BIG MOMMA

Big is beautiful; the weight gain kept my feet on the ground and taught me a few things. :)

I used to be BIG. Well, I was thin first and then I got bigger (and oh well pregnant). I was 107 lbs. And in nine months I ballooned to 200lbs. Okay let’s scrap the pregnancy part. I was so big, that AFTER giving birth and I came home from the hospital, one neighbor greeted me and said “ay! Naku malapit ka ng manganak” her eyes glowing. I almost cried “Nanganak na nga ako eh, nanganak na ko”

I’d stare at my body in the mirror wondering if I was still human or if I was a huge kangaroo.

There was even one time, I was in the elevator and the operator just kept staring, finally I asked her “baket?” and she blurted out one stinging rhetorical question “ANONG NANGYARI SA IYO.”

It was a time when, if the seats were all taken and you could clearly see that the whole bench is being occupied by men, you silently hope in your heart somebody would give you a seat…but it never happened when I was that big.

I learned to really understand how sad it was to see the difference between how people treated me before and after, and to see clothes I’d like to wear and not be able to fit in them, to wonder if the conductor wanted to charge me more because my ass occupied more than one seat, and to realize that the fat jokes, they’re always funny.. just maybe…not always cool; That it was hard to lose the weight I so carelessly and mindlessly put on myself.

It was a good experience because it was humbling.

Co-Gluttons, be warned.