I will never have 88 inches of skinny model legs. I know what it feels like to be “the plain girl” and “the fat girl” and that is cool, because it freed me up to learn to be “the kind girl” and “the fun girl.” Life is short and so am I. Kindness, generosity, love, patience are all qualities that make those around us glow…and we all look skinnier in that kind of lighting :D. Real beauty is a white light we shine into the world, and we can only see it reflected in others. But, at the end of the day, none of that really matters when it comes to beauty. Hell, I have everything from a size 2 to a size 16 in my closet. The Kristen who keeps the new writer from giving up, who encourages the retiree who struggles to tweet. To me, THAT Kristen? SHE is the pretty one. I’ll admit that I still struggle with loving the Kristen I see in the mirror, but the cool thing is that I have learned to love the Kristen I see reflected in other people much more. Hey, at least I have legs that take me where I need to go. I remember retreating to the shadows near the escalator so no one would see me cry.įor those followers out there on the heavy side, what SADIST determined that African animals across the was a good idea? Oh this row of zebras across my derriere makes me look three sizes smaller! This giant hibiscus on my left boob makes me look so svelte!īut you know what? I am happy for that experience, and I am happy for my Thunder Thighs. I had tipped the scales, and, for the first time, I had to go over to the plus size section. I recall one time I gained a lot of weight after a nasty ankle injury. If anything stopped me from a regular workout, I gained weight quickly…all in my butt and thighs. Took someone with a good grip to free me from my denim snare.Īnd it was bad enough to have Thunder Thighs because I was fit, but later I struggled with my weight. By this time, I’d given up dance and taken up soccer, and my jeans were stuck on my calves. I remember one day my dad had to get involved. The skinny jean with the tapered ankle was in style and I would get stuck in my jeans…literally. The 80s were a dreadful time for somebody with 21 inch thighs. We can call Kristen a lot of things, but “willowy” ain’t one of them.Īnyway, a boy at school heard the “Horse Legs” comment and decided to up the ante and call me Thunder Thighs…which stuck. For the first time, I realized I was different. So were the ballerinas in the pictures on my wall. Suddenly, I realized that all the other girls in my ballet class were long and willowy. One day, a girl at recess called me “Horse Legs” and that was the first crack in my previously bullet-proof confidence. I dreamed that one day I would dance in NY, so I practiced for HOURS. I started ballet before I was four, and I never stopped dancing. See, I am only 5’4″ on a good day when all the planets are in line, and I am of…stockier build. Not like you are going to catch a husband with your looks.” And I suppose all of that was bad enough, but I had a nickname I never could escape and it bothered me far more than the remarks about my plain looks (yes, I was a late bloomer and thank GOD for makeup). Later, when I was sixteen a family member told me, “Kristen, it’s a good thing you are so smart. They still are DROP DEAD GORGEOUS and I love them both to pieces.Īnyway, when I was thirteen, I wanted to enter a modeling contest and the family laughed. And, in fairness, my cousins looked like Mila Jovovich and Darryl Hannah so it was hard not to look plain next to those two. And Kristen, she is so…smart.” I guess it was a compliment. Family members would say, “Oh, Cara and Sonja are just so gorgeous. I had two cousins who were stunning…then there was me. I was never the pretty one in the family. Let me start out with a little back story. I didn’t find out about it until my BFF Ingrid Schaffenburg asked me to look at her post for typos (check out her post here. I hadn’t planned on participating in August MacLaughlin’s Beauty of a Woman Blogfest.
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