Starting Over Sucks
Hands raised high in the air if you’ve ever intentionally avoided interacting with someone you know in public.
I see you… get that hand up. This is a 100% participation kind of poll, and I have exactly zero doubts that you are familiar with this scene:
You’re strolling through Target, eyes barely visible between mask and beanie, and you catch the swiftest glimpse of Karen, your quasi-friend from college who you still follow on Facebook, mostly because you’re astounded by the sheer volume of cute cat videos she shares on the socials.
You’ve not spoken for far too long, so conversation would be awkward, at best, but once you introduce the absence of facial expression, the whole encounter would go from awkward to unbearable in three seconds flat.
So, with lightning-quick prowess, you calculate the likelihood that you’ve already been spotted, and determining the risk to be worth the reward, you duck down the next aisle in one fell swoop. As you hold your breath, and hope you’ve blended in with the Magnolia Market candle display, Karen makes her way past you with nary a head nod, securing your safety and allowing you to fade back into blissful obscurity.
(But by the way… you’ve just EXPONENTIALLY increased the chances she’ll stand directly behind you in the checkout line, so gird your loins because the awkward convo is still coming for you.)
Now, I KNOW you know this scene. You’ve probably been on both sides of the experience, making this a landscape I’m certain you’ve navigated before.
Which is good.
Because unbeknownst to you, you’re navigating it again, right this very second.
In this case, I’m the beanie, you’re the Karen, and this blog…. Well, I’d like to think of it as the fuzzy blanket aisle, or something equally warm and inviting.
But don’t worry, I’m not going to haul ass the other direction.
I’m going to walk right up to you, and start this conversation, awkward re-entry notwithstanding.
You see, here’s the thing:
I feel like we used to be quite close, you and I. I would write. You would read. And then (my favorite part) you would write to me. You’d share your stories. You’d find your voice. You’d take up space. You’d help me make something magical.
ANd then I just sort of disappeared. Poof. Like a ghost.
And if we’re being really honest, I’m not sure why exactly. It isn’t that I intended to leave.
It’s just that this year… this year… THIS FUCKING YEAR.
I guess I just couldn’t find a way to write about it until I found my way through it first.
But much to my surprise, it does, indeed, appear I will be making it to the other side of 2020, and if you’re reading this, then the same appears to be true for you, too. So, I was thinking…. since we both still seem to be standing, what do you say we start over?
Yes, I know… starting over sucks. I am more of a perfect-on-the-first-pass kind of girl myself, but I promise it will be like finding a new therapist or deciding to move your body again after a lengthy hiatus… painful at first, but filled with welcome relief as we forge our way forward together.
So, what do you think? Are you willing to start over with me? Yes? GREAT! Then, I’ll go first:
I’m Sarah - the Founder of The Beautifull Project, and a fat-bodied believer in living a big, full life. I’m a mama, a wife to a wife, a woman recovering from a whole host of things, some of which matter, most of which are just places on the path that taught me how to be all of me.
I created The Beautifull Project for us, as a storytelling collective that invites us back to our bodies and home to ourselves, to create a world where every BODY belongs. And in some ways, I believe The Project was doing just that.. slowly, but surely, building an audience of women who wanted something different for themselves, for their daughters, for their sisters, wives, and mothers.
But in the spirit of starting over, I have to level with you all the way:
There were also many ways in which this space was failing to fulfill its mission, and I am determined to make sure that changes in the days ahead.
If 2020 taught me nothing else, it taught me that I’m not always able to be the teacher. It taught me to be silent. To be a student. And after a year of hard lessons, this is what I’ve learned:
We will never make a world where every BODY belongs if we are always centering my story, or the stories of people who look like me, live like me, and love like me.
We have to do better than that. And we will.
Over the next 12 months, you will hear from 12 different women - all with a lived experience much different from my own (and according to my website analytics, also much different from your own,) and while I do hope that each of us is able to draw from these stories for our own healing, our own healing isn’t the end game.
The end game is that we deconstruct and dismantle the systems of oppression that are fatal to you, to me, and to every body in between.
The end game is that we write a new ending to the human story.
The end game is that we use what we’ve learned to make a world where every BODY belongs.
In short, we aren’t here to feel better. We are here to be better, so that we can do better.
So, let’s start over, shall we? Sure, it sucks. But every good thing in my life has sucked at least a little, and beginnings can be often be the best part, so let’s not let a little sucking stop us.
And I am more certain than I’ve ever been that this work matters, that I’m in it for as long as I’ve got breath in my lungs, and that I want you in it with me.
So, come with me. We’ve got work to do.
Do you have a story to shout or share? Take a seat. Tell your story.
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