What defines You? Size Label or Self-Love

This blog is extremely personal to me, there are just a handful of people who know about it, because this was my insecurity and I am aware that this is a very common issue for a lot of us. I hope it helps!

Ever since my childhood, I’ve always been this chubby kid whom everyone loved. They loved my chubby cheeks, san dimple, long curly hair and, squishy hands and legs. It won’t be untrue to say that I was the star, everyone’s favorite, and I loved every bit of it. Even after 22 years, each and every person who met me when I was a child, still has a perfect memory of it.

Eventually, I grew up and so did my chubbiness. I wouldn’t say I was extremely obese, but yes, I was overweight, but that didn’t bother me much until friends started calling me fat, and mind you, kids can be really mean, but lucky for me, nothing got to that extent because my friends knew where they had to draw their lines even at a young age of 7 and 8 years.

Clothes for children always have the age of the kids attached to them so that it is easier to know which size fits whom. So it’s like 0-1 years one category, 1-2 years another category, then it goes up, and the highest I've seen was for 15 years and 16 years. All this that I’m talking about is the local shops and not Zara kids or H&M kids, nor anywhere near the luxury kids collection that brands like Versace or Gucci or DG or any of those have. I’m talking about authentic Indian local shops which have been our provider of the latest trends that we always wanted.

So, as I said, clothes are divided into age groups, however, those labels never really seemed like coinciding with my age after probably the age of 7 or 8. I always wore clothes that had the label of 12 years or 13 years, but I was too young to even think about it. All I really cared about was getting new clothes, whatever the label may say. However, as I grew older, I became selective about the clothes that I wore, like very selective, and the local shops changed to local malls. There I came to know about sizes, the waist size, the t-shirt size, everything. I’ve been wearing jeans since a very young age, like most of us, we were the generation where it was more like a staple piece of clothing.

This was the place where the shopkeepers talked a lot, giving all his/her views and opinions. As I said, the norm size never did fit me, and I always wore bigger sizes because that’s what I felt comfortable. But here you had to buy clothes, especially jeans or denim, whatever you call it because that is what I wore a lot, according to waist sizes and my waist size always made me buy clothes that were made for bigger people, not plus size but for people who are older. It was defined that you should have a certain waist size at a certain age and if you don't then they get all judgemental. The shopkeepers would say ‘ye jo aap size le rahe hain ye bade log ko fit hota hai’ or ‘apke age wala size apko fit hona chahiye par nahi ho raha hai’ and more.

These statements were not a good thing to listen, especially when you had to hear them a lot often, and then being yelled by others that ‘you’re so fat, nothing fits you’ in front of everyone. I had no clue how it was my fault that I wasn’t the norm size. And then on I dreaded going to shop for my clothes, in fact, I hated it to the extent that I started wearing anything that was given to me, even though it made me look like a fool, I started hating getting clicked AND I have evidence of that too! I mean, looking at those pictures, I cannot imagine how could I wear clothes that looked that hideous, not even kidding, because I'm someone who would wear something only if I felt good and happy, and I clearly felt nothing of those two!

So, as a way to escape listening to such statements, I started wearing clothes that were actually smaller than my actual size. Jeans that were a size or even two smaller than my actual size, causing those red lines around the waist, but nothing mattered to me as long as I could say that I fit into the size that a girl of my age ‘SHOULD’ fit into, and trust me it was even painful at times. But that didn’t matter, I made myself to tolerate it. And I kept doing this to myself for a lot of years, about 10 years, and I'm not even exaggerating the number. I made myself go through this terrible terrible thing for 10 long years, my entire school life, and it was not easy. But I am a very stubborn person in this way, which is a horrible thing, and I will never encourage this, ever.

I had already gotten into fitness, I’m not talking about the gym, but exercising in the house, on and off and that somehow made me feel better, slowly I started gaining confidence and then I started understanding that what I had been doing for all these long years was so wrong. It was so wrong that I felt sorry for myself, and rolled into self-pity.

And then I decided to change, change for my betterment. I told myself, it does not matter what size clothes I wear if my denim waist is 34 inches or 30 inches if I’m wearing a top that is size L or S, it does not demean who I am. For the first time in so many years, I started to like me, to accept me, and to love me. It took me 10 years to break this wall for myself and I know that there are many more people out there, girls and boys, who are still dealing with self doubt, and feel that it is not okay to hurt oneself in order to fit inside the box and they will have their own process and take their own time to understand this, and that maybe that box is not for them, maybe they are here to break that box, make a place without any boundary. They have to allow themselves to take their time towards self-care and self-love, it's your healing process, but once you reach to the result, you’ll be your favorite person, I can vouch for it, and my friends are a proof of that!

This is my story, what’s yours? Share your experience and opinion down in the comment section or on the Facebook page @theuralway or on my Instagram handle @theuralway.

Until next time,

Love & Hugs.