Is it too early in my blog to rant?

So, like I mentioned, I was in Ocean City this past weekend and we went to a club, da club as 50 cent might say. Anyhow, nightclub situations can be tough for a fat woman - I am supposed to hide my body and be ashamed, not shake it like a polaroid picture and drop it to the flo'. I have always loved dancing and usually just surround myself with a group of friends so I don't have to interact with potential jerks.

That said, I have not come away unscathed in the past. I don't think I can tell you how many times a guy started to dance with me, then look over his shoulder to his friends and laugh - he was dared to dance with the fat girl. I have been heckled and pointed at. I wont say that those incidents aren't still hurtful, but the sting it not so sharp. I now know that my worth and that stranger's opinion of me have nothing to do with each other. Haters GON' HATE, you know.

This weekend, however, my hater was different, she was a female in a group of females, pointing at me and disapprovingly. She was commenting on how my bra was showing (ahem, for the record, I was wearing the cotton black dress from my double date post with a smokin' royal blue bra underneath. When it showed it was cute and intentional. Also, we were at a bar where the floor was sand, there were literally people in bikinis and flip flops there. We were not in the Vatican.)

I don't know if it's this blog, working on the fat bitch ecourse, the 3 shots I had, or what, but I was NOT having it. So I approached the girl and shouted over the music "CAN I HELP YOU?" Again, due to shots, not my best line, but, hey, I said something. She looked away indignant, but I was boiling mad. I told my girlfriends who helped me glare at them until they skulked away.  I don't know if this is the most positive/admirable reaction, but it felt like growth for me because in the past I would have taken that comment to heart and probably let it ruin my night.

But this just left me wondering - how can we, as women, build each other up? I think I know why that girl needed to tear me down, she was probably feeling uncomfortable in her own skin and I was an easy target. It took me almost 30 years to understand that love begets love, joy begets joy, and beauty begets beauty. How can younger women, who are fighting the tidal wave of the media, see the beauty in others so that they may better see the beauty in themselves?

This whole experience brought me back to a meditation class I had attended a few years ago. The instructor asked us to shine light, energy, and love to each and every person we know, one-by-one, and then to expand that love to our street, town, state, country, continent, hemisphere, to the whole world. While listening to him describe this exercise I got increasingly nervous - this is going to drain me! Give away all my energy!? What will be left for me?? At the end of that hour of radiating love, I floated out of that room on a sunny cloud of happiness. Sharing  joy, spreading love, wishing happiness, rather than draining me, had filled me so full.

Loving others is loving yourself, loving yourself is loving others. How can we spread this?