Dating Whole - Embracing Big Love after a not so big dating scene for girls like me.

Thing about romcoms, is that they will make you dream. But, the dream often looks one way. This has been the reality with many storylines and genres, evident across movies, series, scripts, actors and actresses we know and love.

With these stories, we are taught to idealise love, spend our life looking for the one, dress up and go for dates, look forward to anniversaries and valentines all while subconsciously carrying the 'frames of love' on our TV screens and fitting them into our realities.

The month of love, February, has always been a trigger for me. But this had to be different.

A shift from the old, to finally look at love as an abundant source from my own self, filling all the spaces I enter with the Whole of me. It was never about my body, and what I needed to do to be finally deserving of love, It was in the places I never bothered to look.

Thing is, the body sizes commonly represented on my favourite romcoms, TV show and love songs was never a reflection of the standard of love I had to hold for myself.

Reality was different yet not so different in the dating scene. As a plus size girl, I had to look for creative ways to say 'chubby' on my dating profile, withstand comments like "size yangu!" as an affirmation that my body is indeed acceptable or any other false assumption I carried while dating in my size.

My thoughts and belief had to change, for my reality to change. The sources of love narratives still look the same as they always have with the exception of Survival of the Thickest, LIzzo and Ashley Graham, but just not enough to undo decades of thought patterns that were embedded in the movies I watched and stories I read.

I had to believe that the love I held in my heart was proof that it indeed existed, even while I sit with my fluffy tummy and thick thighs jotting this down. It was a testament to cultivating the love I held inside me to be an extension to my currently reality and lived experince.

So in my world, the fat girl was the IT girl. She wore the pinterest outfits, had the dinner dates with the fullness of her arms out! She went for jobs that challenged her to speak in front of people, be seen for the brilliance she is. She built the business that she dreamed of and allowed the big things to happen to her, just like in the movies.

Love IS yours, it really is, at whatever size, shape or form you take, in this season or the next. And realizing I didn’t need to change for it, freed me. So yes, that relationship, connection, opportunity, family or friend is coming. They are running to find you. And it will arrive, not a second later to free you too. But not until you cultivate the love in you.

You are done waiting to loose weight to welcome love the big love into your life.