A while ago, I was whining to the Elastic Waist editor about how I used to run around with my head in a bubble about weight issues. But after I joined the team on the site, I've now quadrupled my time spent looking at gossip sites that snark about size 6 women being overweight or worrying about whether or not Kim Kardashian is stuffing those jeans (she isn't--guess what, not everyone fits the cookie cutter mold, nor should they). In the meantime, as empowering as this site is, I've felt my own self-confidence as a fat girl starting to dwindle. When on vacation in Las Vegas with my best friend, he remarked that I seemed to have lost some of my oomph and general swagger, and I had to agree. I noticed that anywhere I'd go, I would stare at other women, and in my head, rank them by size and shape. Where before I had two classifications (Fat and Not Fat), now I was seeing everyone sorted and sized like a sale rack at Banana Republic. Size 2, size 4, size 6, size Oh My God What Is Happening To Me?

I relayed this to the editor. What the fuck, I theorized; it's like I was being the filter for all of that toxicity on the Internet, internalizing all of the insanity in exchange for a link and a blurb on Tasting Menu that raises the eyebrow at the asshats who write gossip sites and the commenters who love them. So basically, I'm the weight media version of a Brita water pitcher?

"Write about it!" she said, because she is wise and knows me probably better than I do. "Use it, channel it into a rant!" That sounded great, except that I didn't really have the answer. How could I write about something and sound all official-y and smart if I was more fucked up than the world at which we're pointing our fingers? Physician, cure thyself, it seems and ow, my head and also, does this font make me look fat?

And then, over the course of a week, a mighty triumvirate of occurrences. First of all, I went to the doctor and found out that yes, my fears were correct and I had regained every ounce of weight I had lost a few years ago and I am back to almost my heaviest point. There's no denying, no pretending, no interesting way to stand in pictures to mask the pounds. It is what it is.

Last week's episode of the weirdly compelling VH1 show The Pickup Artist had a challenge in which they forced all of the geeky socially awkward men into really unflattering Speedos (wait, that's an oxymoron, isn't it?) and then surrounded them with beautiful women in bikinis. Joe D.--who was so overweight that when he sat down, his flesh actually hid the Speedo completely and gave him the appearance of being naked--came out as the winner of the challenge, and Tommy Lee-wannabe (and weirdly hot) guru Mystery reminded all of his geeklings that being self-conscious is wasted energy because every woman out there was self conscious about themselves too. During our fun weekend in the swimming pool, I looked around and realized that every one of us in that pool had body issues with the exception of Ian, who is one of those people who can eat and eat and eat and it slides off of his lean frame like melted butter (mmm...butter). But the rest of us, boys and girls alike, all worried about how we looked in our mostly bare naked skin.

The third thing that happened was my utter and complete uglification. Normally, I always have a perfect manicure, but a dalliance with artificial nails for the trip to Las Vegas has left my natural nails in a horrible state, weak and thin and full of weird ridges, so instead of a lustrous shiny set of 10, I have stubby little weird PEZ nails that make me hate the sight of my hands every time I look down (although I have to admit, typing is a hell of a lot easier). Then, days before Mopie's wedding, I got a mysterious black eye. I was traveling for business (and thus, sleeping alone in a locked hotel room) and my face was perfect when I washed it before bed, but when I was putting my make up on in the morning, I noticed a black mark under my left eye that looked like a little weird black pea, and then over the course of a week, spread into a classic Little Rascals shiner. I tried to give it street cred, referring to it as my Left Eye Lopes, but it just doesn't fly when you're the whitest girl in the world. If that weren't bad enough, I have über-sensitive skin and a lot of weird allergies. And during our little impromptu pool party that Anne wrote about over here, instead of walking all the way up to my room to reapply my standard Lock Your Baby In A Lead Shield brand of kid's sensitive sunscreen, I grabbed my friend Shannon's 70 SPF facial sunscreen that was a brand typically known for being super mild and all Swedish and wholesome. Of course, you already know what happened, and sadly, where were you when I was being stupid? You could have stopped me!

The first stage of an allergic reaction means that my lips go all Angelina Jolie, which is sort of attractive except that I don't feel as though I have the face that lends itself to gigantic trout lips. Then my face starts to swell as the hives spread, turning me from a marginally attractive person to a swollen red pie of a face with gigantic porn star lips. And then, the hives start to have a little rave on my face, turning it into a bumpy, scaly mess.

Hot, right?

So imagine if you will, all semblance of attraction is gone. Not only am I feeling like my body is occupying more space than normal, but even on fat days, I had the "such a pretty face" to fall back on. Except now, thanks to a tragic confluence of circumstances, I did not even have that. I felt like donning a bag over the head, à la John Merrick, and telling people not to look directly at me, lest they damage their eyesight.

And with all of that, something clicked. My face looked like it was molting and the shirt I had bought three weeks ago (but didn't try on because I have been the same size for two years) didn't fit, and yet, somehow it didn't matter. While I was driving around, I had a little pudgy belly that would sit up at attention in my lap like an incorrigible puppy, and I'd rest my hand on it and say, "There, there." When I would meet people, they would stare at my leprosy and the constellation of hives on my throat (that if you didn't know what hives looked like, you'd think was acne) and they'd touch their own face, as though to see if it were catching, and I'd just chuckle to myself, because at that point, what can you do? Everything I was ever afraid of had just come true, and yet, I survived. I was still strong, still smart, still could twist a fun turn of phrase and charm the hell out of my clients and cause one guy to visibly pout when I told him I was heading home a day earlier than expected. It didn't matter that I looked like I had some kind of creeping crud on my face and was wearing pants that looked a little too short because they weren't hanging right. It just didn't matter.

And that, right there, is perspective and power. Everything I was afraid of doing, because I was too fat or my skin was having a bad face day or my nails weren't perfectly manicured, was a wasted opportunity for fun and adventure, plus it filled my head with toxic self-hate talk that just propagates bad feelings and makes me feel miserable. Why? There is no answer. The world still turns when all of those things are not in place. I can't change the present and I can't change the big factors of how I look but I can change the way I think.

And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

--Weetabix