A few nights ago, I was having a conversation with my husband about wanting to be more presentable when I go out in public. I want to be more intentional about what I wear, how I put myself together, and how I present myself to the world. I want to look more polished and feel good about the way I show up.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting those things. I enjoy the idea of dressing up, feeling beautiful, and putting effort into myself. But the more I thought about our conversation, the more I started questioning where that desire was coming from.
Do I want to look more put together because it makes me feel good, or because I'm overly concerned with how other people perceive me?
Am I making these changes because I want to, or because some part of me believes that I have to?
Those questions opened up a much bigger conversation with myself about how much of my life I've spent trying to make myself more palatable to other people.
I've spent so much time thinking about how I dress, how I talk, how I smell, how I carry myself, and how I might be perceived by the people around me. I've thought about whether I'm too loud, too opinionated, too animated, or simply taking up too much space.
I've become so aware of myself that sometimes I forget to just be myself.
And I think a lot of that comes from being a fat woman in a world that has already decided my body is something that needs to be corrected.
The pressure to compensate for being fat
There is an unspoken expectation placed on fat people that we have to make up for our bodies in every other aspect of our lives.
If society has decided that our bodies are imperfect, then we are expected to be perfect everywhere else.
We have to be well-dressed, well-spoken, clean, accomplished, agreeable, and approachable. We have to be kind enough that nobody can call us rude, intelligent enough that nobody can dismiss us, and put together enough that nobody can accuse us of not caring about ourselves.
We are expected to be extra conscious of how we look and behave because we know that people are already making assumptions about us.
And as a fat Black woman, I think about how these expectations can overlap. There are stereotypes about fatness, and there are stereotypes about Black women being loud, angry, aggressive, or having an attitude. Sometimes, I wonder how much energy I've spent trying to make sure nobody could use those assumptions against me.
How much of my personality have I softened so that people wouldn't misunderstand me?
How many times have I stayed quiet because I didn't want to be perceived as difficult?
How often have I worried about my appearance because I didn't want to give anyone another reason to judge me?
I've found myself trying to get ahead of people's judgments before they've even had the opportunity to form them.
It's as if I have to prove that I'm a good person before I can simply exist as one.
But why am I carrying the responsibility of making sure other people see me as worthy of respect?
Why do I feel like I have to be perfect in every other aspect of my life to compensate for a body that society has already decided is imperfect?
I've spent my life going with the flow
Another moment that has stayed with me recently came from watching a video of a woman getting her makeup done. She pointed out things she didn't like and spoke up about what she wanted instead.
What struck me wasn't that she had preferences. It was that watching her express them made me uncomfortable.
Why did seeing someone speak up about something she didn't like make me feel that way?
She wasn't doing anything wrong. She was communicating what she wanted. She was participating in a decision about herself, and she wasn't simply accepting something she wasn't happy with.
But I realized how unfamiliar that kind of behavior can feel to someone who has spent so much of her life going with the flow.
I've spent years being the person who just goes along with things. Sometimes, it genuinely didn't matter to me. Sometimes, I didn't have a strong opinion, and going with the flow was the easiest option.
But if I'm being honest with myself, there were also plenty of times when I went along with things because I didn't want to disrupt the situation. I didn't want to make anyone angry. I didn't want to be difficult. I didn't want to create tension or make someone uncomfortable by expressing what I actually wanted.
So I learned to adapt.
I learned to make things easier for other people, even when that meant making things harder for myself.
I learned that sometimes it felt safer to keep my opinions to myself than to risk someone's reaction. Sometimes, it felt easier to accept something I didn't like than to explain why I wanted something different.
And eventually, I got used to it.
That's the part I'm struggling to unpack now. When you've spent years responding to situations this way, you don't always recognize how much you're holding back. Going with the flow becomes second nature. You may not even realize you're uncomfortable until you see someone else doing what you've taught yourself not to do.
Watching that woman speak up made me reflect on how often I've chosen peace over honesty, agreement over preference, and silence over the possibility of conflict.
I don't want to criticize the version of myself who learned to do those things. I know there were reasons I made those choices. I know that sometimes keeping the peace felt necessary.
But I also have to acknowledge that something that once felt like the easiest way to navigate the world may now be keeping me from experiencing it fully.
I've gotten so good at making myself easy to deal with that I'm still learning how to let myself be a person with needs, preferences, and boundaries.
When self-awareness becomes self-surveillance
There is a difference between caring about yourself and constantly monitoring yourself.
I want to dress in ways that make me feel good. I want to smell good. I want to communicate well. I want to show up as a person who takes care of herself. There is nothing wrong with any of those things.
But when do those choices stop being about what makes me feel good and start becoming about what I need to do to prevent other people from feeling uncomfortable?
When does being mindful of myself turn into being afraid of myself?
I've spent so much time thinking about how I might be perceived that I sometimes wonder how much of my personality I've kept tucked away in the process.
Am I being quiet because I want to be quiet, or because I don't want to draw attention to myself?
Am I choosing this outfit because I love it, or because I think it will make my body more acceptable to other people?
Am I holding back my opinion because I've changed my mind, or because I don't want to be perceived as aggressive?
Am I going along with something because I genuinely don't mind, or because I'm afraid of what might happen if I say no?
Those questions are uncomfortable because the answers aren't always clear.
Sometimes, I genuinely prefer to be reserved. Sometimes, I don't feel like talking. Sometimes, I don't care enough about a situation to argue about it.
But I also know what it feels like to hold back parts of myself because I'm anticipating judgment or someone else's anger.
I don't want to confuse the version of me that feels safe with the version of me that feels free.
I don't want fear to make my decisions for me.
The goalposts will always move
The thing about trying to be palatable is that the goalposts keep moving.
You can be kind, but not so kind that people mistake your kindness for weakness. You can be confident, but not so confident that someone thinks you're full of yourself. You can be outspoken, but not so outspoken that you're labeled difficult.
You can spend years trying to be the most acceptable version of yourself and still encounter people who refuse to see you beyond your body.
And that is exhausting.
Because while you're busy making sure nobody has a reason to criticize you, you aren't always asking whether you're happy with the life you're creating.
You're thinking about how you're coming across instead of how you're feeling. You're wondering whether you're being judged instead of enjoying the moment. You're editing yourself in real time.
Other people may never realize you're doing it. They might see someone who is quiet, reserved, careful, or shy. They may never know that there is a whole other side of you that has learned to stay hidden because being visible has sometimes come with consequences.
I don't think every part of my personality has to be loud to be authentic. I don't have to become the most outgoing person in every room to prove that I'm comfortable in my body.
But I do want the freedom to decide who I am without feeling like I have to account for everyone else's comfort.
I want to laugh loudly when something is funny. I want to wear clothes because I love them. I want to speak my mind without immediately worrying about how my words might be interpreted. I want to express a preference without feeling like I've inconvenienced someone.
I want to enter a room without mentally checking every part of myself to make sure I'm presenting an acceptable version of who I am.
I want to experience my life instead of constantly observing myself living it.
Entering the last year of my twenties
As I approach the last year of my twenties, there is a lot I'm beginning to face about myself.
I'm thinking about the habits I've developed, the things I've accepted, the ways I've adapted to the world around me, and the parts of myself I may have neglected while trying to make life easier for everyone else.
And honestly, it's a lot.
How do you change something you've been doing for most of your life? How do you learn to speak up when you've gotten comfortable staying quiet? How do you begin expressing your preferences when you're used to letting other people decide? How do you stop worrying about everyone's perception of you when you've spent years believing that how people see you can determine how they treat you?
I don't have all the answers.
Part of me wishes I could just wake up one day and stop caring so much. I wish I could walk into a room, wear whatever I wanted, say what I meant, and never think twice about someone else's opinion.
But I know that's not how change works.
I can't undo years of conditioning in a few weeks. I can't expect myself to suddenly become comfortable with things I've spent years avoiding. And I don't want to turn this realization into another reason to criticize myself.
I've already spent enough time believing I need to fix something about myself.
Instead, I want to start paying attention.
I want to notice when I agree to something I don't want. I want to recognize when I'm changing my behavior because I'm afraid of making someone uncomfortable. I want to ask myself whether I'm choosing something because I genuinely like it or because I think it's what people expect from me.
And I want to practice allowing myself to have preferences.
Maybe that means speaking up when something isn't what I wanted. Maybe it means wearing the outfit I love without spending the entire day worrying about how it looks on my body. Maybe it means allowing someone to be disappointed with my answer without immediately trying to make them feel better.
Maybe it means accepting that not everyone will understand me, and that's okay.
I want to learn how to distinguish between being considerate and abandoning myself to keep other people comfortable.
Because I can care about how my actions affect others without making myself responsible for managing every reaction they have to me.
And I can work on myself without treating my entire existence as a problem that needs to be solved.
My body is not a debt I have to repay
Maybe that's what bothers me most about all of this…. how easy it is to begin treating your body like something you have to make up for.
As if being fat puts you in a deficit.
As if you owe the world better manners, a better personality, a better attitude, or a better version of yourself because you don't meet its beauty standards.
But I don't owe anyone perfection because of my size.
I don't have to be the nicest person in the room to prove that fat people can be kind. I don't have to be the smartest person in the room to prove that fat people are intelligent. I don't have to dress perfectly every day to prove that fat people care about their appearance.
I am allowed to be a human being.
Human beings have bad days. We have awkward moments. We say the wrong things. We have opinions that other people don't like. We get tired. We change our minds. Sometimes, we show up looking our best, and sometimes, we just show up.
None of those things should determine whether we deserve dignity.
And neither should the size of our bodies.
I can care about how I present myself without believing that my appearance determines my worth. I can grow as a person without treating my personality as another flaw I need to correct. I can be accountable for my actions without accepting the idea that I must constantly prove I'm one of the good fat people.
I am not a representative required to perform perfectly on behalf of every person who looks like me.
I am one person, and I deserve room to be one.
I'm learning to take up space again
I think what I'm realizing is that I don't just want to become more confident. I want to become more comfortable making decisions for myself.
I want to be able to want something without feeling guilty about it. I want to dislike something without feeling obligated to accept it. I want to change my mind, express my opinion, and communicate my boundaries without immediately worrying that I've upset someone.
I want to care about my appearance because I enjoy presenting myself in a way that reflects who I am, not because I'm trying to prove that I'm worthy of being taken seriously.
I want to be able to dress up, wear makeup, try new things, and explore different versions of myself without treating every decision as a performance for other people.
And I want to remember that I can be a considerate person without being a self-sacrificing one.
There is a difference between being kind and being agreeable. There is a difference between being peaceful and being afraid of conflict. There is a difference between wanting to look good and believing that you must look perfect to earn respect.
I'm still learning how to navigate those differences.
As I enter the last year of my twenties, I don't want to spend another year trying to become a version of myself that is easier for other people to accept.
I want to learn who I am when I'm not constantly thinking about how I'm being perceived.
I want to make room for the parts of myself I've kept quiet. I want to give myself permission to have preferences, take up space, and exist without apologizing for every little thing.
I want to stop believing that I have to earn the right to be comfortable in my own skin.
Maybe growth, for me, isn't about becoming a completely different person. Maybe it's about finally giving myself permission to be the person I've been holding back.
I don't know exactly what that will look like yet. I know there will be moments when I fall back into old habits, when I choose silence because it's familiar, or when I worry too much about what someone might think.
But I want to keep noticing. I want to keep questioning. I want to keep choosing myself in the small moments, even when it feels unfamiliar.
Because I have spent enough time trying to make myself palatable.
I want to learn how to be present in my own life without constantly worrying about whether everyone else is comfortable with my presence.
I don't want to spend my last year in my twenties perfecting the version of myself that other people find acceptable. I want to spend it getting to know the version of myself I've been too afraid to let the world see.
And maybe, for the first time, that will be enough.
With love,
K ❤️
