I’m really torn between feeling guilty for not obsessing over my diet, and feeling happy for the first time in months. Being back home, in the Midwest, finally seeing my boyfriend for more than three days every other month, it’s really confusing. It’s like I don’t know how to handle…feeling good about myself. Liam loves me, no matter what I look like, no matter what I do, completely unconditionally. I almost don’t believe it’s real.
And that’s my problem: no matter what he tells me, and no matter what my logical brain “knows,” I don’t believe for a second that any could love me if I were fat. I believe that the only reason he loves me as much as he does it because, currently, I’m good looking. But the second I stop taking care of myself, and obsessing over my diet and my exercise, he’ll stop loving me. It’s actually really embarrassing to admit that, because I never thought I’d be the person who thought that real emotional love was based on physical looks. I know he loves every part of me, but I don’t think (and this, really, is insulting to him) that he’d be able to be with me if I wasn’t a size small. And that’s bullshit, and I know it. He loves me for who I am, and he thinks I’m beautiful because of who I am. He could give a fuck less about what I look like. But I don’t believe it. We’ve been together for eight months, and we can’t have sex for the same reason that I can’t eat what I want to: Guilt. I feel like eating anything “bad” will make me fat, and having sex will make me a whore. So, basically, everything I’m doing is to prevent myself from feeling like a fat whore. That’s the echo in my head; “fatwhorefatwhorefatwhorefatwhorefatwhore.” So to keep myself from feeling like a bad person, I avoid food and I avoid sex. And then that voice isn’t so loud.
As I'm writing this, it’s almost midnight, and I’m up watching the newest I Used to be Fat, thinking about cardio tomorrow. Did I mention that I hate cardio? But I did legs today, and arms yesterday, and I don’t work muscle groups more than twice a week. So tomorrow’s made up of a glorious amount of cardio. Did I also mention that I ate a piece of pizza at 8:30pm? That’s sick. There is something fundamentally wrong with eating that late. So I’m running an extra mile tomorrow, because that was a mistake and I should know better by now. I can’t keep doing this. Drinking tea every night and staying up until 2am and thinking about how much I need to sleep and not caring enough to actually do anything.
I feel disconnected from my body, like I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I don’t know that girl. And I know I don’t want to go back to the South. I’m sick there. I don’t want to go back to grad school. I’ll just get sicker. I can eat here. I can’t do that there.
Sometimes Liam tries to talk with me about eastern psychology, and eastern religion, and the general concept of duality and balance. I feel that. I feel like two different people. One’s weak, pathetic, fat, loud, explosive, emotional, needy, lazy. I’m ashamed of her. The other one is strong, quiet, stoic, cold, rigid, structured, almost robotic. Mechanical. That’s the person I want to be. I don’t want to need so much. I want to be less human, or more human. And that’s the other dual part: I can’t figure out if what I’m trying to be is something subhuman, or something above human. Or simply more human.
I don’t have a balance, and I don’t feel like I have a structure. I know I do, but it’s not enough. And I know that if I give myself completely to either side, skinny or fit, emotional or strong (because I assume those are opposites), I’ll lose something.
It's difficult for many not to have such black and white perceptions of themselves and others. I've struggled and continue to struggle with it myself. Often I'd set up conditionals like "if x, then y" to further rationalize my conclusions.
ReplyDeleteBut, finding a balance isn't an end-goal. It's a continual process and impermanent. In Daoism, the yin/yang are said to be in constant flux; a never-ending juxtapositioning of opposing forces. So, in a way, the never ending struggle to find balance is in itself the very essence of balance.
Oh, I've decided I love your blog and probably you.
ReplyDeleteHave faith in yourself. You have incredible self-awareness and control- look how far you've come! And of course, exercise contributes positivity to your cycle of emotions. So kick that cardio's ass.
xx