For as long as I can remember, I’d been overweight.
As a result, I was always subjected to comments from people, especially family,
Comments about how fat I was,
Whether as a child, teenager, or young adult.
I was always told that I needed to lose weight,
That I was not nice to look at,
And that I would never find a husband because of my body.

At 21, I went abroad to study for my master's degree,
And it was the most stressful time of my life.
I had no time for myself, no time to cook, no time to do anything but study.
Naturally, I've put on extra weight.

When I went back home during a week-long break,
The first thing people told me when they saw me was,
"Wow, you've gotten even fatter."
After being gone for a year, I wasn't greeted with a "Hello, we miss you!"
Or even a "How have you been?"
Just more unwarranted comments about my body.

A year later, when my master's program was coming to a close,
And the level of stress I was facing significantly decreased,
I finally had the time to cook my meals and go to the gym.
I finally had time for self-care and to enjoy my life.

Just by cooking my own food, I dropped some weight,
And I started seeing some muscle definition, which I loved!
So I started lifting heavier and working harder at the gym.
A few months passed by.
I became much smaller than how my family remembered me.
I had also become quite muscular for a woman,
But I enjoyed it and liked my progress at the gym.

Dad decided to pay me a visit as he hadn’t seen me in a year.
After I picked him up from the airport,
He commented about how I needed to gain some weight and stop going to the gym,
Because I had become "too skinny, too muscular, and too manly."
He even dared to ask if my fiancé was okay with my new body,
And if he was still attracted to me.
He never once asked whether I,
The person actually living in the body,
Was happy with my body.
It seemed like everyone felt entitled to give their opinions about my body except myself.

Moral of the story:
When I was overweight, people said I was too fat.
When I got thinner,
People said I lost my femininity.
That I needed to gain some weight back to avoid being "too muscular."
Screw everyone else's opinion.
People are never happy.
You just need to make yourself happy.