FatCon Seattle, prologue

Good morning. That is, it is 1:56 am on the 5th of January, 2024, so I suppose it’s technically morning. It is technically morning, after midnight and before noon, Pacific Standard Time, and it is definitely anxiety time.

This is my first missive from FatCon Seattle, and there are reasons I’m writing to you in the middle of the night. (I really don’t even call anything before 3, “nightmorning.”) Basically, I’ve been anxious and lonely since 5:30 pm, and haven’t been able to sleep more than a chunk at a time. 11–12:15. 12:30–12:45. 1:10 or so–1:45. It’s not pretty. And part of my sleep issue here is physical discomfort. The bed in my ADA room is very high and difficult for me to get into comfortably. That’s frustrating because ADA-designed beds are supposed to be lower than than this. At 5’9”, I should be able to sit on the edge of a bed comfortably, I think, but no. I also need more pillows—a remediable situation. 

So there’s all that. There’s the stress that was part of getting here, navigating driving a mobility scooter for the first time, and ordering and eating a dinner that was both overpriced and mediocre. There’s also the onset of some charming semaglutide side effects that came on a bit after I arrived. At least they weren’t happening while we were on our way here. 

Anxiety Time

I mentioned up there, though, at the top, that it is “anxiety time.” 

As I told a dear friend this evening, I am having some imposter syndrome and rampaging Wandering Anxiety. Am I enough of a fat liberation advocate to warrant being here? Will be ambivalence about being fat shine through and make it clear that I don’t belong? Will my middle-aged fabulosity be received well, or am I too old to be cool? (That is a question I can honestly say I have never asked until yesterday.) Will I get COVID?

My anxiety is just jumping around, attaching to whatever is the nearest thing. I know that. It’s what it does. It’s why addressing the anxiety directly and not just the things it’s nattering on about is so important. It’s why, during each period of sleeplessness (except this one), I have just practiced breathing and trying to drift off or at least rest. It’s why, when I thought, “I have to get out of here. This isn’t going to work. Oh my gods, I’m trapped here for three more days!” I recognized that anxiety was running the show. 

I can attend to the young, scared part of myself that was always—cue stereotype music (you know, something with horns saying, “wah wahhhhh”)—chosen last for every sport or game. I can attend to the young part of me that always felt on the outside, looking into the lives of people who seemed so much happier, more beautiful, more at ease than I was. I can attend to all these parts and others, and bring compassion to them. 

As Thich Nhat Hahn advised, I can lay my hand along my cheek, close my eyes, and say to myself, “Darling, I care about this suffering.” Try it. It’s amazing.

Everything is Probably Going to be Okay

Furthermore, as my brother says in cases like this, “Everything is probably going to be okay.” Everything about my time here is probably going to be okay. I don’t have to go to anything that feels too overwhelming or like it’s too many people crowded into a too-small space.  I can work on making this bed comfy for me, and not getting purple hair dye on too many pillow cases. 😏I can have dinner with my dear friend tomorrow, up here in my room, and we’ll have lovely conversation and time pleasantly spent.

But I want to have an amazing, Chunky-Dunk-style time here. I want to be a fat femme among other fat femmes and look around and see all our gorgeous, lush brilliance. For that matter, I’d like to be a brilliant fat femme around some fat gentlemanly butches. Mrawr.

In point of fact, though, I don’t feel brilliant at all. I had a “feeling fat-in-a-bad-way”/”bad body” moment a few hours ago. Thanks to a critical eye turned to my naked body in the bathroom mirror, I thought, “There is no way that Shoog, or anyone else, for that matter, can make this body look anything but ugly.” 

Beauty’s Danger

Or maybe that’s not true. Maybe I’m laboring under a deeper and broader effect of compulsory beauty. Not the beauty of self-expression. That beauty is important to me, and I hope it always is. Dangerous beauty, though, is the beauty that depends we must be, if not thin, at least unmarked, young, and subject as little as possible to gravity. Whereas my body is bumpy and swollen in places, scarred in others, and tattooed with ink over 30 years old that has lost sharp edges it had when I was a sweet young summer child.

Nevertheless, my thighs embrace the bodies of lovers. My hands touch sweetly and call out pleasure. My mouth is made for kissing, whether or not I have painted my lips with color. I run my hands over my belly and the rolls of fat that ride on all sides of my torso, and I think how soft I am. Soft, so soft. Soft and inviting, warm and gentle-feeling, my body delights in the acts of love and pleasure that the Charge of the Goddess says are Her rituals. All this, all this soft tenderness, is here and now, on the cusp of 51.

But when I was sick, I was puffed up like a water balloon. I look at videos of myself from 2021, and I am just struck by how puffy my face was, how small my eyes appeared, and how much I was struggling. At that time there were parts of my body that were bouncy, even firm (because they were retaining fluid like there was no tomorrow). My body is looser now, wrinklier, just generally saggier than ever it was before. 

I am turning 51 in a month. The magical Year of 50 is coming to an end. And some changes in my body have come in this magical year. Some are due to getting healthier and more mobile by not having all those layers of retained fluid on my body. Some of the changes are likely due to weight loss since being on the semaglutide. I have certainly noticed other changes, like moving around more easily in my body than I could months ago, and those kinds of changes are splendid. They are, among others, the fruits I’m looking for with this whole semaglutide experiment. Having lots more wrinkles appear in a short time, watching my body fall into the faithful embrace of gravity…well, I’ll take it if I can get out of a pool by the steps. Still, my vanity is a little bit hurt. Still, I feel ugly.

By the way what am I identifying as ugly? Just out of curiosity, Qira, what makes it ugly?

What FatCon Seattle Might Be

I need to entertain the idea that the only ugliness is on the inside. That the sociopathic leadership to which those of us in the US and around the world are subject is ugly. That turning away from suffering and not acknowledging the sacredness of those with whom we share this planet is ugly. There are so many uglinesses, and I don’t think my sagging, fat, aging body is among them. Not really.

‘I am not a stranger to the dark. / “Hide away,” they say, / “we don’t want your broken parts.” / I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars. / “Run away,” they say, / “No one’ll love you as you are….” / ‘I am brave, I am bruised / I am who I’m meant to be….I’m not scared to be seen / I make no apology. / This is me.’ (“This is Me” from The Greatest Showman, a somewhat problematic film, perhaps, but I love the song.)

Hide away – Run away – No one will love you 

I am brave – I am bruised – I am who I’m meant to be – I’m not scared to be seen

I make no apology

That’s what I hope FatCon is for me: I hope for a place and time where I learn to make no apologies for taking up the space I take up, to appreciate my body/my self as it is in any given moment, to touch and feel and delight in the softness of this body. These knees that hurt sometimes. This belly that hangs down like properly mixed choux batter. These breasts, which are, despite any unflattering descriptions, nevertheless, “twin pillars of strength and beauty, [with a] true heart that beats within.”

I have my first photo shoot in about 9 hours. In the meantime, I have a bagel date with a friendly acquaintance with whom I used to have coffee in the Before Times. Our date will be lovely. I shall get checked into the con, and maybe attend the opening ceremonies, and then I have my first photo shoot. 

Let us hope community, connection, and compassion win the day, shall we? Wish me luck!