A Lack of Color Here

Today I squeezed myself into my blue jeans for the first time in, well, awhile.

I know the phrase "blue jeans" sounds terribly quaint, but it is also accurate: For weeks I have been hiding out in my black skinny jeans. Which are something of a misnomer, as actually they're my fat jeans – the largest jeans I currently own, and (at least for a few weeks), at least ¼ of my wardrobe that fit.

But anyway. My blue jeans. After 18 days of not bingeing (and not just not bingeing, but actual dieting and renewed vigilance about exercising), I can wear them. I don't think I'd wear them with anything particularly form-fitting on top just yet, but I am cautiously optimistic.

Or really, I'm cautiously optimistic in the moments when I'm not monstrously depressed and disgusted and irritated with myself. And also afraid.

A couple of weeks ago I hopped on a treadmill and it flashed up my weight (only in America, folks). I knew I'd gained, and I know that weight is just a number, but I just didn't want to know. Two friends (after testing the treadmill themselves) claimed the reading was a couple of pounds on the high side. And there was allowing for shoes. And liquid consumed. And the lot. But even with all the caveats, it was undeniably a big gain from just a few months ago.

I know, I know, get to the numbers already, right? The reading was 166 lbs (11 stone 12), up 23 pounds from the 143 (10 stone 3) that was my lowest (I'm not counting the few weeks I briefly dipped below that). It sounds only slightly less horrific when I realize I was hanging out at about 150 (10 stone 10) before I left London – so a gain of about 16 pounds in just over two months.

Hmmm, doesn't really sound much better, does it? Especially not when I realize that the number puts me back where I swore I would never ever be: in the "overweight" category. Just by a couple of pounds, but still. The number, for me, is scarily close to 170. Which is – when I am in binge mode – not that far from 180. Which is the point above which I start to look very overweight.

Ah, you say. But you're not in binge mode. You're doing something about it.

Indeed I am. But for months – even before the Armageddon of November and December – I've been "doing something about it." And yet I slowly began gaining last year. Or rapidly gaining but equally rapidly taking off much of the binge-weight. Except then I started bingeing with such frequency and intensity that it was beyond damage control.

I've said it before, but it's still true: When I'm not bingeing I can't imagine bingeing. But when I am bingeing, I can't imagine how I'm ever going to stop. In the middle of a binge, not even the fear of being 240 again stops me.

I don't feel like myself at the moment. I want to hide, and to control. I feel trapped between the desire to go out and the fear of calories in drinks and dinners and brunches out.

I don't want to be this girl again. And nor do I want to make more empty vows about how and what I'll do about the weight. I just don't want to be this size any more.

***

You know you're a little bit jaded when even New York seems provincial.

The other day – a day of record-breaking cold in Manhattan – a woman stopped me on the street in midtown to enquire about the provenance of my coat.

She didn't – or couldn't – understand that Afghanistan is not, in fact, the name of some boutique or pop-up shop she hadn't yet heard of.

I flashed back to the conversation I had in the elevator at work with our editorial director.

"You were training British troops going to Afghanistan, and… now you're editing the Love Your Month section," she said, sounding incredulous.

The ludicrous juxtaposition made me want to cry that day. But I knew I couldn't.

I didn't cry on the street on Monday, either, but it was another chink in the armor.
And yesterday, sitting at my desk, I clicked on a PDF of my grandmother's will. I read the pages calmly, feeling as detached as legal language itself.

Then I burst into tears at the sight of her signature at the bottom.