But aren't you fat?

I have chosen a name for this blog! When I originally started blogging I was mostly writing about gardening and such so I called it "The fat, queer farmer," but since then the blog was accidentally deleted (so sad) and also we moved into our van which means I don't have access to the garden space I used to. It doesn't make sense to keep that name for a blog. It has been months that I have been thinking on what name I could use for this version of my blog so I am excited to finally have settled on one.

Okay, so you might be thinking "But aren't you fat? Why would you name a blog about your life as a fat, queer, traveling artist 'If I was fat'?" To me the name speaks to a decision that I was forced to make in my last year of college. After years of starving my body and obsessively exercising, my body had been slowly growing. So I went to a dietician who referred me to an eating disorder therapist. Once I realized that I had an eating disorder, I had a choice to either continue to obsess over food and exercise and hope that was enough to stay thin-ish or let my body do what it needed to do and accept the outcome. I chose to let my body become what it needed to be, which ended up being pretty damn fat.

That was five years ago and my acceptance of the label "fat" has taken time. Many, many decisions have led me here- the fat, queer artist living in a van with an anxious pitbull and my partner. But it all started with that one question- "What would my life look like if I was fat?". And now here we are. This is what fat looks like for me.

I feel like this is a question a lot of fat people have to ask themselves at some point. What would my life look like if I accepted my body as it it? It is also a question that makes most fatphobic people uncomfortable. And that makes me happy. Because this is a space for fat people who are in the process of accepting their bodies and other people who are deep in the understanding of what it means to be a fat person in a fatphobic world.

With Patrick's help, I have learned to ask a lot of "what if" questions, not just "what if I was fat?". But also "what if I wasn't straight?", "what if I was queer?", "what if I could do anything with my life?", "what if my art was good enough as it is to be an artist?", "what if I could share my story through a blog?". There are so many more but asking the "what if" questions has changed my life. So much. And it all started with the decision to accept this body as it is, to say "what if I was just fat and that was okay?".