girlfromthe206:

If you think about it, your body is really just a vesicle for your soul to move through in life. Every soul is different, therefore every body is different. Your physical body is just a car, not the driver. The thing inside of you is the driver.
I don’t know what i’m saying anymore.

(via girlfromthe206-deactivated20130)

Monday, April 22, 2012, 5:00 PM

Wasteland

I am writing right now in the nearby cafe, sipping my iced coffee and letting my fingers do the talking. A few people walk in and walk out, clutching bags of donuts or plastic cups of iced coffee. They come here to study, to read, to catch up with old friends, or to sit quietly, like I am, and go through the motions of every day life. In front of my seat, a woman stands at the cashier, her arms crossed against her chest, eyes looking up at the menu board. I notice her the minute she walks in, and if you saw her you would notice too. She’s my height, petite, with shoulder length, dark brown hair and a angular, pretty face with sharp, yet delicate features. She’s dressed simply in black flip flops, a pair of dark denim shorts with sassy zebra-print details and a plain white tank top. Slung over her shoulder is a mahogany Long Champ tote bag. I wish I looked at her face longer than I did. If you had seen her, though, you wouldn’t have taken much notice of her face either. The only part I see now of her face is the left side of her - the blush of her cheek, the lines around part of her mouth and the tired, deep concave under her left eye. 

She stares at the drinks menu board, and drops her eyes to the display counter. She contemplates the donuts in the display case far longer than she does the drinks menu. I wonder what she’s thinking, if we share the same thoughts I once had about donuts. The other woman in line at the cashier glimpses at her and looks away immediately, as if uncomfortable. “What donut do you want?,” she asks her daughters. 3 chocolate glazed donuts, please. After a few minutes, the woman in the white tank top places an order. I can barely hear her voice over the music, and the hustle and bustle of the cafe. It’s tiny, just like her. The woman behind the cashier looks at her, smiles ever so politely, takes her order and looks away. You might wonder what they’re trying so hard to look away from. There’s absolutely nothing striking about her appearance. To the untrained eye, she’s just another woman coming in for coffee. To me, she’s the splitting image of a past I left behind a long time ago. It is painful to look at her, and yet I can’t find it in me to look away the way the others did. I let go and let her body draw me in, and I am lost in that image.

Underneath the low halogen lights of the cafe, her body is a cragged and shadowy wasteland of skin and bone. Her spine juts out from her back, a harsh mountain range ripping across a flatland of yellowing skin. Her shoulder blades are so sharp and pointy, and I wonder to myself if its possible for them to cut her skin, bursting through her back like a pair of featherless wings. What is supposed to be the round of her shoulders is dotted with more sharp peaks. Looking at the space between her one shoulder to the other, I’m compelled to draw a line between them like connect the dots. I always liked playing connect the dots. My eyes follow the mountain range of her spine down to the hollow between her legs. There’s nothing there. No mounds of flesh where thighs are supposed to be; just the hollowed, empty mouth of a cavernous space. Her ankles are so tiny, I am afraid that they will break under the pressure of what little weight it has to sustain. And her arms, her fragile, bony arms. She reminds me of the little skeletons of birds I used to look at in the Science laboratory of my high school. I always wondered how they died.

Looking at her, taking in her appearance, images of my old self flit through my mind, between the view of woman in front of me and the words I have written on the page. I am 17 years old again, as empty and fragile as a beautiful porcelain doll. You could probably pick me up with one hand and place me on your knee, too. Clothes hang from the wire hanger of my frame, hiding my own mountainous region of skin and bone. I am a 5”2, 102 pound high school student, and whether I am conscious of it or not, my body is wasting away from bulimia and anorexia. Other girls in my school tell me to eat something, that I look pale, that it’s already too much. I smile, and wonder what they’re talking about. “I feel fine!,” I gush. Random people I meet look at me and ask, with a look of concern on their face, “You look pale, are you ok? You should eat something.” I smile politely and nod. “I feel fine,” I say to myself. My diet consists of 3 cups of boiled vegetables a day, or fruits, if I am in the mood. Sometimes, I’ll have a glass of soy milk or a bowl of plain cereal. I don’t feel hunger like other people do. My body is used to scraping by with what little food I consume. 

The only time I don’t feel fine is when I binge on whatever food I can find or purchase. Sweets, junk food, cold pizza, fast food meals. That’s OK, though. I run the water in the shower, bloat myself with gallons of water until my stomach protrudes like a sickly African child and purge the contents of my stomach into the toilet with a toothbrush. I choose a toothbrush with a round rubber end because it does’t make my throat bleed like the others do, or the way my nails do as they scrape against my flesh. I ready myself for the first wave of purging. My skeletal frame rattles against the toilet bowl with each heaving retch. A sharp pain shoots down my throat and spreads throughout my chest. I close my eyes and white dots of light burst from underneath my lids. I repeat the process of bloating and purging. Same stabbing motion, same bursts of light, same searing pain. “It’s ok,” I think to myself in the dark recess of my mind, “Just a little bit more until you’re clean and pure and perfect again.” Once I finish, I stand up, turn to my side and look at myself in the mirror. Underneath the harshness of the white fluorescent bathroom lights, a perfect juxtaposition to the woman standing in front of me, I do a mental checklist of my body. Jutting hip bones, check. Carved out stomach, check. Knobbly rib cage, check. I wash my mouth, clean the bathroom and smoke a cigarette in the attic. I enjoy the nicotine rush, close my eyes and blow streams of smoke into the darkness. I feel fine again.

I wrench myself away from those haunting memories and slip back into the present. I am 22 years old again. Tattoos. Black boots. 130 or so pounds. Strong. My heart sinks ever so slightly at the memory, and I am filled with a sense of sadness and mourning.

I look up from my tablet. The cashier woman and I make eye contact, and she smiles for a split second. The woman in the white tank top is still waiting for her coffee and I wonder if she’s staying in, or having her coffee for take away; inwardly, I hope she stays. I imagine she is sitting at a table near me, and myself glancing up every now and then to look at her. I want to see her face, and look at her eyes; see if she sees things the way I did once upon a time. Other people walk into the cafe, choosing which donuts and coffee they’ll have for a nice, summery Monday afternoon. A couple walks in, a handsome sporty looking man and his girlfriend, cute and stylish in her sheer black button down, black and white striped mini skirt and gold ballet flats. They place their orders and take a seat next to the table I am sitting at. Maybe the woman in the white tank top can sit somewhere else.

By the time I look up again, she is headed out of the door with a cup of coffee in her hand and I am left to sit there quietly, with nothing but a few seconds of her tired eyes and the image of a cragged and shadowy wasteland. I wonder where she’s going. I wonder where she is now.

I wish she stayed.

I am reading to you from a letter because what I have to say is very important, and I can’t afford to make mistakes with what I am about to tell you. 

Dear J,

I want to apologize for disappearing for the past few days. Hopefully you’ve been well. I needed some time to think to myself and deliberate the situation. I’ve been really confused about you and us, to be honest. I remember the day you told me that we could be official again, and I couldn’t give you a straight answer. Since we broke up and started dating again, I’d been trying so hard and for so long to be the girl you wanted me to be, to be better for you. Finally, after a year of dating, you asked me to be your girlfriend!!! I thought I’d be jumping for joy and absolutely thrilled;  however, in reality it was just the opposite. I knew then that something was wrong and that I need to think carefully about what I’d do next. Eventually of course I chose to be with you, but the doubts never went away. Did I really want to be with you? Did I love you as much thought I did? Sometimes I’d look at you and look for something deeper, something underneath the surface that I might have missed. The kind of something that would make me certain that I wanted to stay. I never found it. Not in you. Not in me.

Since we got together again, I realized that my decision to be with you again wasn’t based on how much I loved you and how much I wanted to be with you; rather, it was based on being afraid of being alone. I was terrified that no one would love or understand me the way you did. I was afraid of being left to my own devices. What if I fell apart again? It was based on thinking that maybe I’d love you the way I used to, and maybe you’d love me the way you used to as well. It was based on thinking that maybe if we got together again, things would go back to the way they were where everything was nice and pleasant, and we were all friends. I thought maybe it’d fix myself and everything that was broken before. I realize now that clinging onto some far away past is holding me back. From what, I don’t know; but I feel like I’m trapped between the person I was and the person I want to be. 

Another thing I realized while I was away is that I’m not the same person I used to be. The things I needed back then, the attention I craved or the kind of love I wanted isn’t want I need or want now. I don’t need or want anything except to be OK with myself. I realize that I am actually OK with who I am. I don’t have to change a hair on my head. I’m OK with being on my own without the safety net that you provided. I know you were there through my toughest days and I am ultimately grateful for all the years of love, understanding and patience that you’ve blessed me with; however, I think it’s time to move on. To put it one way, you were a character in a chapter in the story of my life. We met, we loved, and we parted ways. If by now you still don’t understand what I am trying to say then here it is in all its plainness and simplicity: I loved you so much. I will always love you as much, for being you and the wonderful person that you are. The sad reality is just that I don’t love you enough to want to be with you anymore.

It’s difficult to write, and trust me even more difficult to say, but there’s just no way around it. I understand that by letting you go, I am letting go of a wonderful person and all of the wonderful people that I had met when I was with you. I am letting go of the possibility of being friends with D, F, N, M, and all the people who love you. I am letting go of an amazing part of my life and I’m even letting go of a future we may have had together. I’m letting go of fur-babies Baby B and our little A. However, you deserve better. You deserve someone who will love you the way you deserve to be loved, with more fervor and passion than I could ever have mustered. I just can’t love you like that anymore, but you deserve someone who will. I hope she knows how to bake.

Good bye, J

All my love,
S

Today I am partaking in what might be the very first BJJ anti-bully program in the city. I’ll be volunteering at my gym to assist my coach in teaching young children and teenagers ways to defend themselves should they be victimized by bullies. We’re not teaching them to fight back by inflicting pain or being violent. Our first and foremost philosophy regarding bullies is PACIFISM; to exchange peaceful words, not fists. We’re teaching them to fight back by standing up for themselves and not allowing themselves to be pushed around. We’re teaching them how to strengthen their heart, mind and soul against the damaging effects of bullying. We’re teaching them how to be WARRIORS, not WORRIERS.

This project has been in the works for a few months now and it is something very close to my heart. My coach decide to begin the program after his own daughter, a sweet, smiling and vivacious young girl, was bullied in school. I am so afraid that those bullies are going to take away her smile and passion for life. If you’ve read through my journal, you’ll know how strong a stance I take against bullying since I myself was bullied growing up. People don’t understand the toll that bullying takes on someones mind, heart and soul. With every mean word or deed, it whittles away at you like a knife chipping away at a piece of wood; bullies will keep chipping away you until there’s nothing left. Bullying is like being forced to drink little doses of poison every day, and instead of the swift death that you crave for, you’re instead forced to die a slow painful death EVERYDAY; it’s not a death that involves extinguishing bodily, but rather the kind of death that leaves you a helpless bystander as you watch your soul wither and fade, and your heart dry, shrivel and crumble. Sometimes the slow painful death is too much for some people to take, that they to decide to take their own deaths into their own hands…I don’t know how many times my heart has broken every time I read or hear about someone committing suicide because of bullying…I don’t know how many times my heart has burned and flared with anger every time someone close to me is being bullied…

Bullying is so cruel, it is something I would never wish on anyone else, not even on my own bullies.

Once I grew up, I swore on my life that I would defend people who were or were being victimized by bullies. There have been countless times where I have stepped in to defend a friend or a family member from them. If I could help a child or an adult learn how to defend themselves; if I could be part of the process that will strengthen their mind, heart and body; if I could look into a person’s eyes and tell them, “One day they are going to have the strength to stand up for yourself. One day you will never have to feel the way you do now. One day you’re going to be able to live and be proud of who you are,” then I will have fulfilled one purpose here on Earth.

Besides, trust me, from one bullied kid (me) to another, once you’ve grown up and come to realize certain things about bullies and why they do what they do, the only thing you’ll want to do after helping yourself, is to help them too. Perhaps after this, I’ll dedicate a post to bullies, or to people who were bullies; after all, they’re people too, and they’re just as broken and bent as everyone else.

“Perchance, tragedy happens for a reason; sometimes, it has no apparent reason, and whatever its reason, intrinsic or fortuitous; tragedy, as an inevitable reality in human existence, will either make a person’s life stronger or intolerable to live.”

Just this evening, I found out that the brother of someone very dear to me had passed away from a heart attack. I don’t know all the details, but I will as I am seeing my dear friend later on. My heart goes out to him and his family, and to anyone who has ever had to experience the pain of losing someone so precious.