Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

by Crystal Maldonado

I’ve also never dated anyone. And I’m fat. Those things don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but for me, I think they do.

I’ve always been fat, but I didn’t know I was fat-with-a-capital-F until I was in fourth grade, having a great time on a field trip, and one of my classmates told me so.

That seemingly small moment made me acutely aware of my body and its bigness, and it was then that I realized that being fat is a thing: A Very Bad Thing, according to most.

In class, we’re reading The Catcher in the Rye. I hate it. Holden Caulfield is not a sympathetic character to me, and I’m over the way he calls everyone a phony.

Confidence just comes naturally to him. What’s that like?

I spend a ton of time thinking about names. When you’re writing, you’re always trying to come up with the perfect names for your characters, and maybe I get a little carried away sometimes.

is missing from the driveway. Small

My own relationship with my body is so complicated. I am endlessly surrounded by messages that tell me to love myself, to celebrate stretch marks and soft rolls, to take charge and take up space, to be unapologetically me. Show off that visible belly outline! Rock a fatkini! All bodies are beach bodies! I get that. I celebrate that. I believe that. But I’m also surrounded by messages that tell me I need shapewear, I need to lose weight, I need to fit into straight sizes, I need to look like an Insta girl, I need to be tiny to be loved. Even my lived reality seems to support this. I don’t mean to seem shallow, but it’s like, when everyone goes out of their way to tell you “what a pretty face” you have, you notice.

But my mind struggles to bridge the gap between the two ideologies. I’m fat, and I celebrate other fat people, but I don’t quite celebrate me. It makes me feel like a fraud.

I would secretly give anything to be thin, while outwardly and openly rebelling against the idea that anyone should have to.

sharing my writing is one of the most vulnerable things I can imagine.

I glance down at myself—still wearing pj’s even though much of the day has passed me by, my curly-now-frizzy hair piled on my head, a mess from excessive lounging around—and feel the brief temptation to pretend I didn’t see the text at all because it would require me making some kind of effort.

I weigh my options: say goodbye to the warmth of this blanket and the easy banter with my online friends, or venture out into the real world with my bestie and feel like an actual person?

“You know, it’s really impressive that you just, like, come up with these stories from your brain. You make people up. Whole-ass people!”

It feels so personal that I can’t help but be fiercely protective of it, and then there’s this little voice that’s constantly concerned it’s not quite ready for other people’s eyes yet, but then it’s like…if I’m not going to share my writing, what am I even doing? I don’t know. I sometimes think I should totally switch dream jobs and just do data entry at a novelty mug warehouse.”

Weirdly, no matter how late I stay up writing on Sunday nights, Monday always comes around again. So then, on top of it being the start of another week, I’m super tired. Sigh.

He’s nice to me. Maybe that makes my standards too low, but I don’t care.

(I mean, I’m no prude, of course I can imagine it, but I can’t really picture me—clothes off—with another person with their clothes off.)

I’ve got to get out of my own head somehow, but I can’t.

There is nothing more infuriating than a privileged skinny person being embarrassed about their body. It’s like they won the body lottery and they can’t even appreciate it.

She tells me we’re lucky to be brown because we look good in every color, and that feels nice.

Unfortunately, the only empty seat I see is a couple of rows up and a few people deep…which means I need to hoof it up there and say “Excuse me” a bunch as I clumsily climb over my peers with my gigantic body. Sure. No problem.

As a self-proclaimed writer, I should know better! But I hoped—and thinking of that now, I cringe.

I know I’m being hard on myself and that I’ve got to be better about that, but I don’t know how, and I’m not going to solve that tonight, so I decide to write instead.

I’m totally freaking out over this, but I need to do something, and telling Amelia to reach out to her mom feels like that. Plus, it offers a brief, if fleeting, distraction that lets me put my game face on. My best friend needs me. Let’s do this.

Because we’re all kind of a wreck inside, at least sometimes.

I can only imagine the heartbreak of telling someone you love them, hearing they love you, too, but then having them throw that so-called love in your face moments later.

Sometimes when you’re feeling too many things you need someone else to grab the reins.

“I’m just over all these men! They want so much from you. Be beautiful but not too beautiful; thin but not too thin; feminine but not too feminine. On dates, it’s the same thing—talk, but not too much. Ask them questions about themselves, but not too many questions. I’m exhausted.”

“You can’t. You have to really be kind to yourself and look out for yourself because the world can be cold and cruel. Don’t feel bad, ever, about putting yourself first. Promise!”

When you don’t look like one of your parents, sometimes you get funny stares, sometimes weird questions, and sometimes—best-case scenario—no reaction at all.

I’m a feminist. Let’s get that straight. But I’m also the kind of girl who changes her outfit a zillion times before a date. You can be both, okay?

I’m not one to think that men deserve a cookie every time they show some humanity, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel pleased that the guy I’m dating is at least a little woke.

a painting by Peter Paul Rubens.

It can be difficult for me to look at paintings like this, at bodies like this, and see that they are beautiful but still sometimes struggle to see myself in the same positive light. I think about my body, about all of its imperfections, and I don’t necessarily see beauty. Yet. But I’m working on it.

“Some people think writing in books is like an act of desecration, but I think it’s kind of sweet. You get to see what other people think. For that moment, you get to share the story—just the two of you.”

Lotería, Alex & Eliza, The Book of Unknown Americans, The House of the Spirits, The Poet X,

I don’t want to be the girl who forgets her friends because of a boy, I swear. It’s just that I’m so happy around Brian that it’s hard not to want to feel that good all the time.

They say you can’t really be with someone until you can love yourself, but I’m learning that it can also sometimes take the admiration and support of someone else to help you get there. I was already on the path to seeing my own self-worth, but Brian took my hand and made the route less lonely. Whether that’s right or wrong, I can’t say; all I know is I feel beautiful and wanted at Brian’s touch.

I write about how I will find the strength to respect myself. I will find the courage to be kind in the face of hurt. I write that I will put myself first. I write that I won’t succumb to—or believe—my mother’s feelings about me. I write that I will muster the strength to say goodbye to those who don’t deserve me. I write that in the face of my sadness I will find the sunlight. I write about how I don’t know how, but one way or another, I’ll be fine.

“Can you try being kinder to you?”

Maybe the biggest problem in my life wasn’t that the world thought I came in second to Amelia. Maybe it was just that I thought that.

Grand gestures always put too much pressure on the person on the receiving end of them, and they’re totally unfair! They ask way too much! They often make the person feel embarrassed and totally put on the spot! They do more for the person doing the gesturing than for the person receiving the gesture! And on, and on, and on…