Incredible Shrinking Tuck---Growing Up as the Fat Kid

I have never been small, although I have been thinner. Though, I would not know that from what people have told me.

I broke the 100 pound barrier somewhere between 3rd and 4th grade. The two hundred barrier between 8th and 9th grade. And the.....well that is nont of your business.

I have always been picked on for being fat, even when in retrospect I was not. And as far as I can tell, this criticism has only made me heavier.

Since I was young, I have always been difficult to buy clothes for. My grandma yelled at me that I was just like my mother and impossible to buy clothes for because of my size, nevermind that her, my grandfather, and my father were all bigger than momma ever thought of being. (Aint that right mom!)That was in like second or third grade.

As a child I was hit, and then people ran away from me because they knew I was not fast enough to catch them.

My level of fitness and fatness depended upon my athletic activity. No athletic activity. Soft Friar. Lots of sports. Fit friar. No athletic activity. Depressed Friar. Lots of athletic activity. Happy Friar.

Transitions have never been good for my weight either. Parents divorce--Gain weight. Move schools--Gain weight. Change schools--gain weight. Move from school to work--gain weight. Move jobs--while this job so far I am down from when I started here. I moved once in first grade, once in fourth grade, and twice in ninth grade. All bad, bad years.

Once in middle school, the difficulties got worse. The coach refused to issue me a belt in eighth grade football. So, I tripped and my pants fell down in the middle of a game. The girls played this game with me where they would pretend to like me until I believed them, and then mocked me for believing that anyone would EVER like someone like me. I got de-pantsed at least once a week.

My saving grace in the middle of all this was my senior year in high school. I was easily the fittest I had been in my entire life, running 5 miles and day and lifting weights before wrestling practice. I was Male Athlete of the Year for my school. And socially I was admired because I hadn't played the popularity game to become popular, I had just become a person everyone liked and could get along with. And, where many of my coaches put me down because of my size, I had one coach who believed in me. I ended up third in state in wrestling, and captain of my football and wrestling teams. No girlfriend though. There's not a woman I cannot scare!

As a child, and even as an adult, people have always tried to make me feel like I was less than because I am bigger. I am now in my early 30s, and finally at a point where I dont necessarily like the way I look, but I can live with it and accept it for the most part. Even if others cannot.