I baked them a birthday cake because that's what I do. My Mom was a lot of things growing up, but she always baked us elaborate birthday cakes from scratch. I baked them a white velvet funfetti cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. It came out perfect. I know this because I ate a slice.
I hate birthdays.
We took them out to dinner at their favorite Mexican place. And my mind immediately went into stealth mode.
What can I order? I'll get a beer, cause we're all drinking and it's a big deal that it's their first time drinking legally. I should get a salad, but my sister (and probably the Mr.) will feel self conscious if I order a salad. And we're here for Mexican food. I should be having fun. They all know I love Mexican food. I don't want to ruin this by making everyone think about food like I do. Ok, maybe I could just get a veggie burrito. That sounds ok, right? I could eat the inside and leave the tortilla?
The waitress came to take our order and what came out of my mouth was "I'll take the nachos."
Dammit.
Thankfully I accidentally ordered the appetizer nachos, which was literally 4 tortilla chips each individually covered in black beans and then a layer of cheese. Still unhealthy. Still fatty. Still awful. But at least it wasn't a huge platter.
Those 4 chips and my beer filled me to the brim. I actually felt kind of sick I was so full. Then we went back to my house and there was the cake. I was going to try to decline a piece, but I went to the bathroom and came back to find four cut slices of cake on the table. So I ate it. Thankfully the Mr. cut them small, and I only ate about half. But I ate it. Then I felt really sick. Which felt like justice.
I made the twins take the whole cake back to college with them. I did not want that thing in my house any longer.
Yesterday I weighed in at 124.0 lbs.
This morning I weighed in at 125.0 lbs.
So today, all I've had was my morning coffee (with cream+sugar), which I only had because I couldn't make my tea because we were out of water at my office. Seriously. These are the things that happen at my work. The person who used to be in charge of filling up the Culligan water left. And no one communicates or takes initiative or anything. So I had to bribe my co-worker to go to the grocery store to fill them back up. I would've done it, but there's no way I could carry that huge bottle around. I have spaghetti arms. I get tired from carrying a gallon of milk.
I want today to be a fast, but the Mr. informed me he's making black bean burgers for dinner. I'm trying to think of a way to get out of eating them. I don't have to sneak around my parents, but here I am. Married and still sneaking.
The Mr. asked me this weekend if I've been skipping lunch. And I am such a shitty liar. I can lie really well....to anyone but him. I don't know why. He sees right through me. So I told him sometimes, and then he got very serious and worried, and what did I do? I started laughing. Because that's what I do when things get serious. My brain goes into panic mode and apparently that causes my body to just start laughing like a crazy person.
"Sometimes." I got out, grinning like a Cheshire Cat. "But not all the time. Sometimes I'm not hungry."
"It should be never." He said, frowning. Worry crinkled in the corners of his eyes like wrapping paper.
"Just sometimes." I repeated stupidly, lips pressed together. Stop smiling. Stop smiling!
"I don't want you to slip back into that." He said gravely, rubbing my arms.
"I'm not. I'm not. I just...sometimes I'm not hungry." I
I don't think he was convinced.
I'm really sensitive about protecting my little sister. I always have been. Because I'm the oldest and because my mother is a selfish bitch.
My mother taught me how to be anorexic. My mother poured guilt into my brain with every morsel of food I consumed. I was a ballerina. It was important to be "healthy." The funny part is, I was really skinny and muscular from dance. I wish I looked as good as I did then, but my mother only saw fat. I remember being just a kid at the doctor for annual checkups. The nurse would read my weight on the scale and then leave us in the examination room where I'd change into the paper gown under my mother's scrutinizing eye.
"Was that number a surprise to you?" She'd say innocently.
"No." I'd reply as sullen as I dared.
She'd turn a page in her magazine, pretending to read while over the pages, her eyes cataloged all the errors in the shape of my body. "Well it should have been."
I fought it for a long time. Until highschool. My very first boyfriend dumped my unceremoniously like a piece of garbage. I was devastated. I'd always struggled with depression, or as my mother said "being melodramatic," and that rejection brought on one of the darkest times of my life. I stopped eating. My friends at school started asking questions, so I started hiding in the bathrooms during lunch. My mother found the lunches I was throwing away in the garbage cans in our garage.
"If you're not going to eat your lunch, then stop packing one. You're wasting food." She told me in passing one day when I got home from school. And that was it.
So I did. My weight dwindled. So did my desire to see my friends, to have fun, and finally, to live. I started making plans. How would I do it? How would I kill myself? I settled on pills. I could fall asleep. It would be so easy. It would be over.
Graduation came. My graduation party had been planned months in advance....at my now ex-boyfriend's house with about four other people. I made it through the party. Barely. Afterwards, I was following the Mr. (when he was just a goofy, skinny kid with curly hair and a beautiful smile) to another graduation party that I was to make an appearance at, and I just lost it. I sobbed the entire way there, and when we got there I quickly tried to fix my appearance. To look like nothing was wrong. But of course he saw. He's always seen. He asked me if I was ok, if I'd been crying. And I was so sick and tired of carrying everything around with me that I just broke. We sat in the back of my car, in the parking lot, and missed the entire party because I was tearfully spilling all of my secrets to this boy. And that boy wrapped his arms around me and just held me.
And he told me, in a choked up voice, that he was so glad I hadn't killed myself. And I believed him.
I started dating him a few months later. I married him two years later. And here we are now.
My sister had to put up with the same shit from my mother that I did. She struggled in her own ways. We've talked about our mother many times. We've discussed that she is crazy, psycho, manipulative, and cruel.
And now I'm living the most hypocritical life. After telling my sister again and again that it didn't matter what she looked like. She didn't have to starve herself or throw up. She could be whatever size she wanted!
I meant every word. I still do. My sister is beautiful.
I fell down the rabbit hole, but I don't want her to follow me. I don't want anyone to follow me. It's not easy. It's not fun. It's not good. But I'm here. And you might be too. And it's all fucked up, but I need it. I need the control. It gives me purpose. It gives me reason. It gives me strength to hold back the darkness that might otherwise swallow me whole.
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