Guest blogger SugarLeigh: And they worry that FAT is going to bring down the country/world?!

When I first read this, it struck me so deeply that I just had to ask SugarLeigh if she’d let me repost this here as a guest post.  Fortunately she said yes.

Listen up, Fat Haters. I have a tale to tell you. I’m angry. I’m very, very angry.

There’s something you should know, Haters. There’s something every small-minded jerk should know, every one who ever judged someone, maybe even someone they love, on the basis of how they look, and who has fretted to them about their health or well-being based on an arbitrary standard of any kind.

I’ve known loss, Haters. I know where loss comes from. I know what loss feels like. I know helplessness, I know fear, I know despair. You’re afraid to lose them? Your barbs, your jeers, your diatribes, they’re well-intentioned? Because you want to keep them close to you?

Here’s the thing, Haters. You CAN’T keep them. They’re not yours. They are themselves, and their story, like yours, is always being written by their secret heart and the Universe, and the end of their tale is not yours to dictate.

My baby sister, sixteen. One of my dearest friends, twenty-three. A girl I hung out with for most of my freshman year of high school, who always had a ready smile, in her early twenties. A classmate of one of the girls I talk to on Dogster, who wrote poetry and said that pink was for manly men, won’t see the first day of eighth grade. And as of today, as it turns out, one of my sister’s closest pals and in fact, one of her pallbearers joins the list, and he was my sister’s age… she’d have been twenty.

Fat did not take them, Haters. Nor did drinking nor drugs, nor smoking nor lack of exercise nor poor oral hygiene nor any of the long list of behaviors we see fit to judge others on, because it might potentially shorten their lifespan.

Cars, Haters. We drive them every day. They mean more death than any of your fear-mongered points of loathing.

How. Dare. You. HOW DARE YOU sit there and nag at people you love, and make them cry, and make them hate themselves, and say it’s for their good?! HOW DARE YOU?! YOU SELFISH MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD PIECES OF VILE, ODIOUS SHIT!!!!!! YOU HAVE THEM. YOU CAN SEE THEM, SPEAK TO THEM, TOUCH THEM. WHAT THE FUCK MORE DO YOU WANT?!

I would give anything to hold my sister one more time. I would do anything if it meant I could tell my friend the things I never said, could have made right by him, could have heard him tell me what was bothering him that he didn’t want to talk about that day. ANYTHING. And you, you smarmy, smug, know-it-all wise-asses, you could be holding these people to you, could be telling them how much they mean in your life and that you don’t want them to go, could be kissing them, laughing with them, holding their hands, and WHAT are you doing instead? Making them feel like SHIT, and for WHAT?! So you can feel righteous?! Go. To. HELL. Rot and die there. Practice coprophagia and expire, horribly.

I HATE IT. I HATE IT. I HATE IT AND I CAN’T STAND IT AND IT MAKES ME ANGRY.

They were not perfect, but they were good. And they are not here, but many, many people who only cause hurt to others ARE.

That’s the deal, Haters. Selfish Ones. You don’t know how good you have it. And you never know when it’s going to be snatched away from you, either, nor how, so you should enjoy the Now to the very fullest. When that person walks away from you, angry, upset, crying, and you think “no, I’m not going to say anything, I’ll talk to him/her tomorrow,” did it ever occur to you that there might not BE tomorrow? You don’t always have it. You’re not guaranteed it. Do you want tears to be your legacy with that person?

Life is more complex than what can be contained by one single philosophy. Each person contains worlds within worlds. Even when someone we love is truly hurting themselves, perhaps abusing a drug, or self-cutting, or anything at all, is it hate and fear and rage, so-called “tough love,” that they need? One more voice in the cacophony of hurtful dialogue in their head? Or is it perhaps your understanding? The notion that someone is there for them when they can’t be there for themselves? Regardless of your personal stance on what someone looks like, or on health, or on Fat, you still can’t “hate someone for their own good.” And why the fuck would you waste your time on hating when there’s so much love to be had before we die?

You have them. For a brief and precious instant, they are yours to hold. Do both of you a favor. Shut your mouth. And HOLD THEM.

kthnxbai.