The Metal bikini

I am writing this from my phone.  It feels like a text message to the universe. The click of  iPhone letters make it sound more like an s.o.s.

maybe it is.
I don't want to eat. It's all because of the Princess Leia costume.
I thought I was stronger than the metal bikini.
But I am not.
I spent two afternoons clipping and sewing and hot-gluing my fingers together.

Now it is finished.

And I am afraid of what my stomach will be.

Silly.

I do not have the stomach of  a woman who's carried 3 children.

No stretch-marks.  I should be grateful.

But "should" is no match for a lifetime of programming.

And I've been on this ride enough times to know - it is not about what is reflected.

So here I sit, telling myself the truth via black and white...yet again.

The truth. 
Peace does not come from zero calories. 
Peace does not come from weight loss.
Peace comes from releasing my white nuckles from the reigns.
Peace is a quiet belly, not an empty one.
Peace is now...not tomorrow night.

Why do I wait so long?  Why do I hold on? 
Why...because.  Look at that belly!  Looks pretty hungry to me!
What have I done to myself?!



I have confused a hungry belly with a quiet one for so long.
It is hard to tell the difference.
I looked up Carrie Fisher now, and this is what I found:

http://www.carriefisher.com/

"actress,author,failed anorexic"

I guess we have more in common than I thought.

Everything I searched was about her fall from Grace. 
How dare she go from sci-fi-sex-icon to doughy-overweight-mentally-unstable-drug addict? 
The media slopped her in the trash and took a picture.  They posted it everywhere.   Disgusting.

This is why I'm afraid.  This is why my knuckles get white.  Because no matter what self affirmations I offer myself, I would be just like her.  If I went to the dark side and ate all day every day people would be just as harsh to me.  No matter what ideal we "should" adopt about accepting people for who they are.
I've done it.  I've eaten myself from a size 2 to a size 14.   This fear sits in my belly still.  I fear it less, but it is there.  Maybe it always will be.  Sometimes I think it will go away completely.  Then I see the halo where the original spill happened. 

I am still reading, Women Food and God.

The author says, stop the war with my body.
She also says I orbit in loops of old stories.  In order to stop the war I have to cut the loop.  I stop believing it will be repeated.  Just because I eat one blueberry muffin, it does not mean I must gain 40 pounds.

The word God is in her title, and that's the tricky part.  I need help from Grace, right?  Or God if you prefer, but I don't.
The only way I know how to let Grace in is to tell the truth.  So, here it is.  I will be hungrily awaiting her arrival.