Thank you to Cruel People

[Guest guest]

Dear Brave Souls: I hope you are well this morning. And don’t lose heart, for

today is a new day. Trite, but true. Think of it this way: What a great

world, 365 chances every year to start over. 8,760 chances per year to stop

doing one thing and to start something different. (8760hours in a year) How

lucky we are to have so many moments to choose anew! (525, 600 chances per

year to change one’s mind from something not working well to something that

works better …that’s how many minutes are in a year.) ( 32 million, 536

thousand chances in a year to make a better decision. Are we blessed or what?

--that’s how many seconds there are in a year.) So be hopeful, for there is

much opportunity today….

This is just ceep’s two cent’s worth on those who are cruel to themselves or

to others… It is just my own opinion…and just remember it is late and I am a

crummy speller. if you can't read the word, sound it out.... i do. (grin)

THANK YOU LETTER TO THE STRANGERS WHO HURT ME/ TAUGHT ME

Hello those of you who have touched my life so cruelly over the years. I, a

woman of size, just wanted to say thank you.

You passed me by on the street, on busses, at school, in parking lots, on the

road, but never without glancing at me, always, always with a look of disgust

on your face, or a smirk. For my body. Which was large.

I learned from your mean behavior, to hold onto my truest self, to not lose

my soul, to pass you by without getting snagged by your ire. I had lots of

practice thanks to you. I must tell you this skill of not tripping over every

threatening thing that passes by me in life is a great strength now. You

forced me to learn something that can never be taken from me; dignity--the

ability to be humble and take pride at the same time. For this I must thank

you for being such a good catalyst. Because of you, I had to chose to grovel

or to hold my head up. I held my head up even when it was tough to do so.

You thought yourself better than me. It was true in a way. God gave you a

head start in many ways. I got the bad genes, the slow metabolism, the hunger

that could not be satisfied. I got the slow thyroid, the undiagnosed

diabetes, the insulin resistance. My brothers and sisters got all this plus

the depression requiring medication that caused weight gain. We all got the

society that thinks “self control†is the answer to everything while the

culture itself nevertheless spins out of control with its own violences,

pornography and abandonments of the young.

I have to thank you for teaching me how it was easier to make fun of the

unprotected, rather than turning your mind and heart to fixing the many

" larger " problems in the world that truly need fixing. You taught me to never

make the same mistake of berating the innocent while ignoring the egregious.

You helped me to see I have to try to contribute to goodness whenever I can,

and to try to remain silent or kind if I cannot help.

You judged me as being inferior, and in a way you were right. For many years,

I believed I had no self control. Perhaps this was, in part, because I hardly

had any self left after you were done with me. How many times can a young

child whose mind is not yet set, be slashed at and written upon with words

like fatso, lard ass, lazy, glutton, slob. How often can a young person hear

if they would only, “push away, get off their fat asses, diet, exercise more,

decrease calories to unlivable amounts, eat high fat, low fat, high carb, low

carb, cabbage only, black coffee only, liquid diet, wire their mouths shut

for krisakes…†If you could see my soul's skin, it is overwritten by dense

scars of the most vulgar graffiti—left there by all the yous who told me how

I should live.

Yet, the insults you and others have given out -- you, who had far more than

me, this has served me. How? It is a crazy world isn't it, where those rich

in one thing beat up those who do not have it. Your torments of me made me

vow I would never do the same to others. Knowing what pain it is to be held

as an “untouchable,†for others to think I was unworthy of life itself, has

made me value life in all its forms all the more. I have to thank you for

giving me reason to try to never exile another human soul for no good reason.

You insisted I had no self control. Maybe you were right. Maybe I had no SELF

left to control. Control means self regulation. SELF means a solid sense of

one's right to freedom and identity with goodness and hope. Which self should

I have been regulating? The one pure soul I was born with that many said I

had no right to because I was fat?-- or the scarred-up one, beaten publicly

in the streets with no one coming to my aid? the one who has been misnamed,

ill-named and called names since I was a child? I was always confused about

which self you were wanting me to regulate…

But again, I have to offer gratitude to you, for teaching me that those who

harp on self control are often not exercising self control

themselves---otherwise they would not take such pleasure and pains to go

about randomly maligning the pure souls of those who happen to have a large

body surrounding their souls. You taught me that the most important form of

self control is sometimes to act in this way: if you cannot help, do no harm.

You pointed out that I was an “emotional eater,†and that I ought to get a

grip. And I copped to your charges. Yes, I ate when I was happy, sad, angry

and scared. And it took me a long time to realize that thin people were also

eating when they were happy, sad, angry and scared. You claimed I had a

“problem,†while they didn’t.

I have to thank you for making me look closely at all these common aspersions

that the culture holds as “true†without looking at the evidences. I have to

thank you for becoming so outrageous with your claims that I was forced to

take a cold hard look at what is true for me and what is not. One thing I saw

was that lifelong heavy people are willing to cop to just about anything

once they have lost their sense of selfhood. I saw that thin people and heavy

people have similar and identical psychological pressures and coping

mechanisms. But, the difference so very more often than you or the culture

will admit, is the only difference is that the thin ones digest their food

and are done with it, and the heavy ones “wear their food†in case there is

some crisis need a hundred years from now.

You repeatedly said I should just make healthier choices. I know you did not

know what is was to be dead-end poor. Do you know how much quality food

costs. What shall we have? you decide for me and my family-- chicken for one

day and feathers for the next six days? Or shall we have cheap poor-quality

food all seven days that will at least keep us alive? yet, I have to hand it

to you. Because of your harassments, I looked into what although cheap, might

be more healthy. And I hope that I never have to eat beans and rice together

(A complete protein when combined) for more than ten years in a row like I

did when I was younger. Yet, again, I have to thank you again. Your taunts in

a way prompted me to a lifelong interest in my health and that of many

others. This is a good thing, and I have to say, again, you were a motivator.

Probably most of all, I hated it when you made fun of my clothes. I sewed a

lot of them myself. But, you said I looked like a slob, that I was bursting

out of my clothes, that I bought them from the tentmaker, that I was

obscene appearing in public like that. I wish you had stepped in and bought

me those of New York clothes, the expensive ones, instead of my having

to buy clothes at the Goodwill and letting out the seams. Heck, all the kids

got their clothes at the ragbag stores so they would have something to wear

that does not look like my other homemade things, and more or less fit them

for two minutes before they grew out of them.

But again, I have to thank you. You know why? Because you made me mad. You

made me mad at the designers and suppliers of clothes for heavy people. They

thought we only liked black, brown and gray. You caused me to rabble rouse

back in the 1970s, to gather together with other like minded people to say we

wanted elastic in the back waist of jeans, we wanted fuscia, and red, and

cobalt blue, and pretty fabric that draped right and lace and please stop

doing women’s shirts and dresses with freeking patch pockets over the breasts

and stop doing fitted waists on everything, and stop using fabrics that

resemble baggy burlap. Yes, we all have to thank you for your hyper-critical

eye. It actually helped to awaken many to the fact that we were being

short-changed, and that the soul dances to have color, texture and style to

enhance happiness.

You tried to impress upon me time and again that my life should be completely

centered around my obesity. That I should hide myself and not even have a

life. That I should give 24/7 to the fact of my size. But, my life has to

include EVERYTHING, including my obesity. My greater life revolves around my

children, my loved ones, my parents, my work, my happiness, my grief, my

hopes, my dreams.

But I have to thank you again. Your ideas have been so small, it made me turn

to One far more vast. I have found that God looks down on earth and lifts me

up each time I have been slimed by others' words, discrimination, by harsh

friends, by well-meaning relatives, by others who just like to kick those who

are down and wouldn't dare kick if they were up. Yet, there is justice, for

my God thinks me beautiful and asks me to dance in His honor, no matter what

any other human thinks. My God says He made me in His image, and so God must

on some days be really BIG, for that is just the size I am.

Just as God knows my sorrows and moves close to comfort me, God approves that

I should have hopes and dreams always. God says Be fruitful and multiply, and

I have had children, and I have given to others as though they are my

children, and I have found that though you may not be, God is well pleased

by me, well pleased by anyone who tries, who stays close to the beautiful and

always perfectly sized soul. I have to thank you for all your insults and

your poor opinions of me. Otherwise I might not have had to fled to The Rock.

I might never have known that whether you call God, God, or Goddess, or G-D

or Higher Power or however is right for you, the God that that is truly GOD,

is The God of Love--- not God of Insult, not God of Hatred, not God of

Disgust and Harassment, not God of Banishment--- but the God of fully

accepting love.

So, though you have found me wanting, though you have called me names behind

and in front of my back, though you are so appalled by me, I one last time

thank you. For your cruelties have led me to new forms of freedom I never

knew before, the least of which is to help me to keep trying to forgive any

and all who have hurt me, any and all who cannot see the light of my soul

shining LARGE. Whether my body is large or not is not what is important. What

is important is that I love BIG and WIDE and fiercely, and as often as

possible. Even though I sometimes/often fail, I am to always strive for this

ideal.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, for you have helped to press me into the

most gratifying inner life a human could ever have. And especially thank you

for teaching me that the innocent and naïve and the shy must be helped and

protected. That is it righteous to stand up for them, if necessary to be a

voice for the voiceless, to never let a cruelty pass without either

confrontation or comfort, whichever one fits best for the person.

And oh, one last thing. This morning I received a handwritten letter… It was

one of thanks also. I thought you would like to hear it. It read, “Thank you

for making me visible whenever you are able to manage it. Never lose heart

for I am always with you. The humans who hurt you? They are not yet in their

final edition: Pray for them to be made happy the way you have been made

happy. You do your part and I will do mine.

Love,

Godâ€

This comes with love from ceep g-mom