I’ve been mulling over the word “thick” or “thicc” lately. Like a lot of slang, I’m pretty sure it originated in Black English, and is generally seen as a compliment. But when I think about who it’s applied to, I think it’s generally just specific body types that are thicc (fat in an acceptable way), in the most common usage of the word.
As I’ve been getting older, most of my weight gain has been centered on my belly. Sometimes folks still ask if I’m expecting. It’s stopped hurting, but it’s always jarring.
But I think about that, about the fact that I have a thick waist/belly and no noticeable hips or butt and minimal (though finally, beautifully, extant) boobs; and I think of the phrase “unfashionably thick.”
But then I think more about that phrase. It’s the sort of thing you might see in a fantasy novel that has a female protagonist: where “unfashionably thick” is just code for “she’s conventionally attractive in our world, but not in her own.” And I think the word for my middle aged wine mom lib body is “thick, in the unfashionable way.”
But it is still mine; and I am grateful to have it.
Emilybook 
People have asked me about being pregnant for literally my entire life, starting in high school. It’s always nope, that’s just my body. It always irked me that the only socially acceptable way for a woman to have fat in her midsection is if she is pregnant. Also frustrating because perimenopause often increases our belly fat.
Weirdly, I find the comments more upsetting now, I think because I am struggling to recognize this aging body as the body I was used to. But I try to remind myself that people still made those comments when I was 40 lbs lighter so it literally has nothing to do with my actual weight.
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