The Venus of Willendorf in a Barbie Doll Nation

You know the one.

The one whose gym shorts rode a little too high on her more than ample thighs and buttocks. The one who was greeted to choruses of 'BOOM-ba-ba-BOOM-ba-ba' when she entered the room. The one no one wanted to touch because, they believed, you could catch fat in the same way you could catch cooties.

Yeah, I was that girl.

And I have stayed that girl for most of my adult life. Because the thing is, it's hard to grow out of those conceptions of yourself that the world and the people around you instill in you.

Everyone told me I was fat. Everyone made sure I knew that I was something 'other' than what they were. They made sure I understood that it meant that I was less than they were. I was not normal. I was not right. And the fact that I was abnormal and wrong meant that I could never be pretty or sexy or desirable. I was fat. That meant I was a Fat Girl and I would never be allowed to be anything else.

For the longest time, I have believed just that. I believed that in order to considered beautiful and attractive, you have to be a perfect size 2 or a perfect size 6. You have to have long, flowing hair that falls 'just so' about your shoulders. Your eyes should be large and deep. Your face, perfectly smooth and unblemished, should be painted in a way that accentuates both cheek and eye. Your clothes should be perfectly tailored. Your nails perfectly manicured.

I always believed I was supposed to look like Barbie.

So when I didn't, I hated myself. I called myself ugly and I allowed myself to believe all the things others said about me because, well, they were right. Weren't they? They knew as well as I what I was supposed to look like and they could see as well as I that that wasn't how I looked.

They weren't being cruel. They were being honest.

Somehow, though I can't pinpoint when or how, that began to change. I slowly graduated from thinking that I could never be loved, never be wanted, into thinking that there would be at least some people who could love me and accept me. That's not to say I'd begun to accept myself, however. I hadn't. I still believed I was wrong. I stilled believed I was ugly. I'd just learned that if people loved me enough, they could live with it. I never really thought that they truly believed I was beautiful.

I was smart and I was funny. I was sly and flirty. I was naughty and I was cute. But I was still a Fat Girl.

I couldn't conceptualize the idea that I could be pretty exactly as I was. Not 'pretty, if I'd just lose a few pounds' or 'pretty in spite of all the weight', but really, truly pretty as the woman I was. It was such a foreign concept to me that it never even occurred to me to look at myself through that lens. Yes, I am fat. But fat is soft and round and inviting. Yes, I am big. But I won't crumple and break under pressure. Yes, I am different. But that is why I am beautiful.

There is no perfect size 2 or perfect size 6. There is no perfect size. We, each of us, have our own shape and our own size. We have bodies that are taller than average, shorter than average, thinner or thicker than average. Some of us are dark and some light. Some of us have hair that touches the ground, and others have no hair at all. But we are all women. Possessing that very special quality within ourselves that makes us truly women. Something that cannot be hemmed in or defined by the shapes of our bodies or the parts our bodies possess or the boxes in which convention and society attempt to ensnare us.

We are women and we are beautiful.

We are beautiful because we are women. And in that respect, we are equal. Our bodies are only the expression of the women we allow to live inside them. Let that woman be free. Let her shine. And know that the house in which she lives will always be as beautiful as she believes it to be.