The kernel of my soul consists of this child at the age of four. Long before the world took its toll upon me, my soul, mind, heart and physical being co-existed as one entity. I looked at the world with wonder and I felt it look at me in the same way. I was myself. I was genuine. I was honest. I was complete. I was whole. I remember that person and my present journey is not to find her, because I know where she lives, but it is to join her and shrug off my sibylline nature.
My mind sees myself as this person. This is the person I am inside when I think of who I am: bright-eyed, smiling and happy, holding my greatest achievement. This is the person I am struggling to show the rest of the world, the person hidden beneath the layers I have built up around myself. This is the person that yearns to be free of my addictions, obsessions and neuroses, the person who, if she felt the overwhelming need, could do cartwheels in the front yard without killing herself (yes, sometimes, I just want to, ok?)
Here is the person I see when I look in the mirror. You think I’m kidding. I have seen this person for more years than I can count. I pick apart my appearance: the ugly nose, uncooperative hair, pudgy cheeks, hips and thighs, non-existent eyes, poor make-up ability. I know that’s not really the way I look and sometimes I even kind of think I look ok, but most times I feel like this and have done so since I was ten. I recognize that it generally has nothing to do with reality but it’s my reality and it’s a perception I want to change.
I have no picture of how my heart feels about the matter. It has as of yet not chimed in with its opinion. I think it’s afraid to be laughed at or picked on, like the time it was harassed for praying with its hands this way instead of this way. Like God gives as shit. My heart has the biggest shield of all, but it’s peeking through some cracks, trying to get the lay of the land.
7 comments:
I think the cracks are widening. For someone so protected, I think you're incredibly open. And loving.
In the metamorphesis from caterpillar to butterfly there must be struggle, or the butterfly will not have the strength to fly.
You are doing great.
Jenn: You are so sweet to me. I feel I need to push myself in order to survive (I tried to use another word, but survive is the right one, if you know what I mean.) I can't let fear dictate my life.
Quilly: Thanks. What a great example.
Who you are should not depend on what your weight happens to be. I know this sounds like a speach, but I truly believe that. Somehow, over the entire lifetime that I have been overweight, I still see a pretty person. I just feel the gravity pulling me down!
Mary: I agree with you. But sometimes, when I want to fly, the gravity is too strong.
Physically/Healthwise, I hate it... Mentally, I'm okay with it. It's hard to understand.
Mary: I think I know what you mean. When I think of myself, I don't see myself as fat, I just see me. But when I want to do something, then the physical limitations come into play. Plus, I want to look better and just for me, really. The benefits I once thought I was getting no longer apply. Plus, now I think it's just a bad habit. And that annoys me.
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