Good Words and Bad Words

Let me tell you a little story:

Once upon a time, there was a young girl.  She was a very nice girl, despite her flaws. But she never saw that.  Perhaps she had been cursed, but for some reason or another, she could not believe the people in her life that said they loved her.  Instead of believing them, she had to believe the unkind people in her life.  The ones who said she was not all that good.  The ones who said she might be smart, but she would never be pretty.  Worst of all, the ones who said she was never loved nor would anyone ever love her.

One day, the girl got sick.  The doctors didn't know why she got sick, but she was.  And when she got sick, the girl began to change.  Her body started melting away.  She could see the change.  Other people could see the change too.  And all those people, the ones who said she wasn't pretty and that she would never be loved, began to see her in a different light.  Perhaps, they thought, they had been wrong...maybe this girl was worth something after all.  But what they couldn't see was that this sickness made the girl mean.  She didn't want their praise.  She wanted to punish them.  She wanted to punish everyone who had ever lied and said they loved her.  And now, in this melted body, she felt like she could.  But a black heart can't tell the difference between lies and the truth, so she punished everyone she knew.  In the end, even herself.

And then one day, out of the blue, the girl got better.  She wasn't sick anymore.  And, over time, her body came back and with it, the good bits of her heart.  And this girl had to live with her regret and the consequences of all the things she had ever done.  She lives with them still, down to this very day.

Me circa the year 2000.

Why did I tell you this sad little story?  Because it's true...it's the truth about a part of my past, and I had to tell you, so that I could explain my page for this week's JOURNAL 52 prompt, "Positive Words":

"Hot as Hell"

You see, I am a fluffy kind of gal...I almost always have been.  With the exception of a few years in my late teens/early 20s, when I lost more than 100 lbs in less than a year with no explanation whatsoever.  You can see my bout of skinny in the picture above.  In fact, I even got thinner than that...never a stick, but, for me, super skinny.  And the story I told you is true, I wasn't a very nice person when I was that size.  I'm not saying that all skinny people are bad, just that I was at the time.

About a year ago, I took my "skinny Amy" picture to work to show a lady in my office...people apparently need proof in order to believe that I had ever been a thin mint...  And the amount of shock displayed over said picture, led to other people wanting to see the picture...  Oh so many people were filled with surprise and disbelief that day...

Now, come back to the present with me.  Earlier this week, someone at work, who had not been there a year ago, mentioned the picture to me, saying: "I heard you used to be skinny..."x" said you were hot as hell!"

And, because everyone likes to be told they're attractive to others, this made me very happy...

But the more I thought about my alleged hotness, the sadder I got.  I was sad because these people see someone who used to be attractive...not a person who's currently attractive.  And nobody likes to feel ugly.

And then I thought about it some more.  And I got angry.  Because I remembered what I acted like then.  I was, by my standards anyway, a pretty horrible person.  Being thin gave me a rush of power...and we all know power tends to corrupt.  And I let myself become something I had always hated.  The pretty girl who knew just how pretty she was.  Not in a self confident way, but in an arrogant, conceited way.

For most of my life, I had a good personality.  I thought I had to.  I wasn't thin or pretty, so I had to make up for what I lacked with a great personality, a sweet disposition, and a willingness to do whatever anyone asked of me...because how else could I get them to love me?

But when I lost all that weight, suddenly being kind didn't matter anymore.  I was so haughty.  People wanted to be around me because I was easy on the eyes.  And when I realized that, I got really bitter.  And then I didn't want to be nice.  I wanted to cause trouble.  I wanted to destroy those stupid people who thought I was special just because I could wear tiny clothes.  And, in some small way, I succeeded.  If in no other way, I at least destroyed myself.

When the weight started coming back, I was left with all the bitterness and desire to hurt people that I felt when I was thin...and that was not me, not the real me, not the person I wanted to be.

What I am now is so much more than I ever was before.  Most days, I am confident.  I am proud of the things I can do.  I have a decent heart.  I have people that I truly love and who truly love me.  I want to have a great personality, a sweet disposition, and to help people again, but this time, I want to do those things, not because I need to to make someone love me, but because I choose it.  Because I love me.  Because I don't need someone else to tell me my value anymore.  I see who I am and I like the person I see.  I know my own value at last.

When I think about it, I get mad that most people see things in a very poor way.  I want to be loved just as much as the next person.  I want people to find me attractive and to want to be around me.  I want people to know I have value.  But a lot of people don't have that kind of vision.  I find that many people see only the outside, even though there's so much more to a human being than what kind of shell they live in.

I am no longer a thin mint.  I haven't been for quite some time.  Part of it is because food is delicious.  Part of it is because I don't want to run unless something very scary is chasing me...and even then, I don't want to be out of breath when I die...  But a bigger part of it is that my size is a protection.  It protects me from people who's vision is cloudy, from people who can't see that what I am is infinitely more important that what I look like.  And it also protects other people, people who I would probably end up hurting, were I thin enough to fool them into caring.  I protect my good heart with layers of fluffiness.

Today, I'm not sad and I'm not angry.  Today, I feel pity for the people who can't see that who I am now is way more hot than I ever was before.  Because if they could really see me, if they could see the person I am inside, they would know what beauty really looked like.  The shell eventually fades, and the only thing that remains is what's inside.  I've spent a long time and put forth a lot of effort to make my inside something I can be proud of...I won't let that be taken away...

So my positive words for today are "hot as hell", not because somebody who barely knows me told me I was pretty once, in a picture.  My positive words come from me...because I am one of the good people who understands that I am hot as hell right now, with my fluffy shell full of beautiful things.