to do so you can be.

I remember the first time my father visited me in Manhattan. I hadn’t been there for more than three weeks. But according to my sister, it was enough time to put on weight. Even then, I knew that sometimes all one needed to feel secure was sight—that one thought the visible was enough to make a fair judgment of the state of another’s interior. But the truth is, one can’t have an accurate intuitive insight into another’s being if it is based solely on aesthetics. The vision I had of myself was unlike what others saw, but one thing was the same; we all had visions, and despite how or even why they varied, they all were involved with what was “out there”—a sense distinct from any other because its distance disallowed the intimate details unveiled when at close quarters. My appearance could not possibly speak for the content of who I am (I intentionally do not use ‘was’ because who I ‘am’ depends upon my past) but only—if at all—the quality. Any new self-awareness I may have had could only be accessed at a very private level. And I believe that was why it was unfortunate that a weekend visit was made significantly, although unsaid, for the purpose of shedding light on where I was with my disorder. It was also unfortunate that my better eating habits (I never did not eat, therefore when I say this, I mean to say my consistency with eating protein) did not seem to support the physique I greeted him with when he arrived. The past three weeks had been busy, I had been moving boxes up four flights of stairs, putting together an apartment and trying to settle into some reality of living in my dream, Manhattan. But I suppose when it comes to your health, especially when it is really on the line, there are no excuses and should be none. I am so often at odds with myself, and I think my writing is where this surfaces—this back and forth, this questioning and reasoning, language helps me make sense of my psychic text, and there is no disputing than it takes longer than you think. I remember just before my father left he took me to the Vitamin Shoppe. It is something I had been excited about doing, and that excitement can easily be likened to that of a child. It is embarrassing really—how I acted like a child—a young woman imprisoned by a mind she had when she was in her youth, small, undeveloped but still expecting to grow. And what I remember most from his visit was being in that store, the store I had been excited to go to, and suddenly not wanting to spend money on products I knew would make me look better, on vitamins I knew would help me be healthy. Just reminding myself of this experience shows me how difficult it is to write with absolute truth, to perform based on self-awareness, to live in favor of one’s self. It is hard for me to accept what I write, “The exterior does not correlate to the interior,” without struggling to admit how my actions have contradicted what I truly wish and feel I should be doing. I like to say that actions do not speak of one’s feelings—that once something is enacted, something genuine also goes missing—but I cannot help myself from seeing how, despite my awareness and sense, I resist my desires, and when I do “follow my heart” (yes, yes, a cliché) I also feel like I am punishing myself, like I should feel guilty, that there is going to be a consequence. And despite my ongoing philosophy that our exteriors do not illuminate any sort of interior truth—despite my frustration with even close family and friends when they thought my appearance did convey how I was mentally progressing or not—despite my hope all along that I was a smart girl, aware enough of the situation, that I knew "what this all was about", I so obviously did not know what I saw, I did not see what I needed to know and I did not know enough to be aware of what is unquestionably important. I wonder whether all my senses will ever merge and make me whole. It seems like that is always the goal—the reason people go to therapy because there is supposedly a way to be everything and yet, nothing that isn't sensible or not pure—supposedly once we see we are doing it wrong, we can learn to do it right. And because of this over-evaluation it sounds possible to be that single person you know you should. But also, once you sit back and just listen to yourself think that way, don't you come up for air and the first thing you want to say is, "It's all bullshit. It's all yet again another ideal. No one and nothing is perfect. Maybe the point of life is to accept that you're never going to get it all right, and so, try and be the best you can be at being human, at fucking up, at going against your heart because you'll never be happy just playing it safe."