Slowly, I’m getting angry.
I asked for time to grieve. What I have received is calls, emails and texts from him – and his mum, who texted me for the third day in a row this morning. (I’ve responded to her previous messages, but I’m just not sure what to say at this point.)
One of the emails from him refers to whether I can think through the haze of drugs I’m taking. Drugs? I don’t even taken Nurofen (Advil for you American readers!).
When I’m not angry I’m often incredibly sad. As a very wise friend (and luckily, I seem to have more than my fair share) said: “You have to mourn the relationship you’d hoped you’d have as well as the one you were in.” I wanted the nice Oxford-educated English boyfriend – the “darling” in that English accent. I wanted the cozy weekends in Devon and the family trip to Venice. I wanted to feel like there was a reason why I came all the way to London, and why I struggled so hard to make my life here.
I wanted not to be alone. But instead, he made me lonelier than I’ve ever felt in my life.
I remember fighting with him in Bucharest over New Year, which is – I think -- when the really awful fighting began. Bucharest is when I began to fear him, and fear upsetting him – when my stomach would begin to knot with almost every interaction. After he screamed at me that my feelings didn’t matter, he then suggested I leave the room. Which I did. I walked the streets numbly and aimlessly, mentally running through a list of people to call in my head and realizing I didn’t feel I could reach out to any of them. Friends had wanted me to leave him, but I hadn’t, and at times I’d been less than honest about what was going on with us. Or I just hadn’t seen the friends because I was at his place, an hour and a half from the center of town, or we’d just had a fight and he’d demand to know how I could be going out when we needed “to rebuild,” as he always put it. Often I didn’t even want to go out – if we actually went to a party (which was so very rare), I feared a row about my behaviour (BN2 always accused me of either flirting or leaving him for too long). And if I went out on my own and was coming back to his place, woe betide me for turning up late. (On Tuesday, I went to a friend’s birthday dinner and nearly cartwheeled down the street, suddenly realizing that – wheeeeee! – I could stay and chat to whoever I wanted for as long as I wanted without anxiously checking my phone to try to determine from his text messages whether he’d be in a forgiving mood when I got back.)
I must start listing all the things I already don’t miss to look at in weak moments. Because – despite the above – there are plenty of them.
For now I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, I know, and put some distance between us. Frankly, I feel a bit like the premature baby doctors try to keep in the womb for as long as possible – every hour makes the baby a little bit stronger and able to survive on its own.
* * *
I have been so grateful and actually even humbled by the support I’ve gotten from my friends – especially because I’ve been a pretty crappy friend myself the past few months.
One of the things that kept me in the relationship was fear of being totally alone, because I really was that cut off. But everyone has been amazing.
Trust. As I know I've said before, I need to learn some.
I wrote to a friend – one of only a couple with any inkling that things were very grim – about how I felt like a little sapling trying to withstand gale force winds.
She wrote back: “You may be a little sapling tree, but they are stronger than the hurricane because they can bend without breaking. Besides, you’re not alone in this. All your friends are here for you.”
* * *
Speaking of trust: Last night I had dinner with a friend who has shared in the weight loss saga.
We met up at Selfridges and she suggested looking for Victoria sponge cake, which she knew I’ve been wanting. I was hungry for dinner and panicking slightly at having to contemplate cakes for fear I would want them all, and that very minute.
There wasn’t any Vicky sponge – but there were some cupcakes. She bought us each a small one.
The sugar hit me with a jolt. Yes, I could have eaten 10 of them, but in fact, I only had access to one.
I was okay. (Yes, I eat foods like chocolate almost every day, but chocolate is not actually a trigger for me. I love cakes, and one of my favorites is vanilla or yellow cake with buttercream frosting. Actually, scratch that -- I like any kind of cake except if it's got alcohol in it -- I prefer to keep my alcohol and my pudding separate, but then again I always was the kid who didn't like any of the parts of my TV dinner touching any of the other parts!) Working out how I could sneak back to the shop later for more – something I almost certainly would have done years ago – didn’t even occur to me as something I could have done until this morning.
I wrote to my friend this morning that I was glad we’d had the cupcakes – because on my own, I’d have talked myself out of it, and maybe even binged on it. Not last night and maybe not this week, but the climate of denial would be there for a binge to take root.
I need to trust that one unplanned cupcake – and I think that’s what’s key for me, is that I freak out slightly with the unplanned – does not mean I will lose control.
I need to live a little. I’m looking forward to it.
Friday, 8 May 2009
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
I'm Still Standing
I have seen photos taken during hurricanes where there is one thing standing against incredible odds, when everything around it has been reduced to rubble. Often it’s a tree; in one instance it was a child clinging to a tree, her hair looking like it was about to be ripped off her head from the wind.
I’m still standing. Barely, it seems.
Over the past 48 hours I’ve endured beseeching and probably manipulative texts and emails and phone calls (actually voicemails, because I haven’t picked up). His best friend called me to "check that I was okay." BN2 bcc’d me on an email to his parents with photos of his daughter taken Sunday. He was in my neighborhood last night and this morning (his best friend lives down the road). He dropped off a package containing my watch and a note saying he still had a handful of my things, “a reminder of happy times.”
This morning I received a couple of emails, followed by a text and then an extremely difficult phone call, all from his mother. I took notes during the call, trying to be a detached journalist, but I burst into tears anyway.
I told her I would think about what she’d said, but that I didn’t think I’d do anything today. Mercifully, I haven’t heard from him since midafternoon.
I stopped by an exhibition opening that included three portraits painted by BN2’s best friend S. I knew BN2 himself wouldn’t be there – it’s his night to look after his daughter.
I was fine until my awkward goodbye to S, when I burst into tears. I cried the whole way home.
I am so very very tired and sad. Also very tired of being sad. Has it really only been four days since I left?
* * *
At this time last week I was happily getting pissed on champagne in the House of Commons.
First I was on the terrace – the most fabulous view in London. I chatted about Jimmy Choos with Kate Adie. I listened to Cabinet ministers gossip, and then gossip drunkenly and cattily and definitely unadvisedly. (Can you imagine Congressmen getting drunk and gossiping? I can’t.)
I ended up in the Strangers’ Bar, an MP’s-only bar in the House of Commons, singing Burt Bacharach songs at the top of my lungs with a couple of Cabinet ministers.
I felt alive and happy, something I hadn’t felt for a while. I was glad I’d lied to BN2, blaming the Tube for my late arrival at the (work-related) party, and saying given the hour I’d finish, it would be best for me to go back to my own flat.
I knew he wouldn’t be happy, and that we’d probably fight about it, but right then, I didn’t care.
Later, a male journalist friend and I went on to a private members club in Soho and drank more. I ran upstairs and had a mini-binge: a huge oatmeal cookie and a chocolate bar, I think. In the club, I crammed down handfuls of prawn crackers and popcorn so quickly I was ashamed.
It was my second binge of the week, my first being a massive one on the Monday, when a female friend and I plotted how I should overthrow BN2. I didn’t think I could do it (and the plan we hatched is not, in fact, what I did – Sunday was not premeditated) and so I ate instead. Feeling trapped has always been a binge trigger for me.
I feared I would instantly balloon from 2 binges – me, the girl who could go from a size 12 to a 16 in about two days flat. But I didn’t. Instead, the scale this morning read 10 stone 2 (142 lbs). Earlier this week, the counselor I’m seeing told me I shouldn’t lose any more weight without discussing it with him.
I’ve been fairly relaxed on the restaurant meals and the drinks over the past few days. Maybe I’ll even live a little and have the Victoria sponge I’ve been craving…
I’m still standing. Barely, it seems.
Over the past 48 hours I’ve endured beseeching and probably manipulative texts and emails and phone calls (actually voicemails, because I haven’t picked up). His best friend called me to "check that I was okay." BN2 bcc’d me on an email to his parents with photos of his daughter taken Sunday. He was in my neighborhood last night and this morning (his best friend lives down the road). He dropped off a package containing my watch and a note saying he still had a handful of my things, “a reminder of happy times.”
This morning I received a couple of emails, followed by a text and then an extremely difficult phone call, all from his mother. I took notes during the call, trying to be a detached journalist, but I burst into tears anyway.
I told her I would think about what she’d said, but that I didn’t think I’d do anything today. Mercifully, I haven’t heard from him since midafternoon.
I stopped by an exhibition opening that included three portraits painted by BN2’s best friend S. I knew BN2 himself wouldn’t be there – it’s his night to look after his daughter.
I was fine until my awkward goodbye to S, when I burst into tears. I cried the whole way home.
I am so very very tired and sad. Also very tired of being sad. Has it really only been four days since I left?
* * *
At this time last week I was happily getting pissed on champagne in the House of Commons.
First I was on the terrace – the most fabulous view in London. I chatted about Jimmy Choos with Kate Adie. I listened to Cabinet ministers gossip, and then gossip drunkenly and cattily and definitely unadvisedly. (Can you imagine Congressmen getting drunk and gossiping? I can’t.)
I ended up in the Strangers’ Bar, an MP’s-only bar in the House of Commons, singing Burt Bacharach songs at the top of my lungs with a couple of Cabinet ministers.
I felt alive and happy, something I hadn’t felt for a while. I was glad I’d lied to BN2, blaming the Tube for my late arrival at the (work-related) party, and saying given the hour I’d finish, it would be best for me to go back to my own flat.
I knew he wouldn’t be happy, and that we’d probably fight about it, but right then, I didn’t care.
Later, a male journalist friend and I went on to a private members club in Soho and drank more. I ran upstairs and had a mini-binge: a huge oatmeal cookie and a chocolate bar, I think. In the club, I crammed down handfuls of prawn crackers and popcorn so quickly I was ashamed.
It was my second binge of the week, my first being a massive one on the Monday, when a female friend and I plotted how I should overthrow BN2. I didn’t think I could do it (and the plan we hatched is not, in fact, what I did – Sunday was not premeditated) and so I ate instead. Feeling trapped has always been a binge trigger for me.
I feared I would instantly balloon from 2 binges – me, the girl who could go from a size 12 to a 16 in about two days flat. But I didn’t. Instead, the scale this morning read 10 stone 2 (142 lbs). Earlier this week, the counselor I’m seeing told me I shouldn’t lose any more weight without discussing it with him.
I’ve been fairly relaxed on the restaurant meals and the drinks over the past few days. Maybe I’ll even live a little and have the Victoria sponge I’ve been craving…
At That Particular Time
I spent Saturday night awake downstairs on the sofa at BN2’s, my mobile phone in hand, ready to dial the police at every creak of floorboard. It was after midnight, we’d been arguing and for once I’d refused to stay up half the night apologizing and groveling and making promises. He told me, among other things, that I was on dangerous ground. He flicked on the light and yelled at me so loudly I shivered. My legs shook when I got out bed. I debated lying down on the floor of his 2-year-old daughter’s bedroom, because I didn’t think he’d hurt me there. Instead I went downstairs.
The next morning – as his daughter was watching Cinderella (oh irony, sweet irony – will my prince come someday?) – I left.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream. I didn’t tell him every nasty thing I’d ever thought, every resentment, every hurt. Several times over the week I'd tried to tell him how I was feeling, and he'd mocked me – mimicking my voice and looking at me with contempt. How horribly familiar I am with that look! In the weeks and months before that whenever I dared to tell him anything negative about how I was feeling, he’d told me alternately that my feelings didn’t matter (I remember him thundering this at me in Bucharest: "Your feelings don't matter!"), that he was the aggrieved party, and that I was selfish and self-obsessed and inconsiderate for not being able to put my own feelings aside.
Someday I’ll write the whole story, but the important part is this: I packed as much of my stuff as I could while he was giving his daughter breakfast. I’d hoped to avoid leaving in front of her, but I couldn’t stay even one more hour, let alone the one more day it would take until she went back to her mother.
They lay on his bed watching Cinderella, she dressed in her little blue Cinderella costume. I stood looking out the window, my back to the bed, crying. Finally I turned around and took one more look around the room I'd spent so much time in; a room I'll probably never see again. The bedside clock read 9:14 am, and I steeled myself to just do it before I lost either my nerve or my opportunity.
“I lay awake all night thinking about an action plan,” I told him. That was what he always demanded of me: an action plan for how I was going to prevent whatever I’d done from happening in the future. And it was always what I had done – all my fault.
He barely looked at me. “That was a waste – we could have been talking,” he said. He was angry that I’d refused to stay up arguing. In the past whenever I’d tried to refuse he’d steamrollered me, but I’d stood my ground the night before, just repeating with a calm I didn't know I had: "I'm sorry, I can't answer that right now." He’d been furious, referring to it as my “assertive crap.”
His eyes were half closed and he flicked them open. “I presume this is your way of saying you’re ready to talk?” he said.
His daughter spied my backpack and chirped, the way she did when I left for work: “Beth is leaving.”
I took a deep breath. “No,” I said quietly. “There’s nothing to talk about. Goodbye.” I walked out the door and toward the stairs.
He got out of bed and followed me, saying something about how he deserved an explanation and what kind of sh*t was this.
“I was physically afraid of you last night,” I told him, heading down the stairs.
“That’s a convenient excuse,” he snapped. Which is exactly what he’d said Friday when I’d tried to tell him my resentment and anger at his constant criticism of me was making me not fancy him. (We fought constantly about sex and how often he wanted it and how high he prioritized it, and on one night he’d even catalogued my physical defects that he felt interfered. If I’m making it sound cold and clinical, it’s because it’s the only way I can write about it just now.)
“I tried to tell you how I felt earlier this week and you mocked me and belittled me,” I said.
“I’m not having a conversation with the back of your head,” he said loudly. Maybe he yelled – I’m not sure. I continued on down the stairs, not turning around.
“Can you tell me in one succinct sentence why it is that you’re leaving?” he said (yelled?)
Again I breathed deep. I didn’t turn around.
“I’m unhappy,” I said calmly. “In fact, I’m miserable. I’m leaving your keys here.” I hung them on the hook, picked up my backpack and handbag, and walked out the door.
To be continued
The next morning – as his daughter was watching Cinderella (oh irony, sweet irony – will my prince come someday?) – I left.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream. I didn’t tell him every nasty thing I’d ever thought, every resentment, every hurt. Several times over the week I'd tried to tell him how I was feeling, and he'd mocked me – mimicking my voice and looking at me with contempt. How horribly familiar I am with that look! In the weeks and months before that whenever I dared to tell him anything negative about how I was feeling, he’d told me alternately that my feelings didn’t matter (I remember him thundering this at me in Bucharest: "Your feelings don't matter!"), that he was the aggrieved party, and that I was selfish and self-obsessed and inconsiderate for not being able to put my own feelings aside.
Someday I’ll write the whole story, but the important part is this: I packed as much of my stuff as I could while he was giving his daughter breakfast. I’d hoped to avoid leaving in front of her, but I couldn’t stay even one more hour, let alone the one more day it would take until she went back to her mother.
They lay on his bed watching Cinderella, she dressed in her little blue Cinderella costume. I stood looking out the window, my back to the bed, crying. Finally I turned around and took one more look around the room I'd spent so much time in; a room I'll probably never see again. The bedside clock read 9:14 am, and I steeled myself to just do it before I lost either my nerve or my opportunity.
“I lay awake all night thinking about an action plan,” I told him. That was what he always demanded of me: an action plan for how I was going to prevent whatever I’d done from happening in the future. And it was always what I had done – all my fault.
He barely looked at me. “That was a waste – we could have been talking,” he said. He was angry that I’d refused to stay up arguing. In the past whenever I’d tried to refuse he’d steamrollered me, but I’d stood my ground the night before, just repeating with a calm I didn't know I had: "I'm sorry, I can't answer that right now." He’d been furious, referring to it as my “assertive crap.”
His eyes were half closed and he flicked them open. “I presume this is your way of saying you’re ready to talk?” he said.
His daughter spied my backpack and chirped, the way she did when I left for work: “Beth is leaving.”
I took a deep breath. “No,” I said quietly. “There’s nothing to talk about. Goodbye.” I walked out the door and toward the stairs.
He got out of bed and followed me, saying something about how he deserved an explanation and what kind of sh*t was this.
“I was physically afraid of you last night,” I told him, heading down the stairs.
“That’s a convenient excuse,” he snapped. Which is exactly what he’d said Friday when I’d tried to tell him my resentment and anger at his constant criticism of me was making me not fancy him. (We fought constantly about sex and how often he wanted it and how high he prioritized it, and on one night he’d even catalogued my physical defects that he felt interfered. If I’m making it sound cold and clinical, it’s because it’s the only way I can write about it just now.)
“I tried to tell you how I felt earlier this week and you mocked me and belittled me,” I said.
“I’m not having a conversation with the back of your head,” he said loudly. Maybe he yelled – I’m not sure. I continued on down the stairs, not turning around.
“Can you tell me in one succinct sentence why it is that you’re leaving?” he said (yelled?)
Again I breathed deep. I didn’t turn around.
“I’m unhappy,” I said calmly. “In fact, I’m miserable. I’m leaving your keys here.” I hung them on the hook, picked up my backpack and handbag, and walked out the door.
To be continued
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Otherwise Engaged
Email this morning from my best (male) friend from college: “I don’t have a Facebook page, so I just wanted to let you know that [Glitter Nail Polish Chick] and I got engaged.”
I guess I don’t have to tell you how I feel about Glitter Nail Polish Chick – the name says it all, doesn’t it?
A bit of history: For years I had a crush on this guy. He had a long-distance relationship with his high school girlfriend that was never quite right, and the two of us would spend hours together, often staying up all night talking. I spent my college years thinking we were perfect for each other -- and convinced if I were thinner he would figure it out.
I graduated; he didn’t. (He’s one of the smartest people I know, but he was a bigger procrastinator than I was and – I think the following didn’t help – his parents had much deeper pockets than mine. I struggled – both financially, and against my parents’ wishes – to attend the university I did.) The summer after graduation he came to see me in Washington DC. He’d broken up with the girlfriend; I’d lost a bit of weight. We walked around DC for hours and ended up in a bar in Georgetown, dancing and kissing. He left DC and we’d spend hours on the phone every day.
Things fell apart almost instantly.
I went with some friends to Homecoming that September. He was there, doing a fifth year and trying to graduate. I hadn’t told him I was coming – childishly, I wanted him to ask me to be there. He never did.
I called him when I arrived. I was the thinnest I’d ever been at that point – thanks to a starvation diet of peaches and running -- and I remember shivering in the pre-autumn upstate New York chill. He gave me his leather jacket; I loved feeling small in it.
We sat in a diner and he told me he’d had his first date with Glitter Nail Polish Chick that night. She worked at the college newspaper with us, and I remember his snide comments about her the previous year – including (don’t ask me why I remember this) the VPL she had with one spectacularly unfortunate pair of white trousers she wore.
For their date, they’d gone to a movie and for frozen yogurt, and then -- I can still hear his voice saying this -- "we kissed," he said. I think I pretended I didn’t care, but I’m sure I didn’t fool him. One of my good friends says I’m like a small child – you can see everything I’m feeling on my face, despite my best efforts to hide it.
This was almost 13 years ago. He’s gone on to be an enormously successful and well respected writer, and – with about a six-month blip about 10 years ago when we didn’t speak because I found it too painful -- we’ve stayed friends.
In recent years – except in moments when my life seems empty of prospect – I’ve stopped thinking about him as anything but my friend. The old feelings disappeared agonizingly slowly. He was like a disease for which I didn’t ever quite finish the antibiotics – a tiny bit of it would be left, and as soon as I thought it had all gone away, it would come back full-strength, and even harder to fight than before.
He came to London in December on assignment. Two weeks before I’d found out I was losing my job. We talked about his work and when he was going to get engaged – a subject we’d covered before. In some bar with a late license in Exmouth Market, I told him a little bit about BN2 and his eyes widened. “You can’t go back to him. Promise me you won’t go back to him.”
We talked all night until he had to leave for the airport. I went home, exhausted and hating what a sad wreck I felt like – no job, crappy boyfriend, far from home. I hated his feeling sorry for me.
When I read the engagement news, I didn’t feel great pain. I’ve spent a couple of years anticipating it, and I thought I’d feel sad at the thought of one door closed to me for good. I don’t, and in some ways, that’s a relief.
But again I feel this great sadness of watching someone else’s life move forward – a ship pulling out of the port while I’m waving forlornly from the pier.
I’m going to be 34 in three weeks. I’ve got to get out. I dread it and I fear it – actually doing it, and the aftermath. We’re supposed to take a trip to Venice for his mother’s 60th birthday at the end of May – a trip I ended up doing a lot of the organizing of, because I’ve been there so many times -- and I feel guilty at the thought of ruining that; guilty that I think she chose it because I knew it so well. I feel guilty about how much time I spend in BN2’s presence, thinking about how and when I’m going to leave. Whatever my feelings about what I owe him (and for some reason, I think I do), it is slowly sinking in that I don’t owe him being this unhappy.
* * *
BN2 hates my abrupt shifts of gear – especially when I, prattle on “like a teenager at a slumber party” (his words last week) -- and so would criticize me sharply for moving from weighty subjects to, erm, weight.
I got on the scale Wednesday or Thursday: 144 lbs. That’s 89 pounds down. 140 was always my don’t-even-dare-to-dream weight – my ideal weight on those miserable height-weight tables that taunted me as a child.
Reaching 150 was a shock to me, so I certainly never thought I’d get below it without starving (I’m not). Earlier this week I’d thought about writing a post about when it is one decides to stop losing weight, but I’m not quite sure I’m there yet – either in my head or in the number on the scale or how I look.
Because I love numbers and all things mathematical and symmetrical and perfect, my head is saying: Let’s go for an even 100 pounds lost. My head also knows this is an extremely bad idea. It’s easy and familiar for me to get caught up in weight loss goals when the rest of my life seems tough and like I’m not achieving much. A little cutting here; a little cutting there – this I know how to do. And a little cutting and suddenly you’re me, teleported back in time to the Summer of a Thousand Peaches, aka starvation. Which leads directly to bingeing.
I’m reasonably happy with the amount of food I can consume – I eat a good 2,000 calories per day (600 per meal plus two 200-calorie snacks, and I’ve reached the point where I don’t obsess too much about going slightly over). I exercise 5-6 days per week, hard, but not in excessive amounts. And mostly, I enjoy it.
Since I’m OK as I am – and because I hate change – I’m going to keep things as they are for now. I’m going to need this part of my life to be easy and familiar while I try to make changes in other parts. So it’s decided: I’ll keep things as they are until June 1 (arbitrary date) and then reevaluate. If I keep losing weight, great. If I don’t, that’s fine (I think). And if I start putting some on – well, that’s a whole other problem.
Thanks for listening. Leave a comment with your address and I’ll put your payment for therapy in the mail.*
* A joke, in case that wasn’t clear. Though feel free to comment!
I guess I don’t have to tell you how I feel about Glitter Nail Polish Chick – the name says it all, doesn’t it?
A bit of history: For years I had a crush on this guy. He had a long-distance relationship with his high school girlfriend that was never quite right, and the two of us would spend hours together, often staying up all night talking. I spent my college years thinking we were perfect for each other -- and convinced if I were thinner he would figure it out.
I graduated; he didn’t. (He’s one of the smartest people I know, but he was a bigger procrastinator than I was and – I think the following didn’t help – his parents had much deeper pockets than mine. I struggled – both financially, and against my parents’ wishes – to attend the university I did.) The summer after graduation he came to see me in Washington DC. He’d broken up with the girlfriend; I’d lost a bit of weight. We walked around DC for hours and ended up in a bar in Georgetown, dancing and kissing. He left DC and we’d spend hours on the phone every day.
Things fell apart almost instantly.
I went with some friends to Homecoming that September. He was there, doing a fifth year and trying to graduate. I hadn’t told him I was coming – childishly, I wanted him to ask me to be there. He never did.
I called him when I arrived. I was the thinnest I’d ever been at that point – thanks to a starvation diet of peaches and running -- and I remember shivering in the pre-autumn upstate New York chill. He gave me his leather jacket; I loved feeling small in it.
We sat in a diner and he told me he’d had his first date with Glitter Nail Polish Chick that night. She worked at the college newspaper with us, and I remember his snide comments about her the previous year – including (don’t ask me why I remember this) the VPL she had with one spectacularly unfortunate pair of white trousers she wore.
For their date, they’d gone to a movie and for frozen yogurt, and then -- I can still hear his voice saying this -- "we kissed," he said. I think I pretended I didn’t care, but I’m sure I didn’t fool him. One of my good friends says I’m like a small child – you can see everything I’m feeling on my face, despite my best efforts to hide it.
This was almost 13 years ago. He’s gone on to be an enormously successful and well respected writer, and – with about a six-month blip about 10 years ago when we didn’t speak because I found it too painful -- we’ve stayed friends.
In recent years – except in moments when my life seems empty of prospect – I’ve stopped thinking about him as anything but my friend. The old feelings disappeared agonizingly slowly. He was like a disease for which I didn’t ever quite finish the antibiotics – a tiny bit of it would be left, and as soon as I thought it had all gone away, it would come back full-strength, and even harder to fight than before.
He came to London in December on assignment. Two weeks before I’d found out I was losing my job. We talked about his work and when he was going to get engaged – a subject we’d covered before. In some bar with a late license in Exmouth Market, I told him a little bit about BN2 and his eyes widened. “You can’t go back to him. Promise me you won’t go back to him.”
We talked all night until he had to leave for the airport. I went home, exhausted and hating what a sad wreck I felt like – no job, crappy boyfriend, far from home. I hated his feeling sorry for me.
When I read the engagement news, I didn’t feel great pain. I’ve spent a couple of years anticipating it, and I thought I’d feel sad at the thought of one door closed to me for good. I don’t, and in some ways, that’s a relief.
But again I feel this great sadness of watching someone else’s life move forward – a ship pulling out of the port while I’m waving forlornly from the pier.
I’m going to be 34 in three weeks. I’ve got to get out. I dread it and I fear it – actually doing it, and the aftermath. We’re supposed to take a trip to Venice for his mother’s 60th birthday at the end of May – a trip I ended up doing a lot of the organizing of, because I’ve been there so many times -- and I feel guilty at the thought of ruining that; guilty that I think she chose it because I knew it so well. I feel guilty about how much time I spend in BN2’s presence, thinking about how and when I’m going to leave. Whatever my feelings about what I owe him (and for some reason, I think I do), it is slowly sinking in that I don’t owe him being this unhappy.
* * *
BN2 hates my abrupt shifts of gear – especially when I, prattle on “like a teenager at a slumber party” (his words last week) -- and so would criticize me sharply for moving from weighty subjects to, erm, weight.
I got on the scale Wednesday or Thursday: 144 lbs. That’s 89 pounds down. 140 was always my don’t-even-dare-to-dream weight – my ideal weight on those miserable height-weight tables that taunted me as a child.
Reaching 150 was a shock to me, so I certainly never thought I’d get below it without starving (I’m not). Earlier this week I’d thought about writing a post about when it is one decides to stop losing weight, but I’m not quite sure I’m there yet – either in my head or in the number on the scale or how I look.
Because I love numbers and all things mathematical and symmetrical and perfect, my head is saying: Let’s go for an even 100 pounds lost. My head also knows this is an extremely bad idea. It’s easy and familiar for me to get caught up in weight loss goals when the rest of my life seems tough and like I’m not achieving much. A little cutting here; a little cutting there – this I know how to do. And a little cutting and suddenly you’re me, teleported back in time to the Summer of a Thousand Peaches, aka starvation. Which leads directly to bingeing.
I’m reasonably happy with the amount of food I can consume – I eat a good 2,000 calories per day (600 per meal plus two 200-calorie snacks, and I’ve reached the point where I don’t obsess too much about going slightly over). I exercise 5-6 days per week, hard, but not in excessive amounts. And mostly, I enjoy it.
Since I’m OK as I am – and because I hate change – I’m going to keep things as they are for now. I’m going to need this part of my life to be easy and familiar while I try to make changes in other parts. So it’s decided: I’ll keep things as they are until June 1 (arbitrary date) and then reevaluate. If I keep losing weight, great. If I don’t, that’s fine (I think). And if I start putting some on – well, that’s a whole other problem.
Thanks for listening. Leave a comment with your address and I’ll put your payment for therapy in the mail.*
* A joke, in case that wasn’t clear. Though feel free to comment!
Friday, 17 April 2009
Trust
First, an apology for the bitty-ness (bittiness?) of late. I’m struggling with some difficult decisions of the sort that cannot be summarized neatly (or even messily) in a blog entry. There is too much history, and frankly, too much present. And I am so very, very tired.
I need to do something about BN2. I know that I do. And yet I can’t. I am a reasonably intelligent 33-year-old woman who survived life perfectly fine without a boyfriend until BN2 came along. In fact, I think I survived better. I said to him several months ago – with the sort of honesty I am increasingly less inclined to, given the results it’s brought thus far – that I wasn’t myself around him. I’m not sure I’m myself around anyone these days. Who am I? I’m not sure I recognize this person who… this person who is too embarrassed to finish the sentence because it isn’t pretty.
A friend got engaged today and I felt – reader, I am ashamed to say – an overwhelming dose of self pity. Her life is moving forward and mine, it seems, is moving back. I know that the longer I stay in this relationship the more damage it is doing, and the longer it will take to recover and maybe, just maybe, find my own happy ending.
Why is it that I cannot just say: “I am unhappy. I’m leaving”? Why do I think I need a smoking gun to leave – something I can point to that is so glaring and awful that of course I would be justified in leaving? (A couple of friends who’ve heard my stories would say that he’s already given me plenty of justification.) Why do I feel the need to have external sources (my friends, my counsellor) ratify my feelings? As a good friend said at dinner the other night: “It doesn’t matter if other people think what he did wasn’t normal. [I was asking her opinion on an incident that has disturbed me deeply.] You were hurt by his behavior, and that’s all that matters.”
I fear the emptiness and the loneliness. I fear the unstructured days with not enough work – or not challenging enough work – to take my mind off things.
And yet. Last night BN2 insisted on a night apart (something he never does, which made me instantly suspicious). I didn’t want to sit in my horrible messy little flat and I wasn’t sure who to call: Frankly, I’ve cancelled on so many friends at the 11th hour (see “who is this person?” above) because of him and some fight or another that I’ve been feeling isolated. (A vicious circle…) And around midday, I got an email from a casual acquaintance I’ve met up with a couple of times. I’d emailed her a couple of days ago about a 10k I’m planning to run (the British 10k, in case anyone else is doing it) to see if she wanted to join. She wrote back saying if I wasn’t doing anything that night, I should come up to Hampstead for drinks with she and some friends.
I thought then of a conversation I’d had with my counsellor, about my need to over-control things because I fear not getting what I need. (Or because I fear there won’t be enough.) Because of my Troubled Childhood (capitals to show I am aware this phrase is somewhat ludicrous when most people would consider it privileged), I grew up believing the universe was not a benevolent place – that I’d have to fight to survive, and that I could only count on myself.
“You need to let go a little and trust that you’ll get what you need,” my counsellor told me.
Last night wasn’t a remarkable night – it was some banter with four other people at a (ok, slightly remarkably cute) pub. As we left the moonlight on the damp cobblestone path made it look otherworldly – not out of place in a Harry Potter or Twilight ad, frankly. It certainly seemed like another world to me – one in which I had, just a tiny bit, started to trust.
I need to do something about BN2. I know that I do. And yet I can’t. I am a reasonably intelligent 33-year-old woman who survived life perfectly fine without a boyfriend until BN2 came along. In fact, I think I survived better. I said to him several months ago – with the sort of honesty I am increasingly less inclined to, given the results it’s brought thus far – that I wasn’t myself around him. I’m not sure I’m myself around anyone these days. Who am I? I’m not sure I recognize this person who… this person who is too embarrassed to finish the sentence because it isn’t pretty.
A friend got engaged today and I felt – reader, I am ashamed to say – an overwhelming dose of self pity. Her life is moving forward and mine, it seems, is moving back. I know that the longer I stay in this relationship the more damage it is doing, and the longer it will take to recover and maybe, just maybe, find my own happy ending.
Why is it that I cannot just say: “I am unhappy. I’m leaving”? Why do I think I need a smoking gun to leave – something I can point to that is so glaring and awful that of course I would be justified in leaving? (A couple of friends who’ve heard my stories would say that he’s already given me plenty of justification.) Why do I feel the need to have external sources (my friends, my counsellor) ratify my feelings? As a good friend said at dinner the other night: “It doesn’t matter if other people think what he did wasn’t normal. [I was asking her opinion on an incident that has disturbed me deeply.] You were hurt by his behavior, and that’s all that matters.”
I fear the emptiness and the loneliness. I fear the unstructured days with not enough work – or not challenging enough work – to take my mind off things.
And yet. Last night BN2 insisted on a night apart (something he never does, which made me instantly suspicious). I didn’t want to sit in my horrible messy little flat and I wasn’t sure who to call: Frankly, I’ve cancelled on so many friends at the 11th hour (see “who is this person?” above) because of him and some fight or another that I’ve been feeling isolated. (A vicious circle…) And around midday, I got an email from a casual acquaintance I’ve met up with a couple of times. I’d emailed her a couple of days ago about a 10k I’m planning to run (the British 10k, in case anyone else is doing it) to see if she wanted to join. She wrote back saying if I wasn’t doing anything that night, I should come up to Hampstead for drinks with she and some friends.
I thought then of a conversation I’d had with my counsellor, about my need to over-control things because I fear not getting what I need. (Or because I fear there won’t be enough.) Because of my Troubled Childhood (capitals to show I am aware this phrase is somewhat ludicrous when most people would consider it privileged), I grew up believing the universe was not a benevolent place – that I’d have to fight to survive, and that I could only count on myself.
“You need to let go a little and trust that you’ll get what you need,” my counsellor told me.
Last night wasn’t a remarkable night – it was some banter with four other people at a (ok, slightly remarkably cute) pub. As we left the moonlight on the damp cobblestone path made it look otherworldly – not out of place in a Harry Potter or Twilight ad, frankly. It certainly seemed like another world to me – one in which I had, just a tiny bit, started to trust.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah
I have a plaster on my left index finger from a zipper injury.
I haven’t had a zipper injury since before November 2006, when I began This Thing I’m Doing. (Or lard-busting, as Shauna would call it. Has it really been over two years? I can hardly believe it.) I used to have them all the time, accidentally gouging the skin on my index finger when trying to zip up too-tight jeans/trousers/dresses. When times were particularly desperate – when said jeans/trousers/dress was the only thing in my closet close to fitting – I could do such damage to my finger it would take days to heal. And the injury would smart when I typed and when anything touched it, reminding me throughout the day what a fat pig I was – that I’d eaten my way out of fitting into a single thing I owned.
It was grim.
Today’s injury was from trying to zip the damn £7 Temperley dress. It fit once, when I tried it on in the morning, before I ate anything. Now I’ve become slightly obsessed with it (you would, too, if you were sitting at your computer, procrastinating on writing two stories you wish you’d never pitched in the first place). Not good. I was doing just fine carrying along as I have been – don’t need to start getting into the cutting back here and there behavior that will no doubt lead (do not stop, do not pass go) directly to a binge. I’ve vowed not to try it on again until May 1. If it doesn’t fit then, I’ll either investigate letting it out a bit or eBay it.
I haven’t had a zipper injury since before November 2006, when I began This Thing I’m Doing. (Or lard-busting, as Shauna would call it. Has it really been over two years? I can hardly believe it.) I used to have them all the time, accidentally gouging the skin on my index finger when trying to zip up too-tight jeans/trousers/dresses. When times were particularly desperate – when said jeans/trousers/dress was the only thing in my closet close to fitting – I could do such damage to my finger it would take days to heal. And the injury would smart when I typed and when anything touched it, reminding me throughout the day what a fat pig I was – that I’d eaten my way out of fitting into a single thing I owned.
It was grim.
Today’s injury was from trying to zip the damn £7 Temperley dress. It fit once, when I tried it on in the morning, before I ate anything. Now I’ve become slightly obsessed with it (you would, too, if you were sitting at your computer, procrastinating on writing two stories you wish you’d never pitched in the first place). Not good. I was doing just fine carrying along as I have been – don’t need to start getting into the cutting back here and there behavior that will no doubt lead (do not stop, do not pass go) directly to a binge. I’ve vowed not to try it on again until May 1. If it doesn’t fit then, I’ll either investigate letting it out a bit or eBay it.
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Tea and Sympathy
So I survived the sister-and-aunt visit without any massive fights or bingeing. (To be fair, I never feared the aunt, only the sister…)
My sister behaved almost entirely as predicted. She quizzed me about my food, my weight (the actual number) and my exercise. She asked me – in a tone I cannot describe, except to say how much I loathe it – if I were “still bingeing.” She glowered and sulked when – at a boutique off Portobello Road – the designer told me I so suited the pencil skirt and corset top I tried that he’d give me a discount because he thought it would be good for business for me to walk around in it. (Really, I’m not making this up. I couldn’t believe it myself. Even if it was just idle flattery I still appreciated it.) My sister withdrew further when the stylist suggested she also try on the outfit. My sister didn’t say it didn’t fit, but her face when she came out of the dressing room was enough. It reminded me so exactly of her face at the academic awards ceremony my senior year of high school, where the announcer joked at one point that I needed roller skates since I had to come up to the stage so often. The evening – for me – was ruined.
Seeing my aunt – my father’s younger sister -- was painful for another reason. She’s almost always been varying degrees of overweight (except for a stint in the 80s, I think it was, when she took black beauties), but I don’t remember her ever being this heavy: a size 26/28. It was difficult for her to move, and although I was never quite that heavy, I recognized the fear in her face almost everywhere we went. She worried about having the right clothes for the events I took them to (among them, drinks at a private members’ club and the prêt-a-portea at the Berkeley), knowing perfectly well that she wouldn’t be able to pop out and buy another outfit anyway. After hearing me rave about it, she asked specifically to be taken to Rigby & Peller for a fitting, but I could tell by the nervous jokes she was making that she was terrified she’d be humiliated by them not stocking her size. She was relieved when they did, but the euphoria quickly dissipated when I took her to Duo Boots to be measured for knee-high black boots. But her feet were just too wide for the styles she liked.
Then there was her behavior around food, which pained me only because I remember so well trying to do it myself. She was careful to choose healthy options, she never finished anything, and she’d remove the top layer of bread from her sandwiches. I’d say I ate at least 50 percent more than her at every single meal. (When I was overweight, I always tried to moderate my eating in front of other people, but lots of times I just couldn’t. I’d try to mentally cut my portion in half or leave a few bites over and then think grumpily: Well, they know from my size that what I’m eating now isn’t all I’m eating. And then I’d eat more.)
She talked about watching an episode of Dr Phil – or maybe it was an Oprah on which Dr. Phil appeared, and how scornful he was of a very overweight lady, telling her: “Look what you’ve done to yourself.” She says she looks at herself and thinks the same thing, and knows her ex-husband (she’s just gotten divorced) thinks the same thing. And she spoke about how she’s sure my father deliberately leaves her out of the frame when he’s taking pictures.
She said this last bit calmly, matter-of-factly, over Louboutin Pigalle shoe iced butter biscuits and Smythson maze bag banana cake at the Berkeley Hotel. It would be a lie to say it took my appetite away, but it did make me extra-careful about what I was eating. (I’d vowed that – although the tea is unlimited – I’d only have one of each kind of cake.) I don’t want to go back to the place that she’s in.
* * *
Public service announcement: Thornton’s white chocolate Easter eggs are utterly tasteless. Don’t bother. Also, Waitrose’s Bramley apple hot cross buns don’t taste like they’ve even slept next to an apple.
* * *
BN2 and I have been seeing each other, and I don’t want to go there right now except to say that I am seriously wary. I think it’s a sign that when we were walking by the charity shop on my corner and I spotted a £7.99 size 10 Temperley dress in the window – yes, I too thought that designer labels at charity shops were an urban myth – he said he’d never seen me look so excited.
My sister behaved almost entirely as predicted. She quizzed me about my food, my weight (the actual number) and my exercise. She asked me – in a tone I cannot describe, except to say how much I loathe it – if I were “still bingeing.” She glowered and sulked when – at a boutique off Portobello Road – the designer told me I so suited the pencil skirt and corset top I tried that he’d give me a discount because he thought it would be good for business for me to walk around in it. (Really, I’m not making this up. I couldn’t believe it myself. Even if it was just idle flattery I still appreciated it.) My sister withdrew further when the stylist suggested she also try on the outfit. My sister didn’t say it didn’t fit, but her face when she came out of the dressing room was enough. It reminded me so exactly of her face at the academic awards ceremony my senior year of high school, where the announcer joked at one point that I needed roller skates since I had to come up to the stage so often. The evening – for me – was ruined.
Seeing my aunt – my father’s younger sister -- was painful for another reason. She’s almost always been varying degrees of overweight (except for a stint in the 80s, I think it was, when she took black beauties), but I don’t remember her ever being this heavy: a size 26/28. It was difficult for her to move, and although I was never quite that heavy, I recognized the fear in her face almost everywhere we went. She worried about having the right clothes for the events I took them to (among them, drinks at a private members’ club and the prêt-a-portea at the Berkeley), knowing perfectly well that she wouldn’t be able to pop out and buy another outfit anyway. After hearing me rave about it, she asked specifically to be taken to Rigby & Peller for a fitting, but I could tell by the nervous jokes she was making that she was terrified she’d be humiliated by them not stocking her size. She was relieved when they did, but the euphoria quickly dissipated when I took her to Duo Boots to be measured for knee-high black boots. But her feet were just too wide for the styles she liked.
Then there was her behavior around food, which pained me only because I remember so well trying to do it myself. She was careful to choose healthy options, she never finished anything, and she’d remove the top layer of bread from her sandwiches. I’d say I ate at least 50 percent more than her at every single meal. (When I was overweight, I always tried to moderate my eating in front of other people, but lots of times I just couldn’t. I’d try to mentally cut my portion in half or leave a few bites over and then think grumpily: Well, they know from my size that what I’m eating now isn’t all I’m eating. And then I’d eat more.)
She talked about watching an episode of Dr Phil – or maybe it was an Oprah on which Dr. Phil appeared, and how scornful he was of a very overweight lady, telling her: “Look what you’ve done to yourself.” She says she looks at herself and thinks the same thing, and knows her ex-husband (she’s just gotten divorced) thinks the same thing. And she spoke about how she’s sure my father deliberately leaves her out of the frame when he’s taking pictures.
She said this last bit calmly, matter-of-factly, over Louboutin Pigalle shoe iced butter biscuits and Smythson maze bag banana cake at the Berkeley Hotel. It would be a lie to say it took my appetite away, but it did make me extra-careful about what I was eating. (I’d vowed that – although the tea is unlimited – I’d only have one of each kind of cake.) I don’t want to go back to the place that she’s in.
* * *
Public service announcement: Thornton’s white chocolate Easter eggs are utterly tasteless. Don’t bother. Also, Waitrose’s Bramley apple hot cross buns don’t taste like they’ve even slept next to an apple.
* * *
BN2 and I have been seeing each other, and I don’t want to go there right now except to say that I am seriously wary. I think it’s a sign that when we were walking by the charity shop on my corner and I spotted a £7.99 size 10 Temperley dress in the window – yes, I too thought that designer labels at charity shops were an urban myth – he said he’d never seen me look so excited.
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