that it allowed me to find myself again. Already spiraling, after more than 8 months of work-related, debilitating anxiety – it allowed me to let go of so much shit and find some type of peace of mind, even if only for a short time.

I’m not sure what the future holds for me, I hope to someday find a dental office that feels right to me, but I am not sure that even exists.  I do not want to see adults, as this is the root of most of my anxiety in the workplace and although I very much enjoy the interaction with children and educating them about dental hygiene, I am not sure this is the right line of work for me.  Its hard to find a pediatric dental office where the expectations aren’t extremely overwhelming, both physically and mentally. 

My dream is to find financial stability through my online artwork, which is where I seem to flourish.  I am able to be myself and create what makes me happy, where in person I am awkward, shy and easily embarrassed.  I hope that doing what I am most passionate about will enable me to breakthrough some of these social insecurities and learn to better cope with and maybe actually enjoy more adult interaction.  I think when I am doing what I love, it is easier to face my anxiety head on.

The last few months have been very beneficial to my well being, so my mind has been getting some much needed rest and I have been able to create a lot of therapeutic art in the process.  Just eliminating that gut wrenching anxiety I felt every morning before work has been amazing. I have been able to focus on and put my energy into things that matter to me like putting an end to systemic racism & injustice and fat positivity.  I am not able to get out and protest, but I am helping to spread awareness and offer some education through social media.  I also regularly share my self-love journey on Instagram.

My intentions are to find my way back here more often, as it helps me deal with everything.  Hopefully this much needed break will equip me with the proper frame of mind to continue to exist in this complicated world.  Much love to all!

The last few weeks have been especially hard.  I have had many ups and many downs.  The downs have been harder than usual.  My anxiety seems to have taken a turn for the worse.

On the mornings I work, I cry. I am awoke from my sleep with diarrhea and a pit in my stomach that I can’t shake.  No matter what I do, I wake up with this crazy anxiety begging me not to go to work.  Usually while I am showering I am able to calm down a bit, but by the time I am in my car and on the road, its a sob story.  I don’t apply my makeup until I get there because I would cry it all off before I arrived.  I literally cry the entire trek there, which happens to be 45 minutes.  I often pray for the normal stuff like my family’s health and safety and for those that are suffering, but then I ask god to help me.

Help me make this stupid shit stop!  I didn’t used to be like this.  Not many people want to go to work everyday, but do they have to fight their mind and body like I do every morning?! I have crazy thoughts about how I can stop myself from having to go.  It is so frustrating not to be able to just turn it off.  Be normal.  I am physically and emotionally drained by the time I get there, before the day even really starts.

I worry about everything.  Constantly.  Distractions help but my mind is always going to places it shouldn’t.  I am scared something is going to happen to me or my kids and I won’t be there for them.  I am afraid our house will burn down or carbon monoxide will kill my entire family before I get home.  I worry about hurting someone’s feelings or letting them down.  I worry about saying the wrong thing or making someone upset with me.

All these overwhelming thoughts and feelings lead to even more stupid shit like questioning if life would be easier for others without me.  I am a mess.  How does anyone want to be around someone like me?!  I can’t even make a phone call without stressing out about it.  That is too much for most people.  I am too much for most people.  That’s why I am a loner.  That’s why its better for me to hide.

I know my thoughts are irrational and boy do I wish I could reason with myself logically – but unfortunately for me, that isn’t possible.  Not everyday is bad and obviously I have obligations and people I can’t let down by quitting my job, but that terrifies me.  Is it always going to be like this?!

For someone who has always struggled with pessimism, sometimes I let it get the best of me for a while.  I am on a mission to becoming the best person I can be, and that involves giving myself the best quality of life possible.  So of course, I will continue to battle for as long as it takes.  I will not let my mental illness define me.

I know that my problems don’t compare to a lot of other peoples in this world, and I am very grateful for everything I have. I just needed to let that out. It may not make sense to others, but this blog is a safe place for me.  I need a safe place.  Not all of us have the proper support system in our lives to help us get through the hard shit.  Its good to express ourselves and share our struggles with others, even if its just rambling on about our anxieties.

I am forever changed.

I may look exactly the same as I did a year ago, but I am not the same person.

I have had a lot of firsts over the past year.  First time on a plane, first time wearing a bikini in public, first time sharing and selling my art, first time exposing my truth for the world to see on IG and on this blog, along with many other amazing experiences.

Life has been going so fast, we are already at the end of August and it has been roughly five months since my last blog post!  Time is flying and there is no time to waste! Over the last year, I have discovered parts of myself that I never knew existed!

I am happy.  Genuinely.  I still strive to be better everyday but I am also content with where I am right now.  That’s real.  Living in the moment.  I want my kids to realize that happiness comes from within.  To appreciate the here and now.  Those are the things I struggled with most throughout my life.  Fuck what everyone else thinks.  Its about you.  Who you want to be.  What you want to look like.  Make the most of what you have.

That’s much easier said than done, but if they have that mentality from the get-go, life can be so much more manageable!

When I finally realized that I was – sexy – hell, that I was a fucking beautiful, sexy goddess – shit hit the fan!  I didn’t know how to clean it up!  Suddenly things were more complicated because I actually had self-worth.  It rocked my world for a moment, and then things settled.  My brain literally approaches life differently now.  I am able to handle everyday life a little easier and more clear headed.  Although I still struggle immensely with my anxiety, I am worrying less.

Representation is everything.  It has helped me immensely!  I need it! I want it! Please!  I can’t get enough of big beautiful human beings sharing their gorgeous bodies with the world! Not just big but all human beings unafraid to love themselves just the way they are!

For me, being my own self-love model has changed my life.  I force myself to look at my body in photos multiple times a week.  Every week, liking what I see more and more. Learning to truly appreciate my curves and dimples.  Starting to wonder why I couldn’t see it before.  Sure, there are still things I wish I could change – but they no longer cloud my judgement or have control over how I value myself.

I am gonna let it all hang out here – close your eyes if you want to lol, but my sex life is so much better now that I focus on my pleasure rather than how my body looks while I’m doing it. I could never fully let go before.  For the first time in my life, I feel sexy while having sex.  Not just like lingerie wearing sexy, I mean like watching myself in the mirror sexy! Even while masturbating!! hahahaha  That may sound silly to some, but I am finally free!

2019 has been monumental for the plus-size community, I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

My first full body tan in over 20 years! Fat and flexible!

Wow.  Three months.  Three months since I made a blog post.  Since I let out all of my emotions and anxieties.  I wish I could say that it was because life has been running so smoothly that I haven’t needed to take the time to sort through all of my crazy.  LOL on that one.   I guess I am what you call an occasional blogger.  Life keeps me very busy and I don’t always get to reflect on everything right away.

It has been six months since I started this blog and my Instagram account.  In six months – half of a year, I’ve completely altered my self-perception.  It’s mindboggling to say that and for it to be real.  I probably mention it all too often, but when you spend your entire life feeling inadequate, it’s a big fucking deal.  It feels good.

I guess you could say that this change in my perspective is more of a reconstruction of the way I think and view myself.  Thirty-four years of damage, and all it took was six months to dramatically flip the script on myself and everyone else who has looked down on me over the years for being overweight!  Cool – but fuck every single one of you!

Fuck the classmates that mocked and teased me for just existing as a fat person.  Fuck the boy that asked me to his eighth grade dance but stood me up because he was ashamed to tell anyone he liked me.  Fuck my high school teacher that thought I couldn’t excel at tennis because I was a bigger girl.  Fuck my high school boyfriend that broke up with me after graduation because I gained 25 pounds over the year and a half we were together.  Fuck my current boyfriend, who only recently made the decision to love me as I am.  Fuck all the looks and stares and judgements.

Obviously, I needed to get that off my chest.

With this newfound confidence and love for myself, comes a whole new territory of emotions that I have never dealt with before.  Questioning relationships because I can finally see them for what they really are.  I have never truly valued myself, or had any idea of my worth.  I have let every person I have ever come into contact with, take advantage of me in some way. I have always believed that no one could really love me for who I truly am. All of my faults. All of my quirks. All of my perfectly imperfect imperfections.  It’s eye-opening, I am finally realizing just how lucky someone would be to experience life with me.  It makes me want more.

I want deeper connections and more meaningful relationships. This doesn’t just pertain to my romantic relationship, this involves all types of relationships.  As a 35-year-old adult, I can honestly say I have only ever connected with one person on a soul level; and she broke my heart.  She was my first best friend.  I was 9 years old when I met her, and 19 when we parted ways.  Not one other person in my entire life, has tried to connect with me like that again.  I have never had a soul connection with a man.  I’ve always thought it was my fault, because of something I was lacking or something I was doing wrong; but maybe they aren’t capable of it. Maybe everyone in my life can’t connect with me on that level because they aren’t my people.

This has been weighing heavily on me the last few months.

I can’t lie, I have a lot of resentment for my current beau because of the issues he had with my weight for so long.  We don’t really have what I call a soul connection.  I love him. We have been together for 12 years.  He has never fully let me in.  He has never fully wanted to experience all of me.  He says that that is just him.  He isn’t affectionate or romantic.  He doesn’t like to talk about our feelings and have deep conversations.  After 12 years he is still awkward about certain things, and has never comforted me or held me when I was upset.  Never.  Not when my uncle died.  Not when I talk to him about extremely emotional stuff, not when we are fighting.  Maybe he isn’t capable of being that person.  Or maybe he just refuses to be.  I always brushed it aside and attributed it to being one of his flaws I had to accept if I wanted to be with him.

I mean that is what love is about, right?  Accepting each others flaws and choosing to love one another unconditionally.  Unfortunately for him, I am needy.  I need affection and reassurance from my mate.  I need attention and a spiritual connection and someone who values me as much as I now value myself.  He has never been that person.  So does that change things for us?  I thought I could deal with it.  I thought everything else was worth what was lacking in that area.  As the years continue to pass, and I’m left yearning for more, how is it ever going to change if I don’t do something about it.

So I told him.  I have always told him.  This time it was different.  Don’t get me wrong, he has made false promises before and a temporary change was all it ever was – but this time there wasn’t any promises.  This time it has to be actions.  I am not saying I gave him an ultimatum and we are over if he doesn’t do what I want him to.  He knows I’ve laid it all out on the line.  He knows my love is different than most.  When I love, I go all in.  It’s not so easy for me to give up.  Sometimes I may look stupid because I stay, but just like he didn’t make any promises, I didn’t either.  What is supposed to happen, will happen.  Only time will tell.

In the mean time, while I sort through all my crazy, I will just spill my guts about it on here!

 

This blog is kind of like my escape from reality where I can talk about my challenges and not feel like I’m being judged.  It is a way for me to express myself and be who I really am, no longer trapped by my insecurities. So needless to say, sometimes things are going to get pretty deep around here.

I have shared a little bit of my history, my struggles with anxiety and lack of self-esteem; but I haven’t really gotten to the root of a lot of my issues.  I am sure it is even more complicated than I realize, but I need to let go of so many things.  Things that have been pent-up inside of me for far too long.

As I mentioned in a previous post, it feels good to talk about things that were previously not acceptable to talk about.  Talking about them seems to lift a huge weight off of my chest and I feel somewhat free from the burden of containing the secret.  It doesn’t make the pain or trauma from the situation go away, but its liberating. Especially because I know I am not the only one who has experienced something like this.

For so long I felt so alone.  I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.  I still haven’t.  I have just tried to block it from my memory.  Not one person in my life stood up for me.  I say this but my family would have if I had let them.  I only told my mom and my sister.  To this day my father does not know.  I know he would have killed for me.  I made my mom and my sister promise not to pursue anything and to let me deal with it on my own.

People down played it, some said I was lying, some said I was exaggerating, some said it didn’t happen at all.  I got threats, people beating on the door outside of my apartment building threatening to kick my ass.  I hadn’t told anyone but two of my closest friends.  From them the news traveled quickly.  I was already an introvert who dislikes confrontation very much, so I didn’t do anything about it.  I moved back home.  I stopped communicating with everyone.  My best friend didn’t even have my back.  I stopped talking to her for a while, but I loved her.  She called me at work after a few months and asked me to come over.  We never discussed it.  We just continued life like it never happened.

So I question our friendship from time to time.  It is hard because I know she loves me.  I know she knows I am a good person.  So why would she ever think I would lie about something like that!?  It breaks my heart to think about it, so I don’t.  It has gotten easier over the years.  I have forgiven her, but that doesn’t erase the memories.

I know I don’t belong in this town.  I don’t want my kids to grow up in a community that turns their back on women when they get raped.  This isn’t the first incident like this to happen here.  I never gave the proper authorities the opportunity to have my back, but I am not sure it would have made a difference.  All it would have done was get me out of this town sooner.  The same people who didn’t have my back then, certainly wouldn’t have had my back had I pursued legal action.

Everything about this made me hate myself even more.  The fact that I didn’t have the balls to report it.  I didn’t have the balls to stand up to the people threatening me and calling me a liar.  I was ashamed.  Ashamed that I let it happen.  That I associated with the people I did. That I put myself in that position.  I always blamed myself.  I was scared of everything.  Scared to let my guard down.  Scared to open up to people.  Scared to trust anyone. Scared to be alone outside.  Scared to be home alone.  Scared to tell anyone.

If I thought I was troubled before, this pushed me to new heights.  Just a year and half after this happened I met my boyfriend and got pregnant with my first child.  He was from West Virginia so this allowed me to escape and move away for a whole year. Thankfully it enabled me to focus my attention on my beautiful baby.  My babies changed my life.  They brought me out of my funk.  They gave me purpose in life.  Its been 13 years since it happened, its time to let it go.

I still see this man from time to time in my town.  I can’t look at him.  If I see him I lower my head and change direction.  I am utterly terrified of him.  For the first few years after it happened, if I passed him while driving, he would point his finger out the window at me like his hand was a gun as if he was threatening to shoot me and spook me.  It worked.  That’s part of the reason I do not go anywhere other than work and home or out-of-town.  I do not want to see him or anyone associated with him.

To be honest with you I don’t think him or many of the people in my town saw what happened to me as rape back then.  Him and his friends had given me a pill that I had never taken before earlier in the evening.  I was young and naïve and never suspected ill intentions.  Later my friend dropped me off at my apartment.  The main entrance to my apartment building stayed locked, so you either had to have a key or to be let in.  The door to my actual apartment was just your normal door knob lock.  I did not have a dead bolt.  I passed out as soon as I got in my bed.  My room-mate was not home at the time.

I don’t remember most of what happened.  I remember saying no.  I remember trying to climb in my roommates bed.  As soon as I woke up, I got my things and went to work.  I couldn’t keep myself together because I knew something bad had happened.  I asked my room-mate why she let him in and she said she didn’t.  She said he must have broken in.  You could use a credit card to get in the door.  I asked her why she didn’t have my back during all of this.  She said because I didn’t go to the police.  We didn’t discuss it any further.  I was crushed.  I was mortified.  I was broken.

I never even asked her if she could tell me anything that happened.  I have been left in the dark all of these years.  I do know he had sex with me because he asked me if I was pregnant; so he must have gotten off inside of me as well.  I, of course went to my local health department and had testing done.  They questioned me but I didn’t divulge anything.

The incident that actually made me realize my best friend didn’t have my back – was when I was sitting at her house and she was talking to him on the phone, without me knowing.  She handed me the phone, and he asked me.  I said no and handed her the phone.  She could see it written on my face and said oh sorry I forgot.  I left and didn’t return until she called me at work the day I mentioned before.

I made the mistake of taking the pill, but I did not put myself in any position for this to happen.  I knew I was messed up so I took myself home and went to bed to sleep it off.  He broke into my home.  He had sex with me without my consent while I was under the influence of a drug that completely put me out.  This is the kind of stuff that happens every day.  There are no consequences and these men walk the streets bragging about what they have done.

I know of a story in my town where two friends traded places while having sex with a girl because she was so out of it she didn’t even know the difference.  They were laughing when they told the story.  How sick is that!?  These are the kind of people in my town.  How do I let my children continue to grow up in this type of environment.  Sadly, it’s not just here, it’s everywhere.  What is wrong with our world that people grow up thinking this type of behavior is okay?!  I am hoping this self-love journey takes me where I belong, wherever that may be.  

It feels good to let it go.  Not let it go as if it didn’t happen, but releasing it from the confines of my mind, body and soul.  I never thought I would share it with anyone else, let alone on my blog for anyone to see.  I feel as though I can move forward and not run from it anymore.  Its hard to talk about it but I am never going to heal if I keep running.  I have to believe that it wasn’t my fault.  I have to face it head on and let it go!

I am not sure where I go from here. There is certainly much more to the story and I’m sure I didn’t do the best job expressing myself just yet. It will take time to sort through all of the emotions I’m experiencing right now with just exposing myself in this way. I don’t know how long it will take me to truly let it go, but I encourage everyone to share their stories like mine.  It does wonders for your mental health and could inspire someone else in the process.  You never know what someone is going through, we all need to be there for each other.  In a world where you can be anything, be kind.  Encourage and support.  Make someone feel good about themselves everyday. It can literally change their lives.

 

Although my confidence is far more powerful than it once was, sometimes it doesn’t have anything on my anxiety!  No matter how wonderful things are going, my anxiety knows just how to fuck my world up and ruin my day.

So what is it this time?

I don’t think my Instagram followers realize just how big I am!  I mean, clearly you can tell I am a bigger woman, but does a photograph really capture my true existence?!

In real-life they wouldn’t be attracted to me or find me compelling like they do on Instagram.  If they realized how big I was, they wouldn’t want to follow me anymore!

Pitiful.  Pitiful that I let this shit get the best of me sometimes!

As irrational as this may sound, it consumed me for an entire day.  It made me doubt everything.  It made me question my reasons for doing this.

So why am I doing this?!

I am doing this for me!  I am also doing this for my daughter.  Not for the approval of my Instagram followers, but for me and my daughters well-being!   Yes I want to look good, but looking good means feeling good.  I won’t always feel good, but that feeling should never be based upon what someone else thinks of me.  My worth is not determined by my size or someone else’s opinion of me.  Sometimes I have to verbally remind myself of this. Sometimes it takes a day for that rationality to set in.

This is my life. I will continue to become the best version of myself – but the journey will certainly not be an easy one.  My anxiety is not gonna just go away someday because I want it to.  Its going to be a life long battle, that will hopefully get a little easier to cope with as I continue learning to love myself the way I am.

I know that I am a beautiful person.  I love wholeheartedly, and I am kind to everyone that I meet.  I do not judge and I am very open-minded.  My love will always be unconditional but I also refuse to be played.  I am not naïve or stupid.  I have been used and abused in every way possible and that is part of the reason my anxiety is so bad.  That is why I vow to be the best me and love myself like I love others!

Don’t take my kindness for weakness.  I am a strong woman.  I am not just saying this to myself, that is for others too.  My kindness is often seen as weakness.  I am not the fainthearted girl I once was.

I may be quiet and introverted, but I am preparing for something much bigger for myself.  Something we should all do.  Don’t let one setback or bad day mess up the bigger picture!  Life is complicated.  For everyone, not just you.  Life is too precious to let it fly by without you!  Be you!  The real you!  Those that truly matter will appreciate you as you are.  Those are the ones worth fighting for.

I have shared many images of myself I never thought I’d be able to share, but I still hadn’t showed off my bare calves until now.  I am wearing a short dress, something I haven’t done since I was a small child!  I posted this almost two weeks ago on my Instagram, and I didn’t lose any followers or feel anything but wonderful from the feedback I got from it.

I am so much more than I ever thought possible!  Imagine the greatness that could have been if I had realized that so much sooner! But it’s not about what could have been, it’s about what will be!

“Let your weird light shine bright so the other weirdos know where to find you.”

It has been a few weeks since I posted anything.  I have been struggling to stay afloat while fighting a terrible cold.  The time spent laying on my couch with tissue stuffed into my nose (yes, because it is constantly running) has allowed me to reflect on the past month and a half.

I am finally living my life as me.  Sadly, this is the first time in my life that I can truly say that.  My mindset is changing and I am truly learning to love myself the way I am!  I wasn’t sure if that was going to be possible for me.  Even at my smallest I did not see the beauty in myself.

Even though I may have tried to always tell myself that I was beautiful, no matter what – when I looked in the mirror I didn’t see beautiful.  But I do now. It brings tears to my eyes.  This blog and my Instagram has been a way for me to document me and all my crazy along the way!

I am proud of my progress and I am proud to share this with my daughter.  She can see the change in me and we are both basking in the good vibes! She is a reflection of me and she is the most beautiful human I have ever seen! Inside and out.  So how can I possibly look at myself and not see the beautiful woman who created this beautiful child.

Beauty is a feeling and I have been feeling it lately! When I feel it, my kids feel it – and we all shine bright like a diamond!  My children feed off of my energy, so I have to keep it positive as much as I possibly can!  I refuse to do anything but move forward from this point on!

I want to feel completely comfortable in my body! I want to be able to walk on the beach without anything covering my legs!  And feel good doing it! Even when people aren’t very nice about it! I am not there yet, but I pray that this journey gets me there!

I tend to get a little down in the dumps when I am sick because it keeps me from doing everything that I need to do.  The anxiety in me tries to piggyback that with more self-pity.  Not today Satan! haha

To remind myself just how bad ass I can be, I revisited some photos I took over the last few weeks and found a few I was originally hesitant to share.  I now look at these photos and feel super sexy!  This alone brought me out of my funk and back to reality! Confidence is an amazing thing!  It is changing my life!

 

I am utterly blown away by the response to some of my recent Instagram posts! It is an amazing feeling to know that my journey may be some sort of inspiration for someone out there!

I started both my Instagram account and my blog just under a month ago – and it has already been such a wonderfully rewarding experience! Just allowing myself to open up to the outside world has been so liberating! It has helped me gain the courage to really put myself out there! Something I never thought was possible!

When I wake up I feel beautiful! When I look like shit I feel beautiful! 35 never looked so good! That’s what a friend told me on my birthday.  I laughed it off at first – but in all seriousness, I have come to realize she is right!

My 35th year of life made a grand entrance this year full of confidence and empowerment!  The past four weeks I have had a nonstop glow, filled with positivity and sexiness!  I’m in love with me right now and that’s an incredible feeling!  I’ve neglected myself my entire life!! But not anymore!  I am free!  I am me!  And proud to be!

I’m sure there will be times I am knocked down, but right now – I feel like I am on cloud 9! Proud to be who I am, proud to share it with the world!

I think it feels so good because I have never truly felt it! I have never truly felt comfortable in my own skin! I put on these leggings for my boyfriend to get a few photos of me for my next post and both of us were so turned on by my sexiness we couldn’t contain ourselves! Lmao – maybe that was TMI but truthfully! Right now, fat is where it’s at!

I’ve talked a lot about my struggles with anxiety and being overweight – but I haven’t really shared a lot about who I am.

First – I have four kids! One step son and three of my own. Ranging in ages 3 to 18! They are my life! They are the reason I am determined to be the best me!

My step son lives in another state but my crazy babies are with me everyday! I wasn’t a teen mom or anything but my boyfriend and I had only been dating for 3 months when we found out I was pregnant with my first baby! We had actually decided to end our relationship because he needed to be closer to his son. So he was already living there when I found out I was pregnant! Talk about an emotional roller coaster!

So at 2 months pregnant I left my family and moved to start a family with him! We moved back to my hometown when our baby girl was just 3 months old, for various reasons I will explain later. A year later we would be preparing for another baby girl born just two years after our first. Talk about issues! Two babies in three years! We were still getting to know each other and accept each others faults! Which was not easy! Although we split up for 6 months and hated each other for a long time – we welcomed our third child together in May of 2015. 5 years after our second. A boy.

He forever changed us. We are now happier and stronger than ever! It took us 12 years to get here but it was worth the fight! Much like my journey of self love and acceptance! I never realized how strong I could truly be! I’m the over empathetic girl who cries at everything and truly feels other people’s pain instantly so my own is much more intense than for most! How could I ever be strong enough to fight the haters, myself included and come out on top without falling apart in the process!! But if I don’t try I will always wonder what if!

It’s never too late to accomplish your dreams! Even if they seem unreachable —

As a child I wanted to be animator.  I may not be an animator but I am an artist.  I have always wanted to share my art with the world.  But again – that self doubt – has never allowed me to until now.

As a teenager I wanted to be a plus-size model, even before it was a thing!  I have been plus-size my entire life.  My smallest was my sophomore year of high school when I weighed 160 lbs. and wore a size 12. I am now a size 18/20.  Needless to say my self-perception never allowed me the courage to pursue any modeling career.

My favorite subject in grade school, even in college was English.  I am a writer. I have always wanted to start a blog, but I am also a procrastinator – combine that with my anxiety and that is why it has taken me this long to get here.

I am also a Registered Dental Hygienist trying to find a career outside of clinical hygiene.  As the last few years have been really hard on my body.

I am incredibly afraid of change.  I struggle immensely with it in fact. Its the only reason, besides financial reasons that I am still a Hygienist.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but after only 5 years, I am already exhausted and I don’t want to lose my hands to this profession and not be able to create art which is my passion.

I didn’t think an art career was ever an option for me because of my introverted personality.  I had always been a pencil artist and drawn women that I wished I looked like.  This was often disheartening for an anxiety-ridden plus-size girl like myself. Social media was not a thing when I was thinking about careers, and my art was put on the back burner for many years.

As a child I wrote poetry and had several amazing English teachers.  But a plagiarism scandal in high school changed things for me.  Overwhelmed with school, work and drama with a boyfriend, like many others in my high school, I chose to find a paper from the internet and submit it in my portfolio.  Needless to say, 1/2 the senior class wound up in a heap of trouble.  A lot of people changed their opinions about me as a writer and as a person.  But that wasn’t me or who I was or am.  I made a mistake.  A very large one.  All I could do was move on and never make another mistake like that again.  It affected me for many years, and until I went to college at age 26, I didn’t write anything. In fact, this is the first time I have spoke of it since it happened.  It feels good to let it out.

Our mistakes, and how we handle them – make us who we are.  I have made many bad decisions in my life, and I have many regrets – which I have resented myself for, for a very long time.  Its time for that to stop.  I am not the same person I once was.  I am the absolute best version of myself right now.  I may not be the best mother, and I definitely have mental health issues, but I refuse to be stopped for any of my faults.  The past is the past and I am ready to let it all go.

Everything has always stopped me.  Stopped me from believing in myself.  Stopped me from being happy.  Nothing will stop me now.  I don’t care if I am the only person that ever sees these posts.  At least I followed my heart and decided to live happily.  This is my therapy.  So even if it doesn’t help someone else, it helps me.  And I need it.

As I said in my last post, I am going to start being proud of my body!  So here it is – pretty much all of me! A picture I never thought I would be able to share with the world and be ok about it! 

Birthdays are always exciting, a celebration of your life and adding another year to your age. I turned 35 years young yesterday, yet I can’t help but feel a little bittersweet about fastly approaching age 40. My kids are growing by the second and life is flashing before my eyes!

This year I decided I was going to do something I have never done. I was going to show my legs, or at least part of them, for a night out on the town. I am sure most people don’t see the difficulty in doing this, but for me this is an enormous accomplishment. Unfortunately, the temperature dropped much lower than I was expecting so I opted for something a little different.

Although leggings cover your entire leg, they also snuggly outline your entire lower half. This is something I don’t do. I usually have on a loose-fitting maxi dress if I’m not wearing work scrubs, or a pair of black boot cut pants. I have very large legs. Not just my thighs, my calves are also grotesquely big. This has always been one of my biggest faults. Or so I thought.

This year I wanted to embrace them. That is much easier said than done! I decided to have a little photo shoot in my new leggings to boost my confidence with wearing them in public. They make me feel sexy, but the hardest part of conquering my insecurities is seeing myself in them in a picture or mirror. Although I did not love any of the photos, they weren’t as bad as I was expecting. They are part of me! They always will be! Even if I lose weight, my legs will always be big. I have to love them for what they are!

So we went out and I had an amazing time! Every time I started to think about people looking at my enormous legs, I didn’t!  I stopped myself and moved on! We had sushi and played games and had a few delicious alcoholic beverages! It was great. Sure I got a few looks, but instead of immediately thinking negatively about them – I reassured myself they were only looking because I looked so beautiful tonight on my birthday, all glowing and stuff! And I was! Confidence can do amazing things for a fat girl!

My boyfriend loves my fat ass and now so do I! I am going to be the beautiful, confident fat girl who teaches her children to love themselves no matter what! If you don’t like what you see, don’t look – because I am going to be showing off my big legs and the huge mole on my double chin from here on out! Wearing them confidently! Just as you love your family and friends unconditionally – you must love yourself unconditionally as well! It has been my hardest feat so far in my 35 years – but it will hold me back no longer!

Every day is a new battle to overcome, but I will never stop fighting!

“I know my curves are sexy and I want everyone else to know theirs are too.  There is no reason to hide and every reason to flaunt!” – Ashley Graham