On the Visible Fat Girl

Let me be really, truly real here: visible fat people on the internet changed my life. There's absolutely no exaggeration there. I'd started changing my style around junior year of high school before getting into body acceptance and fat acceptance, but once I found those, it was like opening a door I hadn't even known existed. Torrid was a nice entry into dressing my fat body; visible fatness was a storm of learning not to hate my body.

I've already made a post about my style evolution, and I like the explanation that offers for my personal journey. But that's just it: it's about my journey. Yeah, that's a big part of why I blog, but it's not the only one.

I've recently slid down the hill a little and lost some camera confidence. I'm more than happy to wear spaghetti straps or short skirts or whatever, and I'm happy to have pictures taken of me. I'm still having trouble with the taking-pictures-of-myself bit, but I am working on it! That's a different sort of bravery for me. And my bravery isn't just for me.

I blog mostly for me, but maybe there are people who read what I have to say (even if I don't say it often (sorry)) and maybe I give them a little more confidence. Maybe my visibly fat body helps them. Maybe I'm that inspiration I got back in the day. I don't blog often anymore (I know, I know), but I do still try because being visibly, open, unashamedly fat is a big deal. It's far more revolutionary than ModCloth carrying plus sizes (that are still too expensive, but that's cause I'm a little cheap). Plus-size bloggers are incredible. They've given me the confidence to wear half of the stuff in my wardrobe today, and they gave me the confidence to get a fatkini this year.

That, and quite a few of my fat babe friends got bikinis from Forever 21, and that's where mine's from.

And when my friends and I went to the beach a couple weeks ago, I wore it. In public. Proudly, with rolls and softness and pastiness and a healing sunburn from San Diego.

My sunglasses are from Charming Charlie, and
they're super cute. I need a better picture.
 One day!

Erika asked how it felt to wear it, whether it was scary or not, and I'll be honest: it was, for maybe two minutes. But for me, it wasn't necessarily freeing or empowering. It was just nice. I felt really cute, and I was happy, and I would never have even thought about baring my belly three years ago. Now, I'm thinking that I'd really like some crop tops to wear with circle skirts. Now, I'm so much less afraid. And that's because of the community I've found and dabbled in.

So, yeah. Visible fat people are incredibly important, even if it just inspires someone with deep-seated body image issues to buy her first bikini since childhood.