Hiding behind Fat

This morning I got up and was going through the posts that had accumulated on my Google Reader overnight. There was an entry there from Eliza (Draw the Girl), where she quotes Anne Lamott, which basically says that you can't hide from your fears - you need to face them. Eliza goes on to say that in The Sound of Music, one character was hiding behind school, and another was hiding behind the walls of the convent. And it made me realize something.

I have spent pretty much my whole adult life hiding behind my fat.

Sounds weird, right? But it's true. I was afraid of getting into a real romantic relationship, because of the personal issues that I hadn't faced up to yet, so I packed on the pounds. Men aren't interested in fat women, right? (Well, so society would have us believe - there are plenty of men out there who like women with some meat on their bones, thankfully.) So I ate and didn't exercise, and got fatter and fatter, and it worked! Men, for the most part, stopped acting interested. I had what I wanted - I was being left alone.

Only of course, I didn't really want to be left alone. I wanted someone in my life, to love and share myself with. But until I was ready to have that, I hid behind the fat.

I'm happy to say that I finally faced my relationship fears three years ago this coming October, and I have the love of a great man to show for it. And it seems that I'm also ready now to shed the barriers I had put up to hide behind. I already have J, and I hope to have him in my life for as long as we're both alive, so what need is there to hide?

It feels so good to finally start to let those walls down. The fat was a great insulator until I was ready to face my fears, but its time has passed. I'm shedding it, and stepping away from what used to hide me.