It’s all relative…

When I moved here almost 2 years ago…I looked like this and my twins were 3 months old…

and was turning heads because I was getting in trouble for break dancing at the bar…(how old am I?)

…and probably felt like this…(I’m MOVING TO CAMBODIA…with THREE KIDS?!)

I was also about 170 pounds, breastfeeding (providing them) and had just given birth to ginormous twins and hadn’t seen my husband for a year…so looking good, you know, was sort of not on my mind…

I arrived in Phnom Penh feeling a little “fluffy” and scared to eat the food…

and I started running and the weight started coming off, but I still wasn’t really paying attention…except to the asshole who would give me granny panties 5 times to big for me…or the store clerk who would take stuff out of my hands and tell me I was too fat for it…or to the size when I had to buy a pair of running shorts and the XXXL was too small for me…or to the lady who came up to me at the tailors and just started poking…POKING my tummy and swatted my butt…or the guy who said, “You look…fat?  Is it fat?  Put on weight?  Is that the same thing?  Yes, you look fat, like you’ve put on weight.”

I think you kind of understand where I’m coming from…looking good wasn’t really on my mind…I’m hot and sweaty all of the time…getting food poisoning and crapping my brains out…people tell me I’m fat, am I pregnant, I’m black…like without batting an eye…

I get home, I start shopping a bit…taking, you know, the XXL into the dressing room to try it on…doesn’t fit…the XL…the L…the M…the Small??  What?  I’m a small?  Oh…wow…I sort of feel “good” again…like, I wanna blow dry my hair, put on some make up, wear some heels…wow…I’m a small…cool…

I see friends, they tell me I look great and I’m thinking to myself, wow…cool…this is kind of nice…

I’m not fat, I’m about 150 pounds…I run every day pushing my kids, I get sun when I’m playing with them outside, yes, I have a little tummy after having all those kids…but I ain’t lifting weights and spending hours at the gym…I’ve got three kids to raise…but I live in a world of 00 or smaller…where people tell you look fat or you’re too big…so I just don’t think about it…it’s not on my mind…

So thank you friends…for telling me my work has paid off…for telling me I look good…for reminding me that it feels good to “try”…

…and to the asshole who asked me the day after I got back from the states if I was expecting two more…well…I can’t really write what I said in my head to them…