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Sometimes in life things happen and it totally jolts you. A bit like when you hit your bum on the corner of a table and the pain is excruciating yet logic tells you it shouldn’t hurt one bit. My jolt came whilst trying to achieve an ombré hair style and convincing my self my toe wasn’t broken (in fact it was and I’m sure the swelling is the reason I’ve put on 0.5lbs!)

I need to explain to you about my hairdresser. She is a total cow. (Well at least this was what my judgemental and tiny mind used to think)

The reason she is a cow is because she is one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen and coupled with this she is by far one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. She has a figure I would attempt to give up crisps for and don’t get me started on her perfect ,to the point of sick in my mouth,mane of lovely ashen locks. When I first met her I spent most of the time thinking how wonderful it must be to be beautiful and slim. She doesn’t wear a cloak of invisibility I thought, oh how happy she must be.

So a few appointments later and she is over at mine helping me to achieve some sort of hair colour that belongs in this century, and we get talking. She explains to me how she has to edit her pictures a million times before she will let any one see them online, she explains how she has a crippling anxiety over what people think of her and that her relationship with food is no better than mine. She tells me about how she used to be confident and doesn’t know where it’s gone. Then this lovely and kind woman says:

`Why can’t I just want to be me?`

And I feel like someone has ripped my waxing strip off my top lip without warning. No no no! I want to cry you have to want to be you because your everything I am convincing my self I should be and millions of women everyday are busting their bras to be like you!!!

And there it is ,the question I wander if anyone can answer `why can’t I just want to be me?` I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this question. I’ve been thinking about all the times when I was younger and I was proud of being me and I could look at a women like my hairdresser and think yeah your a babe but so am I.

I think about the years I genuinely didn’t care what others thought of me and I am drawn back to my hairdresser telling me the same.

Ladies when did it change? It makes me angry at myself that I lost so must admiration and pride for me. And it makes me just as sad to see a beautiful ,smart, intelligent women with a pot of hair dye in her hand telling me she doesn’t much like herself either.

Since that night something in me changed, the jolt, it smacked me round the face just enough to make a few trails of self respect awaken in me. Since then I’ve made a promise to myself not only am I going to get my wow back but I am going to want to be me.

I’ve had a tan and I’ve done my hair for two weeks using my sleep in curlers because I like myself when I have big hair and an in your face orange tan. I haven`t done it for anyone else but me and you know what, I reckon for at least a third of these two weeks I have actually been ok with being me.

I hope my hairdresser reads this and I hope that she has some days soon when she can say ‘ I want to be me’ And I want to apologise for thinking she was a cow, because deep down we all just want to like ourselves

your fatty x