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Many times I've geared myself up to get rid of all my excess weight. You know the drill, you think about what you'll look like thinner, dress like, be received as, things you'll do that you were always afraid to tackle before.

To me this is all really subjective stuff, considering I've never been "thin". The only time I was thin was as a very small child, but as soon as I hit elementary school I started gaining weight.

I was always the fat kid, the fat girl, the fat woman.

So who am I, if I'm no longer fat?

My identity is a product of all these years spent overweight. There's a person locked up inside of me that almost feels *safer* hiding behind the fat. I know who I am. I'm the fat person. I know how the world is going to receive me, respond to me, and to be brutally honest - EXPECT of me. No one expects too much from a fat person, do they? They don't expect us to fall in love, get married, have kids, have a career, do great things, enjoy life - which, let's face it, takes a whole lotta courage to do.

It takes courage to be happy. It's a physical act to be happy. Those who sit around and wait for happiness never obtain it because happiness isn't what you have, it's what you do.

And no one expects a "fat person" to DO anything, do they?

In fact, being miserable is almost expected. As if being overweight makes being alone and being unsuccessful a given. It's sort of a built in excuse. If you're not expected to try to be happy, so no one is there to see you fall on your face if you do not succeed.

So if I get rid of all this weight, what then will be expected of me?

More frankly, what won't I be able to get out of because I'm no longer fat?

What depressive funks will I no longer indulge? Furthermore how much will I have to shoulder the responsibility of my funks rather than blame society at large for judging me as part of a group I so willingly belong?

What will become of me when the only person I have left to be mad at is myself?

Perhaps the answer is someone with no more illusions that there is any excuse whatsoever to be anything other than what I am, fat or not.

So I guess maybe the question isn't "who am I?" but rather, "who do I choose to be?"

I guess I'm going to find out. Losing one pound at a time.

Learn more about this author, Ginger Voight.
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