In the dark
I see
you wanting another thought from me
I walked in circles
and bought the wrong thing
again.
Twenty nine boxes of soup
and a carrot
I thought I'd make something
like the things I always make
but I couldn't remember the recipe.
The pet store opens early
but not early enough
To walk the bird aisle
Talk to some quality
people
get some words.
Tomorrow is a Tuesday
I dreamt it was a Sunday
I was prepared for something like church
And delivered rain.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Returning
It has been one year since I decided to throw away many ideas about myself. It didn't happen intentionally. I started last summer, pretty much like every summer since age 12, with a big plan for my transformation. This one was going to be big. Bigger than last year, and the year before that, and, you know, the year before that. Some summers have gone "better" than others. There was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college when my boyfriend had broken up with me and I travelled to Long Island to spend time with my college roommate, to get away, the reinvent myself. My father had pushed $150 in my hand and a train ticket home and in my life in 1991, that was a lot. I had gone running everyday while on Long Island. I didn't eat and I listened to these strange Long Island women talk in a funny accent about making themselves smaller. I wondered what was small enough.
I made it home that August a little person, tanned, hair topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was smiling to hide the tired. I was so tired all the time. I got the boyfriend back, found my friend alcohol again and moved onto the next time.
There was the summer in 2009 when my 57 year old step father went on oxygen full time and we watched him wither away to an old man before our eyes. I took up road racing and stopped eating. I spent that summer turning into something while people celebrated the new me. I knew there was something wrong with me to begin with and this reaffirmed those thoughts. You thought I looked more healthy, happier, better, thinner. I must have been pretty bad off to generate such a strong social reaction.
He died anyways.
And I spent years trying to get something back. I'm still not sure what.
There was the last big time in 2015 when I went through my divorce and fell in love with Jeremiah and literally changed everything, my life all topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was high on the challenges, pushing all hard things away. I signed up for a triathlon. I spent the summer running and biking and swimming. I shrunk myself into a new normal. My heart rate got down to 38bpm when I rested. I went to the emergency room because my heart was all jumpy and the doctors laughed at me. I was a worrier, maybe it was anxiety. I was a triathlete. I was in great health. I hadn't had a period in months. I was living on carrots, pickles and coffee. Maybe I was wrong.
Last summer I emailed a friend. I asked him to be my runner in a half Ironman triathlon. I figured this would be really good for me. I would spend another summer reinventing myself. I was going to get healthy after all. But I wanted to go camping and to have cook outs, and there was the beach, and we had friends over. I spent the summer biking, probably, definitely obsessively, but I ate. I ate things like ice cream and birthday cake (I turned 47) and hamburgers. I tried meals that friends prepared for me and I tried on different types of clothes. I continued to hide my legs and I watched as my 47 year old body took up more space.
The real change came in October. I got invited to a weekend away with some relatively new girlfriends. I wanted to go. I didn't want to go with my own packed food, my measured out and planned salads, my gum, my yogurt and apples. I wanted to eat our shared meals and to share snacks while we watched movies and to drink coffee with cream AND sugar and to think about other things aside from what I put in and what I put out.
And I did.
The pandemic has made for an interesting time to stop dieting, to try to reinvent myself. It seems the PERFECT time to do this! I could come out of hiding a whole new me, metamorphosis.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I'll try eating all the different kinds of food with as many or as few people as I feel like on a given day. Maybe I'll eat ice cream every single night and then maybe I'll get sick of ice cream and move on to a scoop of pudding or maybe I'll feel full from dinner and go to bed.
Maybe I'll bike too many miles, injure myself a little and do yoga until I can't stop my anxious thoughts. Or maybe I'll decide to read an entire book in two days and sit by my garden.
Maybe I was ok all along anyways.
Maybe when I was six years old with Good Humor ice cream melting down my chin, at the park, in July, and I felt so much happiness, it was like a glittering explosion and I didn't notice my thighs or my belly and I laughed loud. Maybe I'm returning to this.
I made it home that August a little person, tanned, hair topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was smiling to hide the tired. I was so tired all the time. I got the boyfriend back, found my friend alcohol again and moved onto the next time.
There was the summer in 2009 when my 57 year old step father went on oxygen full time and we watched him wither away to an old man before our eyes. I took up road racing and stopped eating. I spent that summer turning into something while people celebrated the new me. I knew there was something wrong with me to begin with and this reaffirmed those thoughts. You thought I looked more healthy, happier, better, thinner. I must have been pretty bad off to generate such a strong social reaction.
He died anyways.
And I spent years trying to get something back. I'm still not sure what.
There was the last big time in 2015 when I went through my divorce and fell in love with Jeremiah and literally changed everything, my life all topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was high on the challenges, pushing all hard things away. I signed up for a triathlon. I spent the summer running and biking and swimming. I shrunk myself into a new normal. My heart rate got down to 38bpm when I rested. I went to the emergency room because my heart was all jumpy and the doctors laughed at me. I was a worrier, maybe it was anxiety. I was a triathlete. I was in great health. I hadn't had a period in months. I was living on carrots, pickles and coffee. Maybe I was wrong.
Last summer I emailed a friend. I asked him to be my runner in a half Ironman triathlon. I figured this would be really good for me. I would spend another summer reinventing myself. I was going to get healthy after all. But I wanted to go camping and to have cook outs, and there was the beach, and we had friends over. I spent the summer biking, probably, definitely obsessively, but I ate. I ate things like ice cream and birthday cake (I turned 47) and hamburgers. I tried meals that friends prepared for me and I tried on different types of clothes. I continued to hide my legs and I watched as my 47 year old body took up more space.
The real change came in October. I got invited to a weekend away with some relatively new girlfriends. I wanted to go. I didn't want to go with my own packed food, my measured out and planned salads, my gum, my yogurt and apples. I wanted to eat our shared meals and to share snacks while we watched movies and to drink coffee with cream AND sugar and to think about other things aside from what I put in and what I put out.
And I did.
The pandemic has made for an interesting time to stop dieting, to try to reinvent myself. It seems the PERFECT time to do this! I could come out of hiding a whole new me, metamorphosis.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I'll try eating all the different kinds of food with as many or as few people as I feel like on a given day. Maybe I'll eat ice cream every single night and then maybe I'll get sick of ice cream and move on to a scoop of pudding or maybe I'll feel full from dinner and go to bed.
Maybe I'll bike too many miles, injure myself a little and do yoga until I can't stop my anxious thoughts. Or maybe I'll decide to read an entire book in two days and sit by my garden.
Maybe I was ok all along anyways.
Maybe when I was six years old with Good Humor ice cream melting down my chin, at the park, in July, and I felt so much happiness, it was like a glittering explosion and I didn't notice my thighs or my belly and I laughed loud. Maybe I'm returning to this.
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