Fatness Divine #4

When I was a kid and I was very young, it confused me when the other kids called me a cow or a pig or an elephant as an insult.  I loved animals.  I found cows, pigs and elephants beautiful.  Through the years, I internalized their meaning of the use of those words.  I started thinking of these animals as bad things… as insults.  Through years of eating disorder recovery and size acceptance work, I have reclaimed my love of even fat animals…

And, so, a hippo.  Isn’t he/she beautiful?  There was a time in my life when being compared to a hippo was one of the worst insults someone could use on me.  Silly me.  I love hippos… always have.  I had but to remember that I did.  😉  If someone called me a cow or a hippo or whatever today, I’d thank them. 

A few years ago, I was at the zoo and sat in front of a hippo exhibit.  There was this young hippo swimming around in the water…. spinning around, doing all sorts of neat water acrobatics… and I wondered why this animal wasn’t ashamed of its fatness.  Why was it swimming around like some aquatic ballerina?  Didn’t it know how fat it was?  Why the heck was I so ashamed of my body as a normal weighted girl (at that time), when a real-life hippo has no issues dancing in the water?  It was all confusing for me…. but it also challenged my thinking and I came to admire that sweet hippo. 

I hope someday I’m as free in my body as that hippo was!  Wanna call me a hippo… please do.  You might make my day. 

–AngryGrayRainbows