understanding.

in ,


yesterday i was having a day.

and maybe zoobie was too. because she did not want to wear her shoes. or socks.
and we were outside.

so once we collected all of the said items and finally got home and up the elevator and into the hall, i looked right at the little one.

"oh zoobie," i said.

and she looked right at me
and let out an exaggerated sigh.

she understands me so well,
this seventeen-month-old friend of mine.


zoobie and i during the great snowstorm of 2010.

(zoobie is the little girl i visit and take care of each week,
it is because of her that i get to call myself a sometimes-nanny).

dear husband-to-be,

in

so i guess you should know.

that.

i fell in love with a guy a very long time ago. and he did not fall in love with me.

and around this time i fell out of love with myself.

and all this love and lack of love became very confusing.

i have a girlfriend who recently came out of a relationship and decided to take a weekend trip to meet up with a guy. she was in need of a sorbet, she said. something to cleanse the pallet. i said, if you're in need of a sorbet, i'm in need of some smelling salts. something to bring me back to life.

so i've decide to go in search of them. smelling salts, that is. lots of them. in all different flavors. so that i'll be wide awake. all refreshed and lived in and back-to-life when i meet you.

because i can't wait to meet you.




love, love,

the girl in search of sal volatile

saturday night.

in ,

the weather saturday night was perfect.


a cool breeze. an invitation to play.

so i decided to do something i never do.

go to a party. at a hotel. downtown.

i had on black shorts, a denim shirt, ratty boots, and not a stitch of makeup on my face, but for my bright pink lipstick. i was not really dressed to go out, but i didn't mind.

i got off the one train and headed in the direction of my friends. and it was there, walking west somewhere on 18th street, that i had this revolutionary thought: i am young. i am single. god, there's nowhere better in the world than new york city for a night like this. i should do this more often. i should be young and sow my oats and do ludicrous things that will make for a great late-in-life memoir.

i thought back to my first year of college. i had a group of girlfriends that went out every weekend and did things that i cringe thinking about now. we danced on the banquettes of high-falutin downtown clubs. allowed investment bankers to buy us exorbitantly priced bottles of vodka. ran through the streets barefoot. stayed out until 5 am. it was a time when smiles far outweighed the need for ids to get into bars.

perhaps that is a time i should return to. perhaps with a little age and slightly bigger breasts i'd have even more fun.

so i got to the hotel. met a few friends. and inquired as to how to get into the private party. i was promptly shown the line. the very long line, stretched around the corner. the line comprised almost entirely of girls wearing the customary saturday night uniform of black heels, black tights and very short black skirts. and lots of makeup. did i mention that i wasn't really wearing any makeup?

and pop went the bubble.

i don't want to go back to my first year of college. wiser or not.

god i'm thankful to be young and single, but i sure as hell have to find a better way to spend my saturday nights.

don't get me wrong, i'm still gonna sow some oats, but in a slightly different setting.


giving up.

in
i feel fat tonight.

there. i said.

sitting here, writing this, i feel fat.


i suppose i felt adventurous come the start of the new year.

and so i agreed.

to the second part of the eating disorder treatment.

the first part is seeing the therapist. check.

the second: standing in front of a mirror and describing your body in neutral terms.

kill me now. just kidding. totally doable (she says through grit teeth).

in school we once had a director who said you should always begin something either before or long after you're ready. and so i thought, before. this is good. before, before, before.

when all the shit hit the fan, i cannot tell you how many times i was asked what it was that precipitated a binge. what feeling exactly caused the breakdown of cognition. and again and again (as kindly as my southern roots demanded) i replied, that i did. not. know. that if i knew, i probably wouldn't be in this position.

there were so many feelings, so tightly wound, so intricately crossed that they became something else entirely--that unnameable thing giving me hell.

but in the process of standing in front of a mirror and describing my arms as tubular, or my neck as two gently sloping lines i have begun to pull one string at a time from that unnameable thing. and for the first time i am beginning to know exactly what emotion at any given moment is the puppeteer moving ned along--casting him in and out of the light.

i always thought i would know the end had come because i would wake up and think: yes, yes this is the body i would have had at this very moment had i never had an eating disorder.

but here's the thing. that is an unknowable thing. i will never ever be able to know the answer to that.

it was standing in front of the mirror for the fifth and final session on friday, that the real answer came. i have to give up. completely. let go. offer it up to the gods. i have to take all those old patterns of thinking and say, no more.

i have to stop making lists of what i've eaten. of what i might eat. i have to stop feeling for my collar bone. checking my stomach when i wake up. or wrapping my fingers around my wrist to check the diameter.

and beyond that i have to forgive myself. let go of the guilt and the anger and all the preconceived notions about what it is i deserve.