Personal Armour

I've decided that I no longer need my personal armour.

That's the flub I carry around on this 5 ft. 3 in. frame that my inner critic believes will keep it safe from 'everyone out there'...at 30-something years old, I've been walking with the wolves 'out there' and am fine. Mostly because, it's not all wolves.

I've spent a long time acquiring and keeping this flub.

I've even had spells of time where I've lost it all. ALL of it. Skeletal me.

It's irrelevant HOW I look to the outside world...people are still drawn to me, I am still drawn to them and relationship's still form. Keeping myself fat isn't going to change any of that, other than the amount of time I'm likely to be able to spend on this earth forging those relationships into life-long magical moments.

I still have sex.

Whether I'm 118 lbs or 180 lbs, and I'm sure (if I were) 280 lbs...although my ability and agility would be compromised at the latter...I'd still be able to be intimate with someone.

SO WHAT THE HELL AM I HOLDING ONTO TO THIS FAT FOR!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Underneath my loving, warm, amicable, often seemingly outgoing demeanour...is the little me that believes that if I'm fat then I am safe from the hoards of men and women who'll want a piece of my womanhood. There are a number of myths in this statement:

1. Fat people still have sex.

2. Not everyone I meet wants to have sex with me.

3. Even if they did...that's not really a bad thing...it becomes a bad thing IF they act on it.

4. There is no safety in fat. Only a lifetime of health issues, which include: an overtaxed liver, adrenal stress, onset of diabetes, depression, ill-body smells (fat people smell bad...I've yet to meet one that doesn't), nerve malfunction, inability to move freely, poor self-image and oh so many many more things that decrease the longevity and quality of living.

5. I am woman, whether I'm healthy or unhealthy (which is to say, ideal body weight or overweight) so wanting to be anything OTHER than that is ridiculous. I am a woman whether I'm fat or healthy. Better to be a healthy woman, than an unhealthy woman.

So...this past week, I've made the conscious decision that I don't want, nor do I NEED, my body armour anymore. It protects me from NOTHING. In fact, when I sat down and thought about it fully, clearly, fairly, non-judgmentally but rather matter-of-factily, I realized that I've created this pocket of self-delusion about my weight for almost an entire

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