You keep calling yourself fat and I keep yowling about it. “OHMYGOODDDDD You are not FAT!! Will you shut up???”

Not anymore. I get it. I know why you do it. And you have every right to feel fat.

Of course, I don’t think you’re fat. Because I am fat. My entire family was fat. We were savants at “gauging the width of the restaurant booth before we sit”-fat. We were “aren’t even embarrassed to be the only one getting dessert”- fat. We swam if we felt like it and don’t care if people notice our marbled thighs and wide rears. Cuz duh, we’re fat, of course we look fat.

But you, you’re what, 40? And for the first time in your life, maybe 20 pounds over your ideal weight? Please. You keep trying those tortuous fad diets, and you constantly spit little digs of anger at yourself for being uncontrolled and lazy. And I sit next to you, feet up and hands resting on my wide belly, smiling. Because I love you and it’s bizarrely sweet that you have no idea how offended I could choose to be at your loathing of fatness.

I used to just roll my eyes at you, calling you names when you complain about how you need to lose weight. “Yeah, Tubbo. Lay off the buckets of raw cookie dough, Fatty McFatterson.” And you’d remember I’m actually fat and smile sheepishly and stop talking about it.

But then it came to me.

You’re new here.

I’ve been fat my whole life. I braved seventh grade fat. That’s the fucking Normandy Beach of fat. Nothing in my thirties is gonna ever be as terrible as that. It’s smooth sailing for me. But that’s because I’m the saltiest old sea-captain in the tavern. I know every rock of the shoreline and steer my boat with a comfort that only be gained by decades of gripping the wheel and gauging the wind.

But you’ve always been regular sized. Thin even. In your head, that’s who you still are. Your normal-sized body is an intrinsic part of your identity. So why is your body betraying you and changing? Now you’re not you anymore. You’re…you’re fat!

And it upsets you. Like how I’d feel if an accident scarred a vocal cord, making me labor to talk. Or if carpal tunnel took away my typing. Talking and writing are me. They add up with a handful of other stuff to make me. How difficult to have to  rearrange myself if they changed.

So I’m not going to scowl at you anymore as you pick at your salad. You just want to be yourself again; you just want to hold the same place and space that makes you comfortable. I get it now.

So I’m going to eat that last bread stick for you. Cuz I love you.