Don't You Want Me, Baby?

When I was around 12-13, I had hit that awkward stage in growth. I had already gone through the beginning phases of puberty-- I was somewhat of an early bloomer-- and my body just couldn't keep up with the raging hormones tearing through my person and my psyche like a hurricane. One for which I was definitely ill-prepared.

It was also around that time that I began to notice boys. There was one in particular who I'd like to call my first crush. He was actually my best friend at the time, and someone who helped me through my awkwardness more than I think he will ever realize. But as crushes tend to do, he moved on, quicker than I expected, and I was left with a confused head and a broken heart.

"Why," I pondered, "wouldn't he want me?" We loved the same tv shows, books, and music. We loved the same God. We could talk for hours. We made each other laugh. In my mind, we were perfect for one another. Why didn't he think so, too? What was wrong with me?

I began to watch my friend with the girls who had become his new friends and compare myself to them. They were all older, taller, and thinner than me. So pretty. And none of them had a disability.

Don't get me wrong; I was a pretty little girl. I look back at pictures now, and I see what I guess he must've seen in me then. But at the time, all I saw was a fat lump, positioned between two metal sticks. It's true that I was a little lumpy. I wasn't finished growing, and hadn't yet achieved comfort in my new, maturing body. I was overweight, and could stand to lose a few pounds. I was convinced that losing weight would make him want me. It would make everybody want me, right? After all, I couldn't control the fact that I had to walk around between two metal sticks... but I could control what was between them. I was going to lose so much weight that no one would even notice my disability anymore; I'd be too pretty for them to focus on that, or any of my other flaws.

I started out slowly, skipping meals and telling my parents I wasn't hungry for more than one meal a day. It was still summer at this point, and I could get away with being "too tired" or "too hot" or even "too sad" to eat, since what I considered to be "the break-up" was still really fresh in my mind. I was exercising a lot too, going on long walks in the evening and spending the majority of my day at marching band camp. The pounds began to melt away, and I was getting positive feedback from my family and friends, telling me to keep up the good work.

I decided to kick it into high gear, and what followed in the next few months continues to be a blur to me. I began my weightloss journey at a weight near 140, and before I knew it, I was staring at myself in the mirror at just under 90 pounds, still calling myself fat and still seeing the lump that I imagined myself to be. I was eating diet everything, and very little of it. I was counting every calorie. I was hiding food in my napkins. I was mashing it on my plate to make it look half-eaten. A diet coke had become a meal. I had grown so accustomed to not eating that it had become a self-imposed competition to me. The longer I could go without food, the more successful I was. My weight had become nothing but a numbers game to me. I was obsessed with the number of calories I ate, the number of minutes I walked, the number of pounds I lost, and the numbered size of my pants. I could think of little else other than food, and how I was going to beat it, and my lumpy little self-image, into submission.

Then, one Tuesday morning in 9th grade Biology, I ate a 190-calorie package of peanut butter crackers. They had not been on my food agenda for that day (I kept a written log of everything I ate) but they had looked so good when I passed them in the vending machine that I HAD to eat them.

I remember the gritty texture of the crackers feeling so unusual in my mouth; it had been such a long time since I'd tasted any. I ate all six and licked the peanut butter residue from the inside of the plastic. I guzzled my diet coke, satisfied.

Thirty seconds later, though, I couldn't focus. I had written the crackers down in my notebook, and they just didn't fit. 190 calories!! Why did I eat them?? I was such a fat cow. Didn't I have any willpower?? What was wrong with me?? I jumped from my seat and ran to the bathroom. I had to get them out. Now.

I hurled myself into the large stall, and shoved my finger down my throat 7 times until the crackers followed it out of my mouth. Their marvelous gritty consistency had become a slimy and disgusting soup in my stomach. Watching them fall from my mouth into the toilet I felt better knowing I had corrected my mistake. I was still in control.

All day, I could think about nothing but the crackers. What was I doing? Had I really become that sort of person?? The kind you see in tv movies or after school specials? The kind who could be sent away for help??

I told my mom and dad that night. I told them everything. About the crackers and the calorie-counting and the food-hiding, and the crazy thoughts I was having about myself.

My parents never scolded me, because they loved me. But because they loved me, they got me help. There are still many days that I struggle in a war with food.... and for someone who loves food, that's hard to admit. There are some I wake up and everything seems disgusting to me, and others that I could eat a whole pizza in an hour and contemplate purging after. It's a war that to some extent, I will continue to fight for the rest of my life. Somedays, I'll catch myself looking into the mirror and seeing a lump between two sticks, and others I'll catch myself thinking, "Hey, I look pretty good today."

The difference is that now I realize that I'm in control without needing to turn to food as my vessel. I realize that those who want me in their lives will want me, lumpy or not.
They will want me with metal sticks or without. They will want me for who I am, and not just how I look.

I realize now that I am in control of how I feel about myself, and that no other person can change what I feel just with their opinion. Only I can do that. I am in control of whether I let myself love and be loved, just the way I am....and realizing I have that control is a natural high, much better than the temporary high I could feel from starving or purging any day.

Whether someone else wants me no longer matters, because I love myself enough to stay in control by finding happiness through my relationship with God, my friends, and my family rather than through my relationship with food.

Old poetry

I was going through my old e-mail account, trying to find inspiration for one of the characters in my book, and I came across this poem, written a few years ago. I'm posting it here, just so that I have it saved someplace, since I do not use the e-mail account anymore.

WARNING: It does not have explicit language in it, but there is a part or two that addresses adult subject matter. I am human. I have changed and thankfully am not quite the same person I used to be. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. This poem reminds me of how much I've grown, so I'm sharing it here in the hope that someone else might benefit.

So without further ado...

It has become apparent lately

that my heart is not my own,

It's scattered about with family, with friends, and with

strangers,

and even a bit or two

has fallen to an enemy.


But I always thought reclaiming it

would be a simple feat.

"Mind over matter."

"Walk through the double-doors to baggage claim

at Gate A1 and find it,"

spinning slowly on a conveyer belt in

various packages marked with my

name in permanent black ink.


Some parts of me I'd find in large suitcases, triple-locked

by the persons to whom they were on loan,

packed lovingly in three feet of peanuts and

wrapped in plastic.

Boxed too, out of fear that

the slighest movement during the journey would

cause a crack in the crystal, spill-

ing its contents--all my love, dreams, hopes, and fears--onto

the cold floor as I lifted the baggage from the belt.
The gawkers and the gossipers would laugh heartly at my

misfortune,

taking out their digital cameras

to capture every moment of this once-in-a-lifetime separation

of

self

and

of

soul.



Other parts of me I'd find thrown haphazardly into a duffel, sent to me from the soul's seat of

a man who had

forgotten

that I had given him a part of me to keep

until he found it buried underneath his own pile of self-loathing and tossed it in the trunk,

not thinking it worth returning until years after the fact.

So I'd find it, wet and sticky,

in between

bottles of shampoo and used condoms from

someone other than me.

And I'd remember how I tried to clean it before I gave it to him, and how

he had helped me to forgo the bottle of 409 and the washrag,

immersing it instead in various moments of intense pain

with a topcoat of regret.



Gathering myself, I'd lay the pieces onto the hard tile in an

attempt to reassemble before leaving, starting first with

corner

pieces

and working my way in, all the while

reminding myself that I have never been

great at puzzles.



Standing back to gaze at my collection,

odds

and

ends

of me, arranged in disarrayed neatness,

I'd realize that

a piece of me is

missing.

Knowing to whom I gave it and when and where, I'd think,

"did he take it from my dorm room where I left it

for him

on the blue smiley-face pillow, face-up and trembling?

Or did he leave it there for me to pack away with my pencil cup

and paperclips

and move on?"

"Did he take it from the sofa bed and

pack it in the plastic bag with his toothbrush,

ready for inspection by the angsty airport agents

who have his random number?

Or did he leave it under the cushion for me to find,

and I mistook it for gone

(they are both red after all)?"

"Did he take it in his coffee cup, sloshing in and out

and everywhere

into the cab

and from there to Memphis then to Kentucky, and into

his home and to his kitchen sink

and from there to his bedroom, quite possibly, where he placed it

safe

on the dresser

ready for a return trip back to me sometime in July?

Or did he leave it on the carpet,

underneath his

footprint, for me to find when its smudged outline

becomes

visible after

the next hard rain

that falls behind closed doors

in Comet Circle number 307?"



Shrugging to myself, I take

from the floor what's left of me

and leave, knowing

that I may never be whole again

until my soul meets his soul

sometime

in this life or in the next.


It's become apparent lately

that my heart is not my own.