Fat? Me? I had no clue!

A little bit of sarcasm there in the title….hehe. Me, sarcastic? I know, hard to believe, isn’t it?

Last weekend was my son’s wedding. My only child…my baby boy….all grown up and a married man now. It was a beautiful weekend, and the wedding and reception were absolutely perfect. Good food, drinks, dancing, and celebrating with family and friends….what more could we ask for? It was one of the happiest, and saddest, weekends of my life. My son walked me down the aisle, kissed me, and I took my seat and watched him marry the girl of his dreams. It was almost a surreal experience. As I watched him pledge to spend the rest of his life with his beautiful bride, I kept flashing back to the day he was born, his first birthday, when he started walking, his first word, his first day of school, when he told me he wanted to marry me…..it was very bittersweet, it was very emotional. All perfectly understandable feelings to be feeling on this day.

I knew it would be a tough weekend emotion-wise….I was prepared for it. What I wasn’t prepared for were family members commenting on my weight….seriously, my freaking weight….during this particular weekend. I was prepared to deal with the happiness/sadness of watching my only child get married. I wasn’t prepared to be lectured by not one, not two, but THREE different family members about my weight. And if any of you happen to read this and get offended by it, too bad…..because you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Do you think I don’t know what I look like? Do you think I don’t own a mirror? I know exactly what I look like….I’m not delusional. And guess what? When I look in the mirrow, I see someone who, while she may need to lose a few pounds, is also pretty darn cute! People tell me I have pretty eyes, a gorgeous complexion and a beautiful smile. I’m told I have a wonderful personality…..that I’m loving, giving, fiercely loyal. Why don’t these things count? Why are they not more important than my weight?

I’m so much more than numbers on a scale! I’m a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend….I’m a human being with real feelings that get hurt just as easily as yours, maybe even easier. I’m smart and I’m a hard worker….I help the attorney I work for handle over 100 active cases.

Instead of smiling big for any pictures taken of me at the wedding and reception, I avoided the cameras as much as possibile, and spent the entire time agonizing over how fat I was going to look in the pictures I was in, and wishing I could cut myself out of them. I was paranoid my son was looking at me and feeling shame for having such a fat mother. Thanks to those three family members, the wedding and reception weren’t about Josh and Mia anymore, it was about how fat I looked.

This note is for those three family members, and anyone else out there who feels it’s okay to judge and/or lecture overweight people. Trust me, we know what we look like. Fat doesn’t equal stupid. But again, we’re more than numbers on a scale. Instead of judging or lecturing me, how about accepting me for two I am? I’m told I’m a pretty great person. Hopefully someday that’ll matter more than what the scale says.

And just in case you were wondering, I’m a size 16.  Nevertheless, here’s a picture of me and my handsome son on his wedding day.