“It’s day for self-flagellation,” says me.
“Okay,” I respond. “Let’s get this party started.”
Run faster, run longer, run harder. Take all of the frustration burning up your lungs and expel it through sweat. No one judges sweat or thinks of it as weakness, not even you.
Later in the day, there are pictures of women who are prettier, smarter, thinner than me. Or so says me. Then a list of all the reasons I am unlovable, undesirable, unhealthy, unwanted. There is a list of words, all beginning with the prefix un-. I take all of my family’s guilt and heap it in one heavy pile on a plate the size of my head. I wallow in it, roll around for good measure. I take random phrases my children say and turn them into myself. My fault. Destroyer of lives, homewrecker, woman with no foresight. It doesn’t matter if malice wasn’t involved, I say, looking around at the wreckage of my personal plane crash.
I ask myself why after years of fighting do I still struggle with the same things I always have. Self-image, security, my failure to see the good in myself because I don’t have a searchlight bright enough to see through the bad. I know it’s a weakness. Even my weaknesses have weaknesses. It’s a never-ending circular spiral of crap. I despise egomaniacs, arrogance, snotty people. Stands to reason, says me, that I should also despise their flipside. The punishers of self, those who can’t focus on the good in themselves instead of their shortcomings. Perhaps my impatience in general stems from inability to give myself a break.
I have this conversation with myself for a good portion of the day. The lowest common denominator is always my physical image, because it’s something I can control and it’s something I can beat into submission. Years ago I stumbled across a picture of someone’s ex-girlfriend. I loved the someone, but seeing his ex made me want to crawl into bed and stay there. It’s been 18 years since I happened across that picture, but I can still tell you exactly what it looked like. She was stretched across a couch, one arm tucked behind her and one thin hand thrown above her head. Her hair was tousled and she stared into the lens of the camera, long before digitals became the standard. Her power came through the glossy paper; she smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. The corners of her lips pulled up very slightly; she was confident and she knew that she was beautiful. She had dirty blond hair streaked with black, because then it was cool to have bad hair coloring. She was painfully thin. Even through the denim of her tiny jeans, her hipbones jutted out and one was partially exposed. Her shirt was slightly raised on one side - a simple white tee. Her skin was pale but creamy and she wore no shoes or socks. Her toes were painted a dark red but the nail polish had begun to chip. Her fingernails were long. Her eyes were hazel. Looking at her, I knew that my someone could never love me like he loved this beautiful and strange person on the couch captured in chemicals and paper.
Throughout the years, this picture has come back to me at odd times, including yesterday. This woman became what my vision of beauty was. It’s interesting I would choose a 5’ 9” woman to mark myself against; I’ve never worn size 0 jeans in my life, and I’ll never blow past the 5’ 1” mark. It is impossible for me to change my eye color or my darker skin. I am not built like a ballet dancer; I’m built like a gypsy meant to have children and work in the fields. I’m sturdy, mule-like, beautiful in my own clumsy way, but there is no amount of plastic surgery or starvation that will make me look like her. Finding beauty in all things opposite of me is an unbearable theme in my life.
I am sick to death of my lowest common denominator. I’m sick to death of having this same conversation. To my younger friends still struggling with body image and eating disorders: I am sorry that I can’t set a better example and show you that years of working on these things mean success. It does get easier - more natural - but to still struggle with the same issues while teetering on the edge of 40 years is both sad and truthful. It really is a lifelong struggle once you give yourself over to your own denominator.
Today is a better day.
