Sometimes it’s in the words of strangers that things seem the most real. Those people you don’t even know by name, but they deliver the words of sage wisdom and lend their ears with little to no expectation in return. You know who I mean, psychologists, counsellors, your barista and your hairdresser. And for me you can also add bottle shop attendant.
I have several theories about these people and their reason for existing and why it is we are able to share with them the bits of our lives that hurt us so badly. My reasons might not really be factual but it’s enough of a justification that it will allow me to love my Monday morning barista for more reasons than the great cup of coffee she hands me over the counter. (Hi Sarah!)
This week Sarah has been at work two mornings in a row. It’s Tuesday and she was there again this morning and I was the happiest I’ve been in weeks when I saw her face for the second morning in a row. She caught me yesterday a little battered. I was nervous about work this week and there are aspects of my life that have kept me in what can only be identified as some form of grief at the long and drawn out drama that I have let consume me for quite a long time. As any barista worth her crema technique – she put the cup under the spout before I’d even told her what I wanted.
She asked about the declining state of my self worth in less than three words and I replied with, “I’ll survive,” and an awkward laugh that allows most people to ignore the subtext. Sarah never ignores it. And much like my hairdresser, works her magic to remind me that I am always worth more than I think I am.
You may have noticed that when I’m not great, I start projects. Usually projects that aim to spark a little bit of joy in those around in me the hope that their brightness will rub off and with a clear ulterior motive that if I can remind others of their worth that somewhere in there I will find mine. In the last three months, you will have noticed that there are at least two big things floating in my socials that are me attempting to Brene Brown my life.
#getfarkndressed came from hating what I saw when I looked in the wardrobe and in the mirror. I watch too many fatfluencers on instagram loving their wardrobes and their bodies that I’m always a little miffed when I don’t get the same response under my yellow 20watt lightbulb in a bedroom with an unmade bed. So the plan… dig a little deeper into your wardrobe and be purposeful about getting dressed. Not jeans and a top today fat fucker! Look at what’s in there and get dressed. But… I still couldn’t do it and I didn’t want to go to my fatfluencers for inspiration. Where did I need to go for inspiration? My people.
There’s a thing that someone said once, someone much wiser than me, that if you’re not in a room with with people who want to lift you up, you’re in the wrong room. I know it doesn’t go exactly like that – but you get my drift. So – set a dress challenge with daily prompts for your teacher friends and in their enthusiasm, find your motivation and inspiration to do the thing that’s hard and missing. Loving what you have, wearing it, liking it and stop shopping your feelings. (She says with a full SHEIN cart,)
Fat Girl Running Club is the same MO. Pre-Abbie I spent a lot of time trying to get into a smaller pants. It’s the tag line for the blog, so the motive has been around for more than a decade, but any spiral tends to land me in the same pit of shitty thoughts about my body. Thirteen year old fat Anna raises her very loud and obnoxious voice and declares plainly, and with the verve of fact, that the reason he never loved you was because you are fat and repulsive. Grown up, working on happy to be fat Anna knows this isn’t true. I went to therapy to shut her the fuck up, but when I’m low, her voice gets louder and her righteous tone of voice and ability to link his behaviours and choices to my repulsiveness defies logic countenance. So to shut her up, we start the Fat Girl Running Club. I use your collective motivation to force myself to get outside. To move my body, remind myself and show the tiny human that the shape of my body has absolutely nothing to do with what it can do and how it can move and is not the reason you are not loved by him, her or anyone else she chooses to love.
You can sense the theme… I became a wedding celebrant because… if I could at least help celebrate love with people who found it, maybe I could learn to accept that it was something everyone could have. Including me and if I couldn’t – at least I knew it existed. The Dear Abbie blog… I wrote about the choice to be a solo mum because… I was finding a way to rationalise the choice to choose the family I had decided to create. In all of the decisions, it is crystal clear that it is me who needs the village, not Abbie.
I start things and bring you all along because I don’t want to make the change alone. And when I start that project and find so many of you are happy to jump on the bandwagon for a while, it helps me to remember that Fat Anna lives in all of us in some way shape or form. She might say different things to you, she might not be fat, but that insecure voice in your head that tells us things to try and protect us from the hurt that inevitably comes, exists for all of us. That’s her job. It’s her job to pick the most vulnerable part of you and exploit that to protect you. But like the men I come to love, she’s also a lying bitch.
It’s why the Sarah’s in our lives are so important. They don’t know about her. Fat Anna doesn’t wave hello in her spotted scarf when you lean over a little too close. They don’t know what she says or what your weakness is. They just know from the very small interactions we have together that you are worth more than what you’re expecting of yourself. And that sometimes is worth more than 1000 passion projects. It doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop trying to make you feel better about yourselves by creating clubs for you to join or stories for you to read, but it will help you remember that I do it for me too. And I’ll keep counting on Sarah and Catherine and Molly and Beth to deliver the goods on those days I didn’t know I needed it. Just don’t fall in love with bottle shop attendant. It didn’t end well for me. Either time.
life in big frilly knickers 