All The Rumors Are True….

I’m 41 years old. I only have TikTok to watch funny videos. My social media game isn’t robust — I’m a FIT girl — Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. So for me to see something that’s gotten large on social media, it’s got to be HUGE HUGE. And this one? It is.

So let me say this with all of the bass that my Virginian-Kentuckian-Texan voice can muster — y’all are only gonna come but SO FAR for Melissa Viviane Jefferson. Let me say that again — Y’ALL ARE ONLY GONNA COME BUT SO FAR FOR MELISSA VIVIANE JEFFERSON. I’m pretty sure that most people only know Lizzo by her professional name and that’s cool. But if and when the comments keep habitually line stepping over boundaries, you’re gonna meet me in my gold cape with a big “G” on my chest for “GetthefuckouttaherewiththatBULLSHIT.”

What I’m about to say is a hard story. So if you’re triggered by stories about being a big girl in a world not made for big girls, this story is going to be triggering as hell.

I’ve always been plus sized. I carry my weight directly in the front of my body, so even in single digit ages I had that “She’s pregnant as hell” look that’s only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. I was repeatedly teased. Let me rephrase — I was TERRORIZED. In seventh grade, I went to a lunch table to talk to a friend — something that broke the rules. I was reprimanded by the assistant principal. All of a sudden, full lunch tables started mooing like cows at me until the entire cafeteria was mooing incessantly. The guidance counselor yanked me out of the cafeteria crying. It didn’t end there. Students would program the sounds of the computers in the computer lab with mooing sounds to torment me. I told my parents one of the few times that my mom and dad were in the same place — my mom told my dad the story and they laughed at me. When I ran for freshman class secretary in high school, when I stood up to make my campaign speech, the mooing started again. I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t have anyone on my side. To say it was rough was an understatement.

Those growing up years were a lot to digest. My mother had cancer and between dealing with her illness and swallowing my own issues with the ridicule that I was subjected to, I saw some dark days. I had multiple suicide attempts. I didn’t see my self-worth or look at myself as beautiful. When I liked someone, I was extra-extra — I thought I had to prove myself worthy of their attention so that they would see me and actually take the time to get to know me. I was the fat girl in my high school show choirs. One year, I had to have a dress made for me in the colors of my concert choir because they didn’t have any in my size. The next year when I was in show choir, another girl and I were the size outcasts. Sadly enough, that’s the only thing that gave me comfort — I wasn’t by myself. But that fear still lingered at every performance. It didn’t make things better that our show choir dresses were black and white. Some kids mooed at our performances, but a group of girls would counter their moos with cheering. That’s the only way I got through… and those girls couldn’t see the tears streaming down my face through the fake smiles and vocal expressions. I almost didn’t go to my high school graduation because I didn’t want to be embarrassed on the simulcast if people mooed when I walked across the stage. Those years were hard for me. They molded the insecure, broken person that hid in the shadows of an emotion-filled chaos of real hurt.

They hated on me since school, yeah
I never thought I was cool, yeah

My love life was no better. I made a jackass out of myself over a guy that I literally had a crush on from the age of eleven into my early twenties. What was it about him that was so great? He was (well, is) brilliant — intelligence to me STILL is a turn on. But he didn’t deserve that much attention from me. For real, I don’t even really think he was EVER my friend. I had some minor high school relationships. I was afraid to date anyone local because honestly, the guys that I found attractive were the ones that would get teased for going out with the “big light-skinned girl.” I did go to prom — my date flew from Chicago to escort me thanks to meeting at a church retreat and my grandfather wanting me to have a memorable night. It was. I made myself someone easy to toy with — flash a quick smile and a little concern and my big ass was hooked. But what was the cost? Nights where I looked at myself in the mirror and hated who was looking back at me. Those were times where a genuinely interested person would tell me I was beautiful and I would spend hours looping in my head how I wasn’t. By today’s standards, I wasn’t even that big. I just carried my weight weird — I still do. A couple of times, I wore some scandalous clothes to a nightclub or two, but I always felt out of place. I overcompensated by trying to project an attitude that really didn’t reflect who I was. Through those middle school years, this teacher named Ms. York called me out when I was trying to counter the harassment by saying silly things like “You know you want me” when the guys would call me a cow. She said I was “harassing” them and that she was going to write me up for that. She didn’t give a shit about what they were saying to me. I wish that I could find her now and give her a big “FUCK YOU.” There are a lot of people that those words would fit right now, honestly….but I digress.

Those years were times where bullying was not a core subject. Administrators in schools just looked at it as something “kids will grow out of.” But the kids that it happened to? Welp, sucks to be them. Schools didn’t start caring about bullying until Columbine and by then, I’d graduated. As years have gone on, communities are starting to see how torment can flip someone’s mindset in radical directions. The years that I dealt with being bullied and fat-shamed did some real damage. I projected an image of myself that wasn’t reality. I smiled in moments where in the back of my head, I was contemplating how deep I would need to cut my wrists in order to erase all of the pain. When I was even more traumatized, I rationalized it until it was a faded thought. I was raped at 18 (and again at 24) but didn’t report it because I didn’t think that the police would believe that anyone would want to rape a girl who looked like me — someone fat. I had no real self worth and spent the better parts of 19 through 25 in an alcohol-fueled stupor supplemented with fits of whoredom in the privacy of my apartment after the first “love of my life” and I had ended things. Between our spats and his dad making off-handed remarks about me being “too (insert criticism),” I was over it. I can’t say the fight was out of me because I don’t think the fight was ever in me. The battle was emptied in elementary school when I was teased because my bathing suit looked “whale-ish.” It was exhausted trying to find ill-fitting clothes to wear on the first days of school, only to be satisfied by ordering men’s sweaters and jeans that made me look even bigger than I actually was. Now, people would see these as strange times. A couple might get up in arms. But this was my life. This was the real life moments, unshaded by rose lenses that vexed my soul to unimaginable lengths.

Last year, I thought I would losе it…

My story did have a happy ending — well, it’s not over, so yeah — things are different now. I met a cute guy who used the word “venerate” to describe how he felt about me, which immediately stroked my inner nerd to a point where he knocked me up, we got married and are 16 years and three kids in. I’m not going to say that the feelings I’ve had growing up have completely subsided, but I can say that I can talk about it in therapy and process through it enough to where it’s not at the forefront of my existence. I’m quick to tell my fifteen year old that when people tease her about her size, she won’t get in trouble at home for saying “fuck you to your face.” I think that the constant pressure in my soul has made some pretty big diamonds and a Teflon exterior. My voice, amplified by the pain of growing up, loss and learning who I want to be has been welded and molded into a figure fire-blown and sturdy against the harshest criticisms. So at the end of the day, the assholes of my past did not win. They LOST.

So, how does this tie into my defense of Lizzo? Lizzo is the girl I WISH I knew in high school. I wish she was my best friend, telling me to “fuck the haters” and daring me to twerk at the homecoming dance just because I could. I’d want to go shopping with Lizzo. Maybe learn how to play the flute. She’d always ride shotgun in my car on the way to Virginia Beach. We’d get tattoos that said “fatté,” you know, high class fat. I mean, I don’t know if it would go down EXACTLY like that, but I know that if I knew Lizzo in those years where I was emotionally abused by assholes who couldn’t comprehend what it was like to be fluffy, I would’ve channeled her strength to make me a better human. I admire her for being talented beyond measure. I admire her for being bold in who she is as a person in an environment where others would rather fat-shame and ridicule her instead of celebrating her and admiring her courage to be comfortable in her own skin. Most of all, I admire her vulnerability — being able to vocalize how sometimes she isn’t alright and that shit gets to her. I know all too well how that feels… and will be the first person defending her right to do and say and be exactly who she is and to live in her truth. For those who have issue with that, eat a fat dick.

Spendin’ all your time tryna break a woman down
Realer shit is goin’ on, baby, take a look around
If you thought that I was ratchet with my ass hangin’ out
Just wait until the summer when they let me out the house, bitch!

Okay, so I’m not gonna be anywhere with my ass hanging out… only because the ONLY thing on me that’s NOT big is my ass. But when I get enough money to buy me one, y’all MIGHT have to watch out….

This shit from my soul, yeah
….and Black people made rock and roll, yeah!!!!!!!!!!