Me at almost 75kg. Image: Tunde Raphael. |
So
recently, I put on a lot of weight: or better put, I have become fuller! I
know this because most of my clothes are small now that I have to get a new
wardrobe. When I say most, I mean my pants (trousers: get your mind out of the
gutter), skirts and certain dresses. I have always bought bigger clothes
because I don’t like clingy clothes and I am the type of girl who would wear
something I like for years and years until it becomes threadbare and begs to be
thrown away. When I am slim, and by slim I mean my lowest weight of 62kg, my
clothes are like baggy dresses (which I am happy with) and when I am at my full
weight of 70kg, they are a bit snug but not so tight that all my curves (real
and imagined) are out there for all to see…well, until recently: I weigh 75kg
now.
My new
weight is centered around my derriere (blushing to my roots) and thighs.
Though I am never one who is bothered (much) by my weight, I am ecstatic about
my new body! Growing up, I used to be straight as a ruler. I have always wanted
to be curvy, hoping that one day I would wake up with Toolz’s body. My best
friend is this curvy mama and I dare say that is the only point on which I am
jealous of her. Anyway, when I put on this weight, the first thing I noticed
was that I had problems getting my pants (trousers again, focus!) over my
derriere to my waist. After more than 25 years, God finally gave me the body I
wanted! I am curvy baby! I am now a budding pear! Dancing the Konga!
For the
past few weeks, I have been enjoying how my new curves fit into my clothes,
though I need new stuff: emphasis on ‘need’! What I haven’t been enjoying are
the stares! Though I am a confident woman, I am not comfortable with men
staring at me. Okay, I will stop lying: I hate men staring at me! It gets me
annoyed when men stare, especially when I can see the lascivious or leering
looks in their eyes. I guess people will stare anyway so when I see anyone
staring, I put on my mean mug which, 99% of the time, gets the man to look
away. I may be all fire inside but with my mean mug, I become the evil ice
queen…and I have realized that no one wants to mess with her! Buhahaha!
Anyway,
worse than the ‘starers’ are the people who constantly feel the need to tell me
that I am fat. I get this every day! Some people are subtle and would just
go, ‘Ramat, you have put on weight. Your trip home must have been very
good’ to which I would reply that I had gone back to my original
weight. Others would see me from afar and shout, ‘OH MY GOD! RAMAT, YOU
ARE SO FAT!’ In my head I go, ‘And you are so dumb!’ but
outwardly, I would smile and tell them, ‘Yes, I am. And I am happy with
MY body.’ They have this reaction because they have only seen a slim me: again, I must say that I am big-boned and can never be Dija slim. Since I came
to Yola, my weight always hovered between 62 and 65kg. So the extra 10kg is
freaking them out.
The
people I mentioned above are not the ones this article is for. There is a
special class that walks up to me and says, ‘Ramat, you are too fat!
You BETTER start doing some exercise and stop eating TOO MUCH food.’ When I
hear something like that, my ratchet side begs me to take off my earrings and
pull up my sleeves. I am no fighter but I have been tempted so many times that
my mind needs anger management! I better exercise?! I must stop eating too
much food?! I am like ‘Nigga, is you cra’y?! You done lost your mind?!
Smoked some cheap weed?!’ I usually smile and tell them that their
opinion about my body is of no importance to me. Somehow, that riles them up
and they start huffing and puffing. Imagine the nerve!
I got
into it one day with a guy who was so angry that I told him I love MY body the way
it is. He went ham! ‘Ramat, this is not good oh. You are finer when you
are slimmer. You BETTER go and lose that weight...and fast! In fact, I will
come to your house so that we can start jogging! Ha ahn! You are too fat now!’ Before
I proceed, I want to explain my relationship with this guy. He is a colleague
whom I just say ‘Hello, Hi’. We are not friends, we don’t work in the same
unit, he knows nothing about me, and vice versa. So, to continue, I smiled and
said, ‘Hmmm….first, I love MY body the way it is. Second, MY weight is
in no way YOUR concern and finally, I may be finer when I am slim but you are
wiser when you are quiet. Maybe you should shut up more.’ I smiled and
batted my eyes. The guy was quiet for some seconds…and then he walked away.
Only my close friends would have known that I was red hot mad! How dare
he?!
It
reminded me of a time when a corps member also assigned to my place of primary
assignment had a problem with my eyebrows. I always say that my eyebrows are
perfect and I would never shave/shape them. This girl wanted me to shape them.
I said no. She pressed. I said no again. She kept pressing for weeks. I
remained adamant. One day, we were on a tricycle and she was sitting directly
opposite me. When I couldn’t stand the scrutiny anymore, I asked her why she
was staring at me. The scrutiny was so intense that I thought she wanted to
make a move and ask me to be her lover or something. She frowned and
said, ‘Ramat, I have been asking you to shape your eyebrows and you
have refused. Can’t you see how bushy it is?! In fact let me tell you, I am
very irritated with them and I cannot stand them! Mtchewww! You are a fine girl
but with those eyebrows, you look irritating.’ I was shocked! I was so
shocked my sarcastic mask didn’t come up for a few seconds. When it finally
did, it was too late to make a worthwhile rebuttal. I looked away and
had tears come to my eyes. I am not a crying person but I was so hurt that day.
True to her word, she stopped speaking to me until we finished our service. And
all because I wouldn’t shape my eyebrows!
Another
memory that comes to mind is how people call my hair 'bushy' because I decided
that I wanted to carry my natural hair the way it is. If I had N1,000 for every
time I was told to retouch/relax my hair, I would be a millionaire now! This
has happened in church, in the office, and even with my hair stylist! The other
day, my hair stylist hired a new help. When I got to the salon and released my
hair, the new girl kept complaining about how she wouldn't wash 'this bush'! I
was so mad that I reminded her that my money paid her salary. I know: it was a
low blow but I felt so bad. I didn't see the reason why a hair stylist felt she
also had a right to complain about something on my body. I got up to leave the
shop when my stylist apologized and told the girl to leave the shop. You can
rest your mind: she was not fired...though that would have been appropriate!
There is
a plus-size girl in my office who gets all sorts of flak when she is eating.
People ask her questions like, ‘Are you not tired of eating?’ ‘Are you not
too fat to be eating that plate of rice? Or drinking that fura da nono?’, ‘How
many yards did they use to sew that shirt?’. She keeps breaking down
and crying and I keep going to bat for her. I called her one day and told her
to woman up, to stop crying, to eat her meals, to wear her clothes, and to look
good! There is also another colleague who is slim but spends almost all his pay
on food. He is quite frankly a glutton but no one brings him to book because he
is slim. They want my girl to stop eating because she is plus-sized. No one
bothers to find out that she has such a warm personality, or that she is
orphaned and already taking care of her sister when she is barely a child
herself. No one cares that she is a direct victim of the Boko Haram insurgency,
having watched her father killed by the insurgents, or that she is only doing
the job to send herself to school. All they see is a fat girl!
In
school, everyone felt it was okay to call my best friend, ‘That black Yoruba
girl’. It started when we were in SS1 and our Mathematics teacher called her
that in class. I remember that day clearly, I remember the uproar of mocking
laughter when he said that, the way she hung her head, the fierce angry look on
my face, and the muffled laughter when the teacher brought the class back to
order. I didn’t see a dark-skinned girl: I saw my friend! My best friend! Many
people wanted her to bleach her skin so that she could be more acceptable to
them. Many people even bought her the creams! If she wasn’t such a confident
person, she would have caved! Today, she is a pilot, the first female pilot
from her state, and right now, the only female pilot with her airline. Even at
that, when I share posts about her, people still say, ‘Oh! Isn’t she
that black Yoruba girl?’ Recently, an old schoolmate saw an ode I
gave to her and asked me to ‘get him the contact of the dark one’.
I was livid! He couldn’t remember her name yet he wanted her contact. Mtchewww!
Please!
A few years
ago when I was serving, an older corps member came out of our lodge and I
said ‘Bro James, you look so good! Wow!’ He told me to stop
mocking him. I was thrown off balance. What was that all about? I told him I
was serious. He responded thus; ‘I have always been told I am ugly. So ugly
me can look good?’ I wanted to cry! He went further to tell me that he
didn’t smile a lot unless he was comfortable with people. This is because he
had been told that smiling made him uglier and the less he smiled the better
for the people who had to look at his face. Imagine a man in his 30s so ashamed
of his smile because of what people said that he never smiled in public! People
forced him to stop smiling since it was not palatable to them!
People
spend so much time attaching labels to other people’s bodies. The labels could
be a slight prick or feel like an arm forcefully pulled out of you. ‘Fat’,
‘ugly’, ‘tar, charcoal or dirty black’, ‘albino’, ‘short’, ‘poor’, ‘lower
class’, and many such derogatory terms are commonly thrown out with no regard
for the person. I am not worried about that. I become mad when you want to
force a person to fit into your description of what they should look like!
Again I ask, who the flying hell are you?! How dare you?!
This then
is my conclusion: anyone who fixates on the physical attributes of a person so
much so that they want to change them is shallow, jobless, has a low IQ, and is
unable to reason! I stand unapologetic on that conclusion! Most times, a
person’s physical attributes cannot be changed (though cosmetic surgery may
render that statement void). So forcing a person to lose confidence in their
perceived flaws is evil and wicked. I may not be bothered by people’s opinions
but many people are. This has left lots of people with little or no confidence
and self-worth, leading them to make decisions that go further to affirm their
lack of these qualities.
If you
are one of such people, I will say this directly to you; my body is not your problem! The way I look is not your issue; my weight is not your business; my skin color has nothing to do with your ideals and quite frankly, your perception of my beauty is definitely not my problem! The sooner you get that
through your head, the better it will be for you! Thank you!
And to my
friends who have been brought down by other people’s ideals of what you ought
to look like, I want to tell you to be you! You are beautiful, awesome,
desirable, glorious, and important just the way you are! If no one has told you,
hear this today: I AM PROUD OF YOU! If you must change anything about your
life, make yourself more refined, more intelligent, more giving, more eager to
help others, more willing to solve society’s and life's problems, and
better still, learn how to be more pleasing to your Creator: the only ONE whose
opinion really matters!
So ‘Roar’
as Katy Perry sang and when Kendrick Lamar says you don’t need ‘No Makeup’, or
in your case, no bleaching cream, no cosmetic surgery, no high heels, no
clinging dresses, no flat tummy, you best believe him!
I urge
you to listen to J. Cole’s ‘Crooked Smile’ over and over again and jump-start
your confidence. You rock...just the way you are!
You are simply amazing and yes, you are beautiful just the way you are!!!
ReplyDeleteMy darling! Thank you very much!
Delete'Nigga, is you cray?! You done lost your mind?! Smoked some cheap weed?!’ hehehe.
ReplyDeleteEveryone is beautiful the way they are. To mock their natural looks or physique is to mock God. God is perfect.
Nice piece. .again
Thank you
LOL! Yeah! 'To mock their natural looks or physique is to mock God. God is perfect' is such an epic response! I love it so much! Thank you
DeleteOh My!!! I wish everybody will get to read this piece. I think we have been guilty in one way or the other. This is not just good but great! You are an incredible writer. Thank you
ReplyDeleteOh my friend! I feel honored! Thank you for reading and for the warm compliment! I'm so grateful! Thank you so much
ReplyDeleteSuch a delightful read! Your ability to present 'anger' with such deft humour and sharp wit is a skill that many writers only dream about. Will definitely be back here. Signed, new fan!
ReplyDeleteAwwww! I feel so honored. Thank you!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThe beauty of putting smiles on people's faces and giving voice to the voiceless who are screaming inside because of others opinion. You are blessed
ReplyDeleteThank you dearie! You are the best
DeleteRamat, excellent stuff. One love.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Very grateful!
DeleteI love your confidence, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading. I am grateful!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNice piece u got. Missed u Ramat.
DeleteAWWW! Thanks dear.
DeleteThis is good dear.keep it up.
ReplyDeleteNice one and better ........look good dear
ReplyDelete