cute and naive

It’s been forever since I wrote anything but I’m just gonna wing it. So much has happened since the last time I posted, but I don’t really want to spend an hour writing a long update…it’s my life, I’ve been living it, I fucking know what happened. Besides, writing that way makes journaling kind of a chore and that’s why I stopped updating in the first place. I felt like I had to have an “idea” for a post, and I’m abandoning that notion. I just want to have something to look back on…something slightly less embarrassing than my teenage livejournal account (which I still don’t have access to, and I still count among my many blessings in life).

Anyway, I used to have a lot more passion for journaling. The reason why I called this a collection of personal writing assignments is because I started it thinking I would use it to refine a lost skill. Writing was something I loved to do as a child and I received constant praise for it. I did the young author’s conference a few times. I remember vividly the day that I realized I could write on a computer and save my work instead of writing in notebooks. I was probably in third grade.

But yeah, I quit doing all that because life got busy and I kind of repressed all of my childhood hobbies and talents…you know how you do that weird thing in high school where you will away anything that makes you differ from your peers, to seem cool or whatever? Okay, maybe not everyone does that. I definitely did, but I don’t really regret it because in the process of willing away my old self, I met totally amazing new people who introduced me to totally amazing new shit that definitely enhanced my personality in the long run. I credit a couple people with contributing to my metamorphasis, I’ll keep them nameless here. I know who you are.

Part of it was that I always hung out with groups of kids that were older than me. I only had one friend growing up who was younger than me, and I always thought she outweighed me in intelligence so it was never something I noticed. People always comment on how mature I am, or rather how mature I seem. I don’t really think I’m so mature; I think I’m more reserved and poised, and I can see how some would mistake that for maturity. I remember one time, at Ed Debevic’s (that restaurant where the staff purposely insults you for laughs) the waitress took my order. I was probably 12. I ordered a salad and a diet coke, cause you know, I had an eating disorder and was utterly repulsed and pissed that my life had reached this crossroads where my awful family was forcing me to eat an actual meal with all of their eyes watching and no where to hide (haha) and the waitress said, “Wow. Are you a 40 year old woman in there?” AND she actually rapped on my head.

My point? I know I strayed pretty far from it…but my point is that I was always the baby of my friend groups. I was cute and naive in so many eyes, that now when I look at people my own age I see them with the same assessment. I wouldn’t call myself maternal though…

santa claus is coming to town

Hi! Okay, so this will be a quick little blog and only because I’m doing something exciting today; I’m going to see Santa with Charlotte! Afterwards, we’re going to do a little last minute Christmas shopping. Last minute, because this year I am feeling particularly (and uncharacteristically) festive and about 90% of my Christmas shopping is already done which means that on December 3rd I can refer to any and all Christmas shopping as “last minute shopping”.

Then we’re going out to dinner to make a date of it. I love my baby girl! This morning she read me a story, which she referred to as “the most boring story ever written”. It was about a pet store. Each page was very simply an illustration of a certain number of pets with a corresponding caption. For example: an illustration of six dogs would read, “Six dogs”. On the last page, everyone from the pet store is shown and the caption reads, “The pet store”. Char was right, it was sort of boring, but at least she’s easily navigating and quickly surpassing the kindergarten reading level books!

the healthy way

Preface: I didn’t always have issues with my body. As a young child, I wasn’t too thin but naturally lithe and, thanks to a lot of tap and ballet lessons, also quite flexible. When I was eight years old I fell terribly ill around Thanksgiving and was admitted to the hospital. My symptoms were extreme thirst and hunger, frequent urination, lethargy, and unexplained weight loss. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and my body’s inability to naturally metabolize carbohydrates (basically, whatever I ate was almost immediately expelled from my body – a natural effort to lower my blood sugar and save my own life) resulted in a serious weight reduction before I was brought to the hospital. I was eight years old, and I weighed as much as a healthy five year old should, about 45 pounds.

I never gained much weight after that. I finished elementary school still looking very sickly, though I was completely adjusted and healthy now. My appetite was healthy, but I believe my young body’s adjustment to synthetic insulin injections and the energy of being a child prevented me from putting on any significant weight. I became very ill again when I was in seventh grade. When I began vomiting blood, I was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with an extreme case of diabetic ketoacidosis. My body was shutting down and I spent a week in the hospital recovering. Vomiting blood for days led to erosion of my esophagus, leaving me unable to eat without excruciating pain even after I left the hospital. I lost twenty pounds. When I went back to school, none of my clothes fit. My gym suit shorts were nearly falling off me during class. It took time, but eventually I fully recovered and put on some weight. I was still very thin. It was not until I reached puberty in eighth grade that I started to acquire any sort of womanly shape.

My sophomore year of high school, I was informed by a male friend that I had “let myself go”. I wondered what he meant. I had never thought anything negative about my body. In fact, I had never thought anything about it. I wasn’t terribly into makeup or fashion at that age, so my outward appearance really wasn’t of too much concern. I had a steady boyfriend, but we were young and it was not sexual and he had never really said anything about the way I looked, positive or negative. This was the first criticism that had ever been brought to my attention. I looked at myself in the mirror that evening and realized I had a bit more pudge in my hips and thighs than I had noticed before. I smiled at my reflection and my cheeks were suddenly chubby. I weighed myself. I was 148 pounds.

A year later, I found out I was pregnant. Obviously, this resulted in some weight gain but I didn’t have issues with it. I put on another thirty pounds during my pregnancy. Shortly after giving birth, I was back down to about 150 pounds.

Then I quit eating. It developed hard and fast. My schedule was a whirlwind between my infant daughter and beginning my first semester of college, and I noticed a bit of weight loss from the stress. I ran with it. I would drink a pot of coffee a day, nothing for breakfast, rarely anything for lunch. I would pick at dinner with my family. If I had a night class, I sometimes stopped at McDonald’s on my way and scarfed down a happy meal. I became obsessive and weighed myself every day. I quickly lost 30 pounds this way. My family became a little concerned, making comments like “I can see your bones” or “you need to eat something once in a while”, but no one said anything convincing enough to make me stop. I remember stepping on the scale in May 2011, and I was 117. I wanted to be 110 so badly, so I kept it up.

Then, I met this guy, we’ll call him Mark. We had a long, very serious relationship that eventually resulted in me moving in with him. Mark’s mother was a lovely and sweet woman, and I became pretty close with her. She was 100% Lithuanian, and she could cook like nobody’s business. I began to let go of my obsessive behavior towards eating there. I put on some weight, because I was happy and I was eating well. I was also treating myself to craft beers and red wine pretty much every night.

We broke up.

And that was awesome.

But I was miserable about a different guy and so I lost some weight again.
And then I gained it back and then a bit.
And then I would lose, and then I would gain, and lose and gain, but I’ve been hovering around 130-140 for the past three years.

For the past two weeks I’ve been diligently watching my calorie intake and making a serious effort to make it to the gym, or at least do some strength training at home, three times a week. At the risk of looking like a total loser, I’m just gonna track all of my progress here where no one can accuse me of being attention seeking or fishing for compliments. I’ve lost 4.5 pounds so far 🙂 the healthy way

school-boy crush

written Tuesday, September 1 2015

I believe this trauma began in kindergarten.

I was six years old, a new student transferred in at the beginning of the last quarter of the year. The other children in my class had spent the last six months pairing off into their first friendships–some of which would turn out to be lifelong. At this age, my shyness had not swallowed me yet, and I was still a very curious and friendly child. Though I arrived terribly late in the year, I managed to weasel my way into the previously organized group pretty deftly. The other children were eager to befriend a new student, and this worked to my advantage. I was overwhelmed by the support of the new children. I felt no allegiance to my old classmates–I loved my new ones so much more than I had the others.

At Illinois kindergarten we did not have tables like we had in Michigan kindergarten. We had two rows of carpeted steps, steep enough to sit on as though it was a tiny auditorium. Our teacher sat in a large rocking chair in front of us with the blackboard behind her. I loved kindergarten.

There was one boy in Illinois kindergarten, we’ll call him Kyle. Kyle was the first boy in my life who was unafraid of displaying his affection for me publicly, and it mortified me. Kyle would insist on sitting next to me on the steps at the beginning of the day, and I grew to despise the insistence of our teacher’s “boy, girl, boy, girl” seating chart. He drew pictures of me and gave them to me in front of everyone. M friends teased me about his crush, taunting that I returned his feelings.

“No way,” I remember telling them. “I can’t stand him. I wish he would just leave me alone.”

I remember being humiliated the day Kyle came to school bearing invitations to his birthday party. He passed one out to every boy in the class, and then he sheepishly tossed one in front of me. I cried all the way home.

Another disturbingly vivid memory of Kyle takes place on the school playground. Kyle and a few other boys had infiltrated our girls-only game of tag. I watched in horror as one of the other children tagged Kyle–he was “it”. I froze, and Kyle saw an opportunity. He came thundering at me (as only a six year old boy can) and I ran for my life. He was screaming my name and making kissing noises. I ran straight into the arms of one of our playground aides, crying and sputtering. When she asked me what was wrong, I buried my face in her chest and screamed at the top of my lungs, “KYLE IS TRYING TO KISS ME!”.

Anyway, this was clearly just some childhood innocence against the backdrop of my dramatic memory (which has improved a bit with age, but not by much) and a little boy who had no control over his very scary, upsetting, animalistic attraction to my kindergarten self. However, it’s important to remember that I was truly terrified of this boy. I lived in constant fear of Kyle approaching me, talking to me, trying to kiss me…

I am still like this today, with grown men, and for this reason I am dreading Thursday and now at 23, instead of fearing Kyle, I am living in constant fear of the man who removes the medical waste at my office.

the true site of a life changing French getaway (and no, it wasn’t Paris)

Since my return from France in January, life has sped by so fiercely that now I find myself at the tail-end of August. I left the sluggish (but beautiful) French Alps, I returned to the rat race of the U.S., and I dove in headfirst. I did this instinctively, in spite of the way Grenoble filled me with a desire to adopt a more carefree attitude towards living. As an American/English speaker, it was sometimes incredibly frustrating inside the tightly sealed envelope of Europe. There would be no cracking the code of the inflexible French customs in the ten short days I spent there. My boyfriend, who spend a good five months in the country before I arrived, had only very recently cracked it himself. During my stay, I was subject to a lot of unanswered questions and tons of misadventures, even with the companionship of  my boyfriend, who was unrelenting in his attempts to show me a good time in the country. The dramatically different way of life was concerning to a young American girl, and shit, it was SLOW. It was backwards. It was new and confusing. But you know what? I loved it. I had the time of my life, though sometimes my boyfriend suspects otherwise. I’d give anything to go back and stay. That desire is becoming more and more apparent to me. It is reigning my daydreams.

Nine months after my first venture out of the country, it’s still as close to my heart as it ever was. Now that we are approaching the one year mark, I am reminiscing about the minute details of the trip more than I ever have before. When the men at baggage claim asked me if I could speak English, when I sat with a Caribbean med student at the bar and let her believe that her determination was inspiring my own, wandering around the industrial park that is Heathrow International and crying and hoping that I would make it safely to Lyon–and then that moment. The moment I saw one familiar face among the assemblage of strange travelers, and the relief that came from feeling his hand finally in mine.

I think the reason that a lot of my feelings and memories about the country are incredibly romantic is because I had the good fortune of spending most of my time in a quiet, yet reasonably bustling, mountain community. Grenoble is where I truly left my heart, not in Paris as most would say. I spent a grand total of three full days, one evening, and one morning in Paris. During my stay, I was able to traipse leisurely through the palace of Versailles in a sea of people from all over the world. My senses were overwhelmed there as I took in priceless works of art and so many interesting faces. I ate in sweet little cafes and sipped tiny cups of espresso. I walked around in the winter chill that was nothing compared to what Chicago had prepared me for. I saw the Louvre, though I did not step inside (I was sick of waiting in lines after my experience at Versailles, tourism is really what made Paris irritating for me). I watched the Eiffel tower light up on every hour, and saw the trees along the Champs-Élysées glowing like thousands of fireworks simultaneously set ablaze while we downed several glasses of vin chaud. I saw fireworks shoot out of the top of the fucking Arc de Triomphe on New Years Eve. I saw some incredible and truly unforgettable things in Paris.

But Grenoble is what captivated me. Grenoble is where I fell in love again, and every day walking down the crowded sidewalks smoking a hand-rolled cigarette was a gift. Grenoble was the true site of my life changing vacation.

Still, I am (by nature) a bit of a pessimist, and I feel that maybe my affection for the country is just because of the saying about the grass always being greener. Since my return, I’ve been overworked and stressed. My job holds dominion above all else, including my child. My self esteem has been low as I have still not made a commitment to returning to school. I’ve experienced irrefutable happiness and sadness alike. I’ve been at odds with everyone I’m close to. I’ve stretched most of my relationships as far as they can go, as though I’ve purposely been testing the resilience of my loved ones. Their elasticity has equaled their tolerance for my bullshit, and it leaves us all wondering why it’s so high.

It’s okay. There’s plenty of time to work on eliminating that bullshit.