You know, I do this a lot…

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Sometimes, usually when I start to think about my impending graduation from college or my preferred life path that leads me to teaching a screaming room of 6th graders how to read critically, I want to be a professional blogger/writer/published author/badass.

I mostly aspire to the badass part of that profession.

The problem is that I don’t think I have the chops to make it in such a competitve industry, and the first thing a life coach will tell you is that you have to believe in yourself. So really, I have fucked myself before I have even started.

It’s not that I am trying to sabotage myself per se, it’s more that I just have a negative self image of myself. And by negative I mean like horrible, bad, Hitler-negative. I mean, it a combination of not knowing what I want out of life and not seeing a therapist. I also stopped taking my meds, a decision that has been both fantastic and wonderful and horrible and insane. I’m not sure if I’m feeling better, but I don’t feel numb anymore either. I hated not feeling – I couldn’t feel when people physically touched me, and I couldn’t feel when I was sad or happy or alone. This is better in some ways, but unbearable in others.

I want to write here, in this imagined space – I love writing and I love people reading my thoughts, but I feel so horribly inadequate at the same time. I feel like my thoughts aren’t worth the time of day for the people who know me best – so why would anyone (strangers no less) want to read about them? Why do my thoughts and observations deserve an audience?

So for now, I’m not going to answer that question. I’m not going to feel bad if I don’t want to write here one day, because this is for me and no one else at this point. If that is different in the future, than my desire to write here will also change. Right now I’m going to let this be a space where I work through what I am thinking about – even if what I’m thinking about isn’t funny or witty or lovely or politically correct. I don’t have to write poetry and high prose to be a writer. And even though my self-image is shit, that doesn’t mean my writing is. My writing is what it is, independent of what other people (including myself) think about it. Regardless of my audience size or quality I am going to write. I am going to write about what I’m thinking about, without the strain of trying to impress or measure up.

I spend all of my time and energy trying to get people to like me, and I try to meet to a standard set so high that I crash and burn every time I reach for that perfection that I demand of myself. Maybe, just fucking maybe, I don’t need to set the bar so high for this one little area. I don’t need to impress anyone because no one is listening right now anyway. I can still try (and fail) to be perfect in other areas of my life, but I don’t need to be perfect here. At least for now, I can free myself from the constraints of perfection in my written life and let myself cry metaphorically, and save my anguish for my failed attempts at physical and spiritual perfection in my “real” life.

I can let my apartment stay messy, I can hate my hair for not staying perfectly poufed and teased, I can loathe my waist for not being 28 inches around and I can black out my mirrors in mourning when I don’t learn a new skill on they first try, but I’m going to let my writing suck. I’m going to be okay with the fact that I don’t write on my blog every day, like I wanted. Just this once, I’m not going to beat myself up for my utter lack of perfection in this one area. Just this once.

Timeline

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I got my 60 day chip on Friday.

I have debated whether or not I wanted to tell the Internet and the world and more specifically Alex’s mom and my dad that I am in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn’t know if I wanted my friends to know, or if my telling would somehow impair the way I am perceived by those around me. Since going to meetings, I feel like everybody knows what I’m up to on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

I know that it’s nobody’s business but mine, but I am finally in a place where it’s okay if other people know. I am usually so afraid of people and what they think of me that I collapse under the weight of fear and hopelessness. So now I am taking a small portion of my fear back by willingly revealing my secret: I am an alcoholic.

Alcoholism has always been in my life, though it took me years to call it by name. My mother is an unhappy woman, with problems that I do not pretend to understand. She has been a mother to me and my siblings and a simple drunk to those who cannot see her for who she is. To me, she has been both loving and spiteful, my mother and my arch nemesis, always complicated and always more than just a drunk or just a mother. I love her, but I cannot and will not be her.

It was not until I was 13 that I realized that my family, my mother, was different. It did not occur to me that other mothers did not get drunk, and many did not even drink. Not even wine with dinner. Even in the tender early teenage years the thought of not having wine for dinner was scandalous, and that forgoing the after dinner cocktails was only done with eye rolls and for a damn good reason.

When I first named the alcoholism in my family, I was about 15. It started as a dirty word, spoken only in private, scribbled only in my diary, and bounced around in my head when left alone to think. It was the reason I never had my friends sleep over at my house and why my parents were so glad that I was going to be getting my license soon; I was going to be a permanent sober driver.

When I turned 18 the word came bursting out of my body. I started to tell my friends why I didn’t want them to come over and why sometimes I was sad for no reason. It started as cathartic, telling everyone that I had an alcoholic in the family and that it wasn’t my fault and that I love my mom but we have a different relationship than many mothers and daughters do. And it would all come tumbling out just like, half ramble, half confession, with a dash of release for good measure.

At 20, my therapist asked me if my willingness to talk about my mother’s disease was a way of avoiding my own emotional pain. I looked at her as if she trying to sell me a bridge. Um, hello. I am one of those people who talks about it. It. The Problem. I am obviously emotionally evolved. Duh.

Then she suggested Prozac and I said that that was probably a good idea.

And when I turned 21 I started drinking so much that I would black out. I would insist that I was sober, but really I would be falling down drunk and I just couldn’t tell. I finally started to admit that maybe I wasn’t so emotionally evolved and that perhaps I don’t let people in like I think I do and maybe my cathartic ramblings are only that: ramblings. When Alex suggested that I don’t let him in and that he sometimes feels like he doesn’t know who I am I scoffed him. And I kept drinking to prove that not only am I emotionally stable but I can handle the drug that has taken my mother down. Because I am not and will not be her.

When I turned 21 and a half in June Alex suggested Alcoholic Anonymous and I suggested he go take a nice long walk off a SHORT FUCKING CLIFF.

When I turned 21 and a half and two days Alex told me that I need to save our relationship by getting better. I needed to get sober so we could have a chance at the life we wanted together.

So I went. Because the look in his eyes told me that he loved me enough to leave me if I didn’t. So I did. Kicking and screaming and crying and literally using God’s name in vain just to be spiteful. I went.

And I kept going back. I’m thinking it was the free cookies and coffee and cigarettes. But I kept going. And now I go. It’s what I Do. I’m the official coffee lady at the Friday Night Davis Young People’s Meeting. And when I go there at 6:30 they greet me with hugs and smiles and a genuine interest in how I’m doing.

And so on Friday, I turned 2 months old. 60 days. I have a sponsor and friends and people call me. I do things now. I even go to parties. SOBER. I KNOW. IT’S FUCKING WIERD, ISN’T IT??!?!?!?!

Oddly Sexual

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

The other day, I was at a newsstand, buying a few magazines. After I picked up my copy of the newest Oprah Magazine, I walked up to the counter to pay and there was a large display of Snickers bars on the counter.

I looked at the display, and all I could think about was buying 5 or 6 and eating them in quick succession. I started obsessing about the creamy chocolate and smooth caramel and crunchy peanuts; I had a vision of myself laying on a big white bed in a long white dress stuffing my face with Snickers bars. It bordered on an erotic fantasy.

I quickly realized that even if I did buy 5 or 6 or 10 bars and ate them in quick succession, there would be no white bed or silky dress or euphoria. There would be me, cramped in a corner, eating until I couldn’t anymore and then riding out a stomach ache of epic proportions. There would probably be tears, and there would definitely be regret.

Not my finest quality, true. My “secret” food and eating behaviors are less “secret” and more “totally unsurprising because I will tell you if I’ve known you more than 10 seconds.” I am not a private person, by any stretch, but my motivations are often are buried beneath the act itself, and my immediate jump to speak on the superficial acts betrays my fear of the deeper emotional causes. The reckless abandonment and the free spirit that I so desperately crave in my life often manifests itself in food. I want to be carefree and free of constant regulation, and to do get that I often go to unhealthy extremes in eating, exercise, and physical appearance in general.

Look at me using my therapy in real life.

In the 2 second space between seeing the Snickers display at the newsstand and placing my items in front of the clerk, all of this rather depressing information flashed though my mind. I stood there, drooling at the candy isle and I heard Alex say behind me, “Babe, do you want the candy bar?”

“Um… errr… well…” HELL THE FUCK YES I DO!

“Yeah, we’ll take the Snickers. Do you want 2?”

“No. One is fine. Thank you.” ONE TIMES TEN MAYBE.

So I took my candy and put it in my purse. I carried it around with me for the next couple of days, waiting for the perfect moment to eat it, to enjoy it as much as I possibly can. And then, I was sitting on the couch with Alex, totally content. Calm. Serene. And I looked in my purse and pulled out the Snickers bar. Without looking at the nutritional information, without lamenting about the hours at the gym this was going to cost me, without regret or mania or tears, I ate it. The creamy chocolate, the smooth caramel and crunchy peanuts pleased me without a heavy heart, and after I finished I didn’t want another one. I smiled and continued on with my day, pleased with myself and my brief and oddly sexual Snickers bar experience.

BMX Extreme

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Recently I joined Group Therapy for women with eating disorders. “Group” is a little deceiving; really it’s 6 girls and 2 therapists sitting around on Friday mornings chatting about our horribly fucked up relationships with food. Why Friday mornings? Because therapy is supposed to be a little bit masochistic.

On first glance most people do not think I have an eating disorder. I come off as friendly, charming, a little batshit crazy, and well-rounded. While I am some of those things, I am also a binge eater and drinker. I sometimes starve myself for days and sometimes I go to the gym twice (or more) in one day. I have refused to leave the house because I thought I was too disgusting to be seen. I will lie about these behaviors, and sometimes not even Alex knows when or how I do some of these things.

I am telling you all of this, dear Internet, because I don’t think this is something I need to hide. I’m not shameful. As I tell my therapist, I have lots of guilt and very little shame.

My body issues stem from deep insecurities about, well, everything. I am hypercritical of myself, my abilities, and my self-worth. Alex is extremely supportive and tells me how crazy I am but all of insecurity still comes out as extreme body hate. Like BMX extreme. Like if there were Olympics of body hate I would totally have the gold medal.

When Harry and Sally meet lethal amounts of Rum.

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

The question on my mind for the last few days has been the epic Harry and Sally question: can a girl and a boy be “just friends?”

By just friends, people usually mean no sexual attraction, no sexual thoughts, no long walks on the beach while holding hands, and the ability to eat lethal amounts of Chinese food while discussing sexual fantasies positions partners. Partners that are not each other, obviously. Obviously.

Most people are extremely indignant about this particular discussion:

Feminist: Men are incapable of complicated relationships that two people of different genders can carry on. They all have mother issues and vagina envy.

Freud: I’m with her.

Man: Women are hotttt… maybe I could just be her friend if she’s ugly. Probably not. I’d still want to bang her.

Frued: Wait… Vagina envy? No, you, my dear, have penis envy.

Feminist: Shut up.

Man: I’d fuck her.

Me: Whaaa????

I usually point out the fact that I had several close male friends in high school. Then leave out the part where I had huge, debilitating crushes on a few of them and the ones I didn’t want to jump on and lick during lunch period wanted to take me behind the middle school and impregnate me. (Points if you got the reference.)

However, I think I make an interesting point without even trying. (What a fucking surprise, right? Me? Clueless?) I think the question is wrong. Instead of asking if men and women could be “just friends,” we should be asking if women and men can be friends despite the fact that there is or at one point will be some (sometimes obvious) sexual tension?

And I think that answer is a resounding yes.

Did I have HUGE, EMBARRASSING crushes on my male friends in high school? YES. Were we still friends? HELL YES.

(There is a really good story about this one guy, Sean, that I wanted to jump the summer before college. We got to be pretty good friends, then I tried to kiss him, he wasn’t really interested, and we REMAINED pretty good friends until we went off to college. THAT. IS. SKILL. It’s how I learned how not be awkward.)

(Just kidding! I’m still awkward! :D)

On Friday, I was at cocktail with Alex and I was talking to one of my (male) friends and I told him that if I wasn’t with Alex, I would totally date him. Why did I do that? I’m going to blame it on the “Long Island Iced Tea” I ordered that ended up being watered down tequila in a cup. Does it matter that I told him? Maybe. But the point is, I’m still friends with him, even though he now knows that I would date him.

So eat your hearts out, Har and Sal.

Thoughts?