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February
11, 2006
The Road to Poetry
I finally talked to Gretchen
last night, and she was so excited about all the seriously amazing
things that happened to her at Goddard, the road she's preparing
to traverse, and what we might do together on our individual paths
to embodiment. She made me think hard about putting myself back together
again. Maybe it isn't the blessing I imagined, if I lose what I gained
at Goddard.
Gretchen's passionate about finding truth
in the body, and I left Goddard with the same desire. Our conversation
made me excited about it again. And scared. I realized that since
I've been back, I think I've been trying to return to numbness,
and escape all the emotions I brought home with me.
On the way to poetry last night, I tried to go into my body,
and I was slammed, at a visceral level, with how much sadness
and longing I found inside. It's a black pool of pain, and
I cried the whole way to Harrisburg.
Christian and I talked for more than an hour last night. Christian
understands that I abandoned parts of myself on my way to extroversion
and support from friends. Everything - my current emotional
state, my sadness and desperation this weekend at Bill's, and
my seclusion of a few years ago are all tied to loathing my
body.
 My
family despised my body when I was a kid. No one in my family
had weight problems, and here I was, this weird, unwanted little
kid in glasses, hoarding cookies, and soothing myself with
food. My family gave me extra helpings at every meal and forced
me to stay at the table, and finish meals I didn't like. My
grandparents had been through the Depression, and a skinny
child brought shame upon the family. But they made
feel intense shame for the size of my body.
Food made me feel loved. I stuffed food/love into my mouth until I was sick. I couldn't get enough. I wanted to gorge myself until love ran down my chin.
I've always despised and ignored my body, a repugnant piece of meat I carry around under my head. The self-loathing got so bad a few years ago, that I went into almost total seclusion. I hid myself, or more exactly, I hid this disgusting body which kept getting larger, rounder, softer. It got so big I could no longer dress without looking like a large, overstuffed piece of furniture, covered by sheets. Funny. Fat people are so fucking funny.
I was trying to live in my mind.
And then I found friends who saw something in me and loved me for what they saw. They pulled and cajoled until I left my house and started spending time with them. I went through therapy to lose at least some of the weight. I entered the world and found a voice for my mind in poetry. But my body stayed hidden and ignored.
The weight I did lose made it tolerable enough for me to dress and
walk around in public. And then I found Bill, and he loved me in
spite of my body. I found love in him. Love that I've always been
so desperate for. I still can't get enough love. I can't get enough
sex. I can't get enough food. I want to stuff myself with love. Gorge
myself with it. Let it run down my chin and pool in my fucking hands.
But my body doesn't really please Bill, or more importantly, it doesn't please me. I know Bill loves me, but I KNOW he'd love me more with a smaller body. All that pain and shame, which I've kept at bay since leaving my house are coming up again, and they HURT. That harsh rejection of my body, subtle and loving from Bill, but sledgehammer, hacking, shaming, agonizing pain that lives inside me. It sears, and it's old and it's scary, and it's eating me alive.
I've been able to ignore the self-loathing in the light of love. But now I'm listening to those voices and listening to my body. Feeling my body and learning what it has to tell me is a completely different proposition.
Christian helped me see why this is all so hard. Why I'm so afraid, and fucked up. My body is a font of wisdom that holds everything inside. It remembers everything. It IS me. And to revile 90 percent of who I am, is to revile myself in totality. Christian made me see that just because I've been happy for the last few years, doesn't erase all the ways I've ignored and neglected my body in the past. He made it all make sense.
I need to go deep. Maybe Bill's right. Maybe I need seclusion to process this. But writing and talking help.
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