today was a good day. i had an appointment at the Kroc center (gym). it was a mandatory orientation thing to get a scholarship to lower the cost of my membership. i now will only have to pay $24/month for a fam membership. sadly, that’s tough for me, now that i have taken on a large portion of the household bills since we split up. let’s just say im looking up plasma donation places to get thru my kids bday. it’s their 18th bday and i really want to do something special. but yeah, times are tough.
anyway, the good news is that during the orientation…well, first let me paint this picture: i sat there with bitch-face as usual. i feel bad about it, especially at like this charity thing. we can’t help our faces. but i have an attitude too. it’s so ingrained. it’s posture, it’s other stuff. it’s partly the way i dress as well, im sure. i know it’s basically a church, but i dont think they care that i wear all black and my hair is black and im white as a sheet. but when you put it all together, im afraid i stand out. when really, im just trying to NOT stand out.
but while i was sitting thru the presentation looking haughty and bored but actually just trying to mask my social anxiety, i was flipping thru the catalog of classes. and i started to get this weird feeling. like, i guess i was maybe imagining a world without my ex and without my kids even, where im not howling in an ever-deepening vortex of abyss. instead, maybe taking a yoga class. or joining the knitting circle they host on tuesdays. or something. i think this is what i need to do, well, someone told me yesterday this is what i need to do. but i didnt know what she meant until i was sitting there with all these options presenting themselves.
plus i ate well. altho it occurred to me that ive been lying to myself again. i am doing an abstinence plan that is no sugar, no caffeine, no dairy + 3 meals a day, no snacks. first, i started having tea before bed, which can’t count as a snack. then i started to add coconut/almond creamer to my tea, which is very low cal, and not dairy. then i started getting Rebbl Matcha Lattes. only twice. but they have green tea (caffeine), and honey (basically sugar), and a little bit of heaven. so then, today, i was rushed after my orientation and stopped at starbucks and got — NO MOCHAS thankfully — but i got an egg & gouda sandwich thing. it’s only 350 cal. but it has dairy and the white bread, tho not technically excluded, is something i’ve been successfully avoiding.
so im pretty much letting stuff sneak in. i mean, im sneaking stuff in. and not letting myself think about it. it’s pretty crazy that _I_ can do something while at the same time _I_ look the other way. wth. anyway, im not going to be rigid and “start over”, im still at 17 days abstinence, since the infractions were pretty slight. and i’ve already decided to make it “no coffee” instead of no caffeine, and allow 1-2 cups of organic green tea before 12pm, for now. BUT im going to quit it with the Rebbls and figure out something abstinent for those times im out and in a pinch.
but since i was feeling pretty encouraged by a vague image of a possible future before the eventual black abyss, i called Mollie. i dont always want to cry and moan, i wanted to share positivity too. she was very happy for my good news, but was busy. before we hung up she said something really nice. she said that there is something really amazing about me that is hard to explain, but it’s like even in my darkest hour, i always find a way to be raw and open.
so i’ve gotten weird compliments occasionally in my life. i have been told i have a good forehead. and that the whites of my eyes are very white. i once was told that i really have a way of walking out of a room, which was meant as a biting insult, but i took it as a badge of honor. why thank you, mother, i do, dont i 🙂 but this compliment from mollie, tho i dont understand how she sees that, feels like a very real and great thing. so i felt doubly glad after that.
on the way home, i thought about how i was only beautiful for one year of my life. 17 years old. before that i was either a scraggly tom-boyish hood rat or a chubster (ages 10-16). by chubby, i mean 20 pounds overweight. to some people that’s nothing, but to a white girl in the late 80s, it’s enough to ostracize you. at 16, i got dumped in a really eh, a bad situation. my mom was dealing with husband no. 2, who was a true skeeze, and i guess i just wanted to take control of my life. like, i finally realized i could do that. i secretly started eating smaller portions. if my mom knew i was trying to lose weight, she would have sabotaged me and picked me apart. luckily, she didnt pay close enough attention to notice me eating less, or i would have most likely resorted to purging. i also started doing a Kathy Ireland workout video. i had the one video, i wore that shit out. by the end of the summer, i’d shed the 20 pounds.
thus i entered into the year of effortless power. i was as close to a perfect women as i would ever get. i was tall and athletic/thin with an hourglass shape. i had a pretty, friendly face, long thick hair. i was bright, but not savvy. nieve, even. i had no self-esteem and was desperate to please. every man i met loved me. i got pulled over, no tickets. men randomly bought me shit. my groceries always taken to my car. they insisted. i had men, strange, random, creepy, old men, approach me in libraries and essentially bow as they offered me books they thought i would like. books about witchcraft and erotica. it didnt matter what i said or did, because no one was listening or paying attention. they were just looking and imagining. i remember getting frustrated because i would try to talk to boys in school about assignments, and their eyes would glaze over and they’d smile and nod in a daze.
i couldn’t walk down the street without being catcalled relentlessly. i was already socially anxious and insecure as hell, so being approached was pretty scary. and rightly so. i was attacked twice that year. my skeezy step dad put the moves on me one night, after months of doing no-contact pervy shit, and at my boyfriends urging, i told my mom. she said, and i’ll never forget it, “how can you do this to me when things are finally going so well?” then they went on a walk on the levy to discuss it, and i sat on the couch with acid stomach. my brain was numb. i had no other family. i had no options. i wouldn’t have stayed in that hell house as long as i did if i had. my sister had been long gone and my brother had gone to stay with his dad (husband #2). my mom and the skeeze came back and he smirked as she said, “well we talked about it and…i believe him.” as in, i dont believe you.
i was devastated naturally. i hid in my bedroom. i showered and dressed in the dark. (my instincts were right, it was later discovered that he had been video taping me in my room and the shower, which my mom was aware of all along.) after a few miserable weeks, where i was breaking down in class and just being totally erratic, i was threatened with suspension for cutting class. so i decided to reach out for help. thats what the teen magazines said to do — tell a teacher or someone at school. i told the counselor. they called a CPS worker and my mom and her skeeze, and we all had a sit down. it was brutal. i could barely speak with my mom there. after the meeting the adults decided i was lying to get out of cutting class.
when i got home that night, as late as i could stand to stay out, there were black garbage bags on the front step. they had actually changed the locks. i took my garbage and went back to my car and drove.*
i ended up couch surfing with friends, as long as their judgy parents would let me, until i finished high school. i never felt welcome at their homes. i didnt want to waste their water or take their food. i got a job right away, of course since i was a dumb, pretty 17 year old, and with the unsettled lifestyle and some of my own money, i started going to fast food. i had gained 45 pounds by graduation.
thus the window of effortless power closed. beauty, and being wanted for sex, is the height of power for women. and if i had been smarter or less damaged, maybe i could have wielded it more successfully. instead i just got run over and spat out, like so many young women.
the weird part is, and im still trying to get my head around this, is that since that time, i have unconsciously done everything i can to get back to that. and i berate and castigate myself so harshly for every second that i dont achieve that goal. it’s not just a goal weight. there is this livid, hateful part of me that desperately wants to get back to that place, like literally go back in time, and do it differently. not be so weak. have the knowledge i have now and be ready for each and every one of those people who hurt me. to combine the power of knowledge and inner strength (real power) with the patriarchically assigned female-power.
but that’s so stupid. it’s so futile. its impossible and pointless. and recognizing that part of me, acknowledging that righteous anger, comforting that lonely damaged betrayed child, is really the only way to freedom. because we can’t go back, honey. we’ll never be her again. but, we dont need to. we dont need to fix it, or to even the score. the only thing we need to do is let it go.
let it go…
Read Full Post »
Station H 