slaying giants

4:30 a.m.
I pop up as my 8 year old self.
The only thing I wanted then, in 1987, was to
play Super Mario Brothers and eat cereal.
Today I want only to drink coffee and write.

As I tip-toe around my house in slipper socks with favorite snowflake mug, I realize something.
My husband and I got into a roaring fight.
Him yelling with finger pointing.
I just as angry,  but breathing deep to keep the rage in.
Our force of fear an equal match like two Jedi light-sabers clashing, vibrating.

And for the first time, I did not go directly to starvation.
I did not look in the mirror and think I don't get to eat today.
I did not binge when the storm settled and the house was quiet.
I did not hear Lydia's voice hissing,
"You never should have trusted him.  Look at the vulnerable place you've put yourself in.
Why did you have to speak up in the first place?  Now you've rocked the boat.  You've made this place unsafe and you have to run away.  You should have known better.  You don't get to eat today.  Food will only feed this anxiety."

In fact, I didn't think about food at all.  I didn't equate the fight with my body's worth.
Instead,  I called a friend. 
I cried.   I did the dishes, and I cried.
Gave kids a bath with blue fizzy tablets that turn the water purple.
Fed them breakfast. 
Fed myself breakfast.
Dressed a very squirmy baby Beckam while singing him a song.
Convinced Pepper that she did actually need to wear shoes in winter.
Buckled kids into car seats and drive, breath, pray.
Went to support group, cried a lot.
I heard myself saying,
"I am scared...I am just so scared,"  and staring into my blurry lap.
I received hugs and beautiful one-line advice.
"Just say to him:  I really need to talk to you, and then tell him how you are feeling."
In response, I nodded my head and cried more.

At the end of the day, I snap at him,
"I've had a very hard day!"
"Why?" he is buttering a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.
The ham is a mountain, but I don't hate him for it.
"Because I've been crying all day."
"Crying all day...why?"
"I don't want to tell you, you'll get mad."
"Just give me a chance," and he flashes a smile from our dating days.
He uses it when he knows it will work.
"I'll tell you after you eat.  You are much nicer if you're not hungry."
After the sandwich, I tell him how I am feeling.
He does get mad.  He bolts up from his chair and goes downstairs.
I am left sitting there.  The words  I just said lying flat on the kitchen table.
I breathe again.
I gather the kids' coats, kiss him on the head, and take them to see the Christmas lights downtown.

There was no pit in my stomach. 
I never thought, "You should have stayed small."
I was not fat.

The equation used to be:  Vulnerable + Scared = Fat
I don't dare say I will never believe this equation again.  It doesn't work like that.
But at least it is not true today and it wasn't true yesterday.

All of this because we have to buy a new house.
That is why the fighting.
We have to buy a new house and we are scared.
He is afraid we won't have enough money.
He is afraid I will fight him every step of the way.
I'm afraid we won't be able to work together, and I'll have to either fight him or acquiesce.
Both options will create resentment in me.
We are afraid to trust.

I have heard so many of my married friends say,
"It's not supposed to be like this.  My husband is supposed to do/say/feel________"
This is a tempting rut.  My wheels want to roll into it.  Then I am absolved.
I get to sit back, roll along in my rut, and wait for him to get with the program.
But this is not love.  This is lazy.  Love requires my attention. 
Love easily morphs into sickness.
If  I'm not careful, I will be infected and not even know it.

I came home from the Christmas lights with two sleeping children
There mouths hanging open and winter coats still bundled under their chins.
My husband had morphed from Ogre back  into Charming-dating-smile-man.
"Why are you grinning?"
"Because I found us a way to get a down payment on a house."
Hallelujah...one giant slain...

    



 

 David = Sarah     Goliath = fear                                              Marshmallow = prayer

YMCA wheelchairs

white screen.
just like a canvas.
only less intimidating.
I've faced it so many times.
I know it doesn't have to be right.
only true.
_______________________________________
I want to go running this morning.
Saturday is the day of my long run, and I relish it.
But the tendons along the top of my foot are complaining.  Should I take my own advice and stay down today?
When I speak to other women about recovery I tell them,
"Be gentle with your body.  She does not deserve punishment.  Exercise when it fits, and do it with pleasure."
Ugh...maybe I do need to stay down.

On Thanksgiving morning, I joined the mass of runners in City Creek canyon.
The Turkey Trot where everyone earns the right to eat whatever they want that day.
But not me. 
As I whisked past the leaves curling into the ground, my footfalls a prayer,
"Thank you for hanging in there with me, body.  Thank you for this."
I apologized to her for every time I drank too much and made her shake, made her forget.
For every time I starved her and made her run anyway.   Even though it hurt, even though it caused injury.
For every time I binged and made her get rid of it...for every time I binged and didn't get rid of it.
For every time I made her lie beneath a man who didn't care about her. 

She ran faster and forgave me.

















The first time I realized my body is a gift was at the YMCA.
I was visiting my aunt in Tujunga California. 
Just as the sun came up, I tip-toe out of the house before anyone is awake.
I drive huddled in a lump of grey hoodie, asking myself why I do this when it is so cold outside.
Then I open the locker room door, see the familiar expanse of lap lanes, and remember.
The pool sits nestled in a green house.  Glass squares make a lattice over the water.
In the early morning, steam billows up to fill the whole space.
Swimmers trail magic spells into it as they windmill over the surface.
Halfway through my swim, the door opens and a procession of wheelchairs surrounds me.
They are part of a city program. That day their activity is the swimming pool.
Only about 4 of them can actually get into the water.
The rest watch.
They are stationed at the deep end all in a row.
Every time I come to my flip-turn, I see them through a film of ripples.
"They don't even have the option to learn this.  They will never know how this feels.  If they had my body, they would never punish it, like I punish mine."
At every turn, a new guilt punctures my chest. 
I am in awe of my own lack of gratitude. 
That was 14 years ago.  I still think of those people in the wheelchairs when I swim.
They are whole people, not just symbols.
They want freedom and life just as much as I do.
I suppose some of them hated sitting there watching us do something they will never be allowed.
I wonder if some could see the beauty in it.

I drove home with a quiet soul.

 

This one's for Bill Murray...

So now it is the end of the day.
The day I passed out in the shower.
A couple of people called me and asked,
"Are you okay?  I read your blog this morning."
I tell them all the things I know:
I have always had low blood pressure.
I usually get head rushes when I pray in the shower.
I have been eating.  In fact, I've been less restrictive with my food than I have in a long time. 
Blah...blah...blah

But I am more interested in what I don't know:
I don't know why I passed out today and I never have before.
I don't know if I will ever settle into a place where my food is not in question.
I don't know if I am still dillusional about my own body.
I don't know if I would be okay to allow food in my stomach if I were 15 pounds heavier.
I have no idea how much Thanksgiving dinner I ate today.
I don't know if it was enough or too little or just right.

I avoided piling a up a whole plate.
I could feel my waistband loose and I wanted to keep it that way.
I didn't have a whole slice of pie.
I shared one with Beckam.
I ate slowly. 
I didn't want to check out into a pile of mashed potatoes.
Because the older I get, the more heart-breaking my family becomes.
The sun is setting and it has grown grey like dusk when the details are lost.
I remember the colors from Thanksgiving when I was 8.
We had a red and yellow highchair which doubled as a desk if you flipped it over.
Grandma's tablecloth wore wide, warm yellow flowers.
Outside was a coral pink geranium plant 14 feet high.  I can still smell it.
I never grew bored with picking them and rushing inside to ask Grandma for a vase.
The wooden deck had faded like coffee when you add milk.
The trampoline was stretched over a giant pit which we crawled down into when a little kid would loose a toy. I can still smell the musky, half-wet gravel.  It was almost moldy.  I hear the discarded Big Gulp cups crunch as I step on them.  We all hated going down there.
Back then, I lived in a one-dimensional cartoon.  Each character played a single role, and it all made sense.
Now when I see my family, each member has so 6 different faces.
Nothing is as it appears.
I see their suffering.  I know their stories.  They are whole people all smashed into one house.  Somehow smiles sparkling into each other's faces, even though we live worlds apart.
Even though most of them barely know me, and I only know them as the role they once played in my childhood movie.

I still feel driven to separate myself from them.
They are so vast and threaten to swallow me.
But I know I don't have to be scared.
I just have to go slow, breath and pray.
I don't have to get lost.

Bob (Bill Murrray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson) after a night of Karaoke in Japan
Lost In Translation

Charlotte: I just don't know what I'm supposed to be.
Bob: You'll figure that out. The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

doubt

Today I am skinny.
And it feels flat.
Lonely.
I go to Thanksgiving dinner today. 
My brain says, "Everyone will look at you and see that you are succeeding.  They will eat too much, and you won't because you don't do that.  You are separate.  Better.  More clean."
But my softer, true self just smiles with eyes like Santa Clause.
____________________________________________________
2 hours later
____________________________________________________
I just passed out in the shower.
I kneel down into the steam and ivory surface to pray.
I usually have to hold onto the wall after I stand up.
Everything goes black for a minute and I breath heavy and fast like a woman in labor.
I like this rush.
But today I actually fell down.
I found myself on the bathtub floor with water pittering onto my head,
"Where is Pepper? 
Where is Beckam? 
How long have I been here? 
What day is it? 
Is Andrew home?
Am I okay?"

Now I feel scared of myself.
I haven't been this thin without purging and compulsively exercising.
Now I eat whatever I want.
Days go by without exercise. 
How is this happening?
Is this my healthy self?
I was feeling so good, now I have doubt.
I don't have much time to write or think about it.
I have to go to Pre-Thanksgiving dinner.
But I didn't want to ignore it.

the storm

It beat on the windows.  The hail outside is like gun fire.  It is 2 a.m.  I flip my pillow over to the cool side and bury my face.  I want to go back to where I just was.  Even though I know it's not real.  I can't really taste it.  But my soul mate was there, and I ache to talk with him one last time.
__________________________________________________________
“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.

A soul mates' purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
___________________________________________________________

It's been 7 years.  When I walked away for the last time, I was physically sick.  My stomach  dropped and dropped and dropped.  I felt it in my stomach because that's where the tether is.  It is still there.  Sometimes the right song will pull it tight again.
One drunken night he yelled at me.  He thrust a fist into his gut and pleaded,
"Cut this!  This metaphysical tether you are holding!"
As usual, I rolled my eyes, popped out a hip and slurred,
"What are you talking about?   God you're so dramatic."

Years later I would yell back at him when I realized what he meant,
"You think I did this!  I don't want this tether either!"
We were stomping through San Francisco streets, drunk as usual.
I wore a tiny red dress that swished around my thighs like ocean waves.
"Isn't it obvious!" I shouted.
"What?"
"That we're fucking in love with each other!"
A year and a half after we stated it, I said goodbye for the last time.
We weren't exactly in love.  We were in bondage, and I had to get free.

I was 16 when we met.  There must have been something pulling.  Because I showed up on his door-step one night, and informed him we were going to drink together.  And we did.  Jaigermeister, the whole bottle.  This became our ritual.  I had a personal shot glass he kept in his cupboard.
After ringing the door bell I wondered, 'What am I doing here?'  But then he answered.  It was as if he was expecting me.
We talked all night.  My mind was equally agile to his.  What a relief to be able to run that fast.  Like a horse whose reigns are finally released we bolted into wide open space together.

For 10 years I circled wide, but always came back.
I migrated all over the state and to the east coast for a year and a half...trying to outrun myself.
Trying to tame the horse I'd let run.
I never didn't write to him.  More than half of my letters, he has never seen.

We tried to be a couple twice.
Both times ending in implosion like a black hole.
But just before we went black, we were sublime, too bright for this world. 
We couldn't function, we could only theorize.
I can feel the tether now, as I write.
I was certain this would all have faded by now.  It hasn't. 
And especially in my dreams, I can sense all of it.
Like how one smell retreives an entire section of life, I can bring it all back.

I don't wish this away anymore.
I've made peace with the ache.  I am glad for it.
It helps me not fall asleep. 

We took a road trip to a place called Pagosa Springs once.
I was drinking so much at that time.  I don't even know what state we were in.
But we sat out on the patio of an empty restaurant.
A pizza and a pitcher of beer.  I was only drinking beer.
All of a sudden, Christmas lights fluttered awake all around us. 
An orange and red glow held our little table.
The loan server of the restaurant popped his head through the sliding door and said,
"I thought I should turn the lights on.  Cuz it looked like a movie, ya know?"

The sad thing is we didn't talk much anymore by then. 
I am an alcoholic, and I couldn't survive drinking like we did.
I was shriveling up and he knew it.  I knew it.  Like the spouse of a cancer patient he took note of every moment.  He tried not to know what we both sensed.  Our days together were ending.
We ran as fast and fierce as we could, tears and wind blinding us. 

On our way home from Pagosa Springs, I drank vodka all day.
We had a half gallon jug in the trunk and I refilled my cup every time we stopped.
"Isn't this great! Drinking in the middle of the day?" I bubbled.
Six hours later he brought he me into the house and spread me out to dry like a delicate sweater.
I would surely come unraveled in the full heat of a dryer.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry. I shouldn't have drank so much," I whimpered.  My head dangled on my neck.
"I know," he said, and smoothed my forehead.
My hangovers lasted 2 days.

That's how it was.
We'd invite friends over for dinner.
I'd push my ravioli apart trying to make them look scarce.
I went to the kitchen every ten minutes to add more gin to my glass.
It took all my attention to keep my head stable and eyes open, but I could do it.
From across the table, his eyes would ask, "Aren't you going to eat anything?"
To which I'd shrug my shoulders in acquiesence. Not to him, but to the way it was.

I self-destructed in the cage he built up around me.
He built it to keep me safe.
Not many people understand this. To most it appears simply a sick relationship.
But what human heart ever loved without becoming sick from the potency of it?
He pushed on me because he knew I could handle it.
I wanted to handle it.   He made me defend everything.
He called me his Grace. Every time he gave me a hug, he held on too long.
He held on long enough for me to know his smell and to feel him breath a whole breath into his chest. 
He has kicked me out of his apartment numerous times.
One winter night, I stumbled a mile from the bar to his apartment.  I wore a giant, pink leather coat with fur around the neck.
He refused to open the door.  I passed out crying in the hallway, into the coat.
I woke up to creaking stairs, his neighbor leaving for work, and way too much sun.

Now I have been sober for 7 1/2 years.
I hear his echo all the time,
"What is it that makes you believe you deserve punishment?"

"If I could teach you one thing, I would teach you to be deliberate."

"Why can't you see it, what you are?  Why do you try to pretend you are not exceptional?"

"Once you go there, to that place of wishing life to end, you can never go back...you can never go back to before you knew it.  I wish you didn't have to go there."

He said this to me, after I slit my wrists in his bathtub.
He was crying and holding.  My body limp like in the movies, and him rocking it.
I couldn't cry. 
I meant it when I did it.
Roaring out of a drunken black-out, maybe momentum to go deep enough?
I just wanted it to stop, all of it.  I didn't want to endure one more cycle.
Luckily, I hadn't learned how to be deliberate yet.

He drove me to the treatment center 4 days later.
The run was over.  We both knew it. 
I can still feel my legs sticking to his leather seats as we drove.
The alcohol sweating out.
We stared at the road, a gaping space between our two seats now.
There was nothing left to say.

After that, I had to choose.
I want him to know that I chose life.
I want to tell him thank you.
About 5 years ago, I watched V for Vendetta.  Afterwards, I curled into a ball and cried, because I realized what he had done for me.  I never knew if he was an angel or a devil.  Now I know.

Evey  - V for Vendetta

V - V for Vendetta

Mistakes Allowed

"Skinny-mini" 
I've heard that twice in the past week.
"Thank you," I say. "I feel a little disoriented in my own body right now."
A friend stopped by whom I hadn't seen in about 4 months,
"Whoa!  You shrunk!  You're tiny!"
"Really? Oh.  Well I guess I'm back to my original size after having Beckam...thanks?"
On the outside, I am the same.

Yesterday I ate 4 pieces of my kids' Halloween candy.
Afterwards, I looked around the room, crickets chirping.
Without the binge cycle.  Candy is just candy.
I went back to painting rocks with Sophie.
She leaned into the table, intent on her technique of creating stars with tiny paint dots.
She picked up her rock to show me, and dropped it.  Her creation ruined.
Ten minutes later, I did the same thing.
"We both dropped our coolest rocks," She smiles and shrugs her shoulders.
Mistakes allowed.
I realize how rarely I make art with my kids.
Pepper has the biggest rock which she is slathering with red paint.
I offer her another color.
"No," she asserts.  "Just red."

I have been practicing the mantra from Women Food and God.
"Eat what your body wants."
I pause, look at the food and ask, "Does my body want this?"
About 15 minutes ago, I ate Sophie's other crepe. 
It had a sprinkling of sugar and a hint of vanilla.
I am still more inclined to eat other people's food than my own.

Now I am sitting in the same grey sweatshirt I have been wearing for the past 8 years.
Every morning I slide into it, half dreaming.
It is loose.  It always fits. 
A basket of toys is dumped at my feet.
In spite of the 44 trinkets on the floor, Beckam insists on crawling under the computer and reaching a pudgy finger out to push the Off button.
Pepper is dribbling her inner monologue all over his head like chocolate syrup.
Sophie is in the other room watching Clue for the 5th time this week.
Beckam just sneezed two rivers of snot down his face.
It is hard to listen with all this.
It is hard to know what my body wants, and she gets desperate.
Sometimes I just feed her whatever is immediate.
And that is ok too.

About 20 women are coming to my house today for a Clothing Swap.
A giant indoor yard sale descends upon my living room.
Only it's all free.
We sip coffee and sift through each other's discard items.
"Oh, you'd look so good in this!"
"Try this on, it's the perfect color for you."
We trade in Lydia's hissing for the sing-song choir of each other.
I may never have to go shopping with Lydia again.

sex

I've been avoiding the computer.
Because what I have to write about is sex.
And sex is not "appropriate."  But appropriate for what?  For children, okay.
But for adults?  How is it hidden?  Why is it hidden?
Who am I afraid to offend?
Hell, this is a blog about a woman who eats and throws up her food on purpose.
 Gross?
   Inappropriate?
      Raunchy?
         Life?

It is not the sex that is significant.
It is the panic clench which comes after it.
It is the crying.  It is the body trembling.
It is the compulsive smoothing back of stray hairs in effort to compose an unraveling form.
It is the rapid breathing and never enough oxygen.
It is the Lydia voice, which is self-loathing-in-Cruela Deville-form, who comes roaring at me from every corner of the room.  She pushes on my body until I am in origami fetal position.  Everything is sharp.  There is no perspective distance between myself and every other object in the room.
She drips acid from the corners of her lips as she hisses,
"How dare you put yourself in this position.

Origami Lydia

See how disgusting you are.
You can't trust anyone.
You are not worth saving, not worthy of gentleness.
What you want doesn't matter.  How you feel doesn't matter.
You are an object.  You are a performer.  You do not exist.
It is easier this way.
Why would you ever hope for anything more.
Stay down....this time....stay down."

These are the same thoughts I hear each time I approach the toilet to purge.
Eventually they were distilled into, "You know you have to."

This is not my husband's fault.
This is 17 years worth of programming.  Programming I allowed.  I accepted, because I thought it would make things easier.  I thought it would make me Beautiful.  Simple.  Manageable.

I haven't felt this way in years.



On Halloween night it came raging back and filled me.  I thought I was rid of it.  But there was more.
I let it come. 
It started with me holding my breath.  Trying not to cry.  Pressing face hard into the mattress.
"My body wants to cry."
Let it cry.
Quiet into the sheets it seeped, fiber by fiber.
Then gained in substance to a moan and gasping for breath.  I need more air to make this voice.
Still trying to hold it in...no...let it come.
Then it bellowed out in rolling waves like the ocean during a storm.
I was startled by its force. 
I sat up cross-legged and slid palms over forehead and across hair over and over.  Trying to smooth myself.
Keep it together.  Keep it together. Breath.
Scared of myself.  This is real.  Let it come.
All identities outside of this moment do not exist.

Is my body grieving her abuse?  Her prison I put her in? 
Is she telling me it hurts...she wants out?

I don't know.
I want to be able to explain all of it, but I can't.  Not now.  Maybe not ever.
How do you explain grief?
I want to, but it's not necessary.

When I first met my husband Andrew, I warned him,
"Sometimes I fall in a hole.  I become Lydia.  It's like my brain is screaming.  I can see everyone outside of the hole, being normal, but I can't get to them.  I can't do anything, and everything is dark.  I shut down.  It's not your fault, but I just want you to know."

He was quiet for a minute.
Then he said,
"I guess I'll just have to learn to love Lydia too."

And he amazed me once again.
No one had ever approached my snarling dogs this way.
"Ok," I said and cried a few tears.

On Halloween night he let me cry.
He did not try to fix it.
He held me, he held Lydia.