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5.28.2013

of failure


The scale said 122 lbs this morning.

I am so sick of myself, I want to scream.

I will go all day without eating, growing steadily lighter, steadily better.

Then I'll eat an entire box of Reese's Pieces.

I'll drive to Target and buy ice cream.

I'll eat heaps and heaps of peanut butter.

You better fucking workout. You better at least do that.

But I don't. I don't even do that. I just sink down further into the couch, hating myself until my eyes burn.

I think I've forgotten how to cry. I can tell that I want to cry, or maybe that I should cry, but I can't. I just feel...nothing. Achingly void.

No more of this. I can't do it anymore. I can't watch the numbers start going back up. I can't.

Today co-worker gave me a Cadbury egg she found in her desk. My favorite candy. Sugar. My greatest weakness. I took it, smiling. I waited until she left the room, and then I quickly broke a bite-sized piece off with a napkin, throwing it away. I waited until she came back, so she'd see it. I'm on a crusade now. A crusade of lies, attempting to show my co-worker that I'm normal. I'm ok. She can eat because I eat! I'm healthy! Everything is fine!

I continued this way until it was gone. Not a bite went in my mouth. Not a single morsel.

I will get back on track. I have to.

5.27.2013

of drunken campfire confessions


I went camping with the Mr. and two of our best friends a couple weekends ago. One night around the campfire, as the whiskey and wine flowed, our conversation steered towards the serious, the heartfelt. 

I drank half a bottle of cheap red wine by myself, and then suddenly my lips said this:

"I'm sorry I act so mysterious about my mom. I don't mean to. It's just...I've had no idea how to bring something like this up..."

I remember stopping there. Taking a shaky breath. Did you really just say that? Where are you going with this? The fire crackled. Everyone was quiet. Then the words just poured out.

I told them everything. Well, almost everything. Most things. 

I cannot talk about my mother without talking about her eating disorder. It is as firmly a part of her as her skin, her fingernails, her vertebrae. 

I just left out the part where I have had, do have, will have one too.

The words did not come easy. They tumbled out of my mouth in mumbled fragments. My voice sounded dead, numb, void of emotion. But they came out. 

I felt free.

More than I'd expected. 

Then I felt panicky.

That I had expected.

What were you thinking? Do you see how they look at you now? Do you hear the pity in their voices? They can't un-hear what you've said. They'll always see you like this, pathetic and small and weak. A victim. Someone they have to tip toe around. Someone they have to be careful with. You've fucking fixed a FRAGILE label to your forehead. HANDLE WITH CARE.

That night, laying in our tiny two person tent, I thought I might suffocate in paranoid anxiety. I don't know how long I laid there, wide awake and miserable. But I must have fallen asleep eventually, because in the darkest part of the early morning, we were awoken by the most intense lightning storm I've ever seen. Above us, the sky flashed, blinding white to piercing darkness for almost an hour. When the rain came, it crashed against our tent with furiously angry intent. The thunder cracked, deafening, overhead. It was as though the forest saw us as a virus, invading and foreign. Something that needed to be destroyed.

I curled into him, listening to his heartbeat pounding in his chest, thankful for his arms around me. I kept waiting for the storm to somehow get inside, to find us. But it never did. We stayed safe and dry and warm, with nothing but a thin membrane separating us from the roaring tempest outside.

In the morning, the sun shone. The birds sang. We laughed about the storm then, about how we were glad it happened. It gave us a fantastic story. It was something we'd weathered together.

And maybe we didn't talk about the other storm, the one that came from my lips, but we didn't have to. It was obvious that we'd weathered that one together too, that we were closer for it.

It's strange how from a slightly different perspective, one tiny step can seem so huge. 

5.23.2013

of guilt

My co-worker brought a tupperware container full of lettuce leaves for lunch today.

"That's what you're having for lunch?" I raised one eyebrow. I can't even count how many times she's gotten upset at me for my sparse vegetable lunches.

"I need to go grocery shopping." She said, but she looked up at me when she said it, and I immediately saw the lie in her eyes. I feel that lie on my face every day. I am that lie. I would recognize it anywhere.

She's trying to be like me.

I could drown in the guilt.

5.12.2013

happy fucking mother's day




There is a saying that goes, “Misery loves company.”

Hello, other miserable people.

I hate this day.

I’ve written things about my mother here. I have this theory that if I can transform the ugliest parts of my life into words, into something relatively well written, into story, maybe it will help.

I spent most of my life not believing, not thinking, not suspecting, but knowing that my mother hated me. That she wished I’d never been born. I know this because she screamed these things at me and my siblings almost every day. The good days were few and far between, and those were almost worse. Because every second was spent in tense anticipation for The Moment. The Moment when she snapped. Because the good never lasted.

I had an epiphany the other day. I know I have low self esteem, but it’s always felt deeper than that. And I realized that it is. I don’t just think bad things about myself. I know them. I am them. After all, they are names that she gave me.

Pig.

Stupid.

Fat.

Lazy.

Worthless.

Horrible.

I could write a list that would go on and on and on.

Mothers have an almost frightening amount of power. They shape who you are, for better or for worse. Maybe your mother told you that you were special. Maybe she told you she loved you. Maybe you are lucky. If you're one of those people, I hope you know what you have. I hope you know how lucky, how blessed you are.

But maybe you're like me. And maybe this day brings nothing but pain.

I know I should avoid Facebook today, but I can’t help myself. I scroll through hundreds of new profile pictures, pictures of my friends smiling with their mothers. They write things with the words “love” and “brave” and “strong” and “inspiration.” It hurts, but in a sort of numb and distant way. I stop halfway through and close the tab.

I sit silently until the hurt fades. Until I don’t feel anything. My eyes are dry. There’s no point in wishing. I gave up on the What If’s a long time ago.

I get up and make myself a margarita.

… 

I am twelve years old, and I love Simon and Garfunkel. Other girls my age are listening to Nsync and Britney Spears. But I'm not allowed to have a cd player. All I have are old records, and Simon and Garfunkel are my favorite. I flip through my parents records until I see Garfunkel’s wild blond hair. I gently remove the record from it’s sleeve, biting my tongue as I carefully drop the needle.

I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate. 

“I hate this song.” She says from the kitchen. She appears in the doorway, frowning. I look at her, but I don’t say anything.

“This song is so stupid. They had some good songs, but this one is just dumb.”

She vanishes back into the kitchen, certain that she’s right as she always is. I look back down at Simon and Garfunkel’s smiling faces. I don’t think this song is dumb. I think it’s like me. I think it’s sad.

I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries. 

...

Mother’s Day, 1998.

Dad was trying so hard.

My mother loves gardens. Dad was surprising her with a garden tour. We had to drive an hour and a half in order to reach civilization where they had such things as garden tours.

It was an hour and a half of tense silence.

I don’t remember why she was so angry. But then again, I might not have known. There was a point where why stopped mattering. Why bother with why? Knowing never changed the fact that she was angry. She didn’t want the why fixed. She just wanted to be angry.

My three siblings and I huddled in the back of our ancient suburban, watching her nervously. Dad’s hands were clenched tight on the steering wheel. My mother was pretending to sleep, refusing to speak to him or any of us. I couldn’t decide if the silence was better or worse than the yelling.

The garden was beautiful. My siblings and I ran ahead, grateful to get away from the uneasy tension, the fury radiating from her. She never smiled. She never said thank you. She just marched through the garden as though she was marching to war.

Dinner was harder. Dad took us to a steakhouse with a salad bar, what we considered a fancy establishment. There we were all confined to the same table. There was no hiding between rows of flowers.. Dad tried to fill the angry silence with small talk and jokes. She responded with clipped, short sentences. I sat, staring at my plate, hating her. I hated her. Dad was trying so hard to make her happy, and she was being so horrid, so rude, so cruel.

We drove home. We went to bed, all of us silently thankful it was over. 

...

Sometimes I wonder if my mother has amnesia. Perhaps she was abducted by aliens and they wiped her mind clean. 

But I know the truth. The truth is simply that my mother is crazy.

Today she pretends that none of this happened. She pretends that she has always been the exemplary model of motherhood. She says "I love you" now instead of "I hate you," but it feels like a lie.

"You talk about me like I was a monster." She says, pressing her palm against her breastbone, shocked and hurt. 

How do you deal with an entire childhood of abuse when the abuser refuses to admit that it ever happened?

Somedays I feel like I'm the crazy one. Maybe I imagined the entire thing. 

Then my little sister, my tiny little sister, calls me crying because our mother told her she needs to lose 15 lbs. 15 lbs she doesn't have to lose. 

No. I know the truth.

Happy fucking Mother’s Day.

5.07.2013

keep going, sad little girl. keep going


I stand in the stillness of the dark, listening to the quiet creaks of the house.

Run. My heart whispers. Run.

Run where? I whisper back. What do you mean? 

But I'm only pretending to not understand. I know who I want to run from and that person is myself.

Run. 

...

I am a disaster wrapped in over-sized cardigans covering thrift store dresses still mourning their previous lovers. "Is that your natural hair color?" A smiling older man asks me in the grocery store. I shake my head, smiling timidly, before making my escape through the rows of tomatoes. 

The last time I saw my natural hair color I was thirteen years old. Thirteen years old. A sad, lonely little girl trying to be someone, anyone else. Now I'm twenty-six, and I'm still a sad, lonely girl. I can picture my thirteen year old self looking at me, her brow furrowed in confusion. 

"I thought I'd have my life figured out by now." She'd say.

...

I make a margarita for dinner. The only thing I've eaten all day was a couple handfuls of almonds. The tequila hits me a little harder than normal. I sit alone in my house, tipsy and smiling, but no one is here to see it. I want to tell someone. I want to say, "I'm happy!" and mean it. I lick the salty rim and think about calling my mother. I turn the music up louder instead.

...

Twenty hours is a magic number. When I hit twenty hours on an empty stomach, I know. I know because I can't feel my fingers. The cold starts there, in my fingertips. It creeps through me until I can't feel anything at all.

...

I went dancing last weekend. It was a spontaneous, drunken decision. Rumplemintz shots are my kryptonite.

"I'm not dressed right for dancing." I protested, looking down at my maxi dress. I wore it because it showed off my collar bones.

"You can borrow one of my dresses!" My friend, my tiny tiny friend, exclaimed, dragging me up the stairs.

Yeah right. I thought. Sure, I was drunk, but I wasn't THAT drunk.

She coaxed me into a little black dress. The kind that hugs every inch of your body. The kind that I have avoided my entire life.

It fit perfectly.

"Holy shit!" He exclaimed when I came down the stairs.

"Fuck! You look so good!" My friend kept repeating.

I felt good. I also felt drunk. And thankful that I had shaved my legs. We danced. I don't remember much of it, but I felt really really good. I felt sexy. I felt skinny.

Keep going, sad little girl. Keep going.