Wednesday 29 December 2010

A little bit little

That's all I want to be. Not teeny-tiny. I mean, I don't want to be so small that I'm given four weeks to live or anything. I just want to be smaller than I am now. And then smaller than I am then. Just until I'm small enough. Until I don't feel like I'm taking up more space than I warrant. Or, until I do something amazing that warrants all this space.

Tomorrow I'm going for breakfast with some old girlfriends whom I knew years ago and who have since scattered around the globe, returning every year at Christmas. We're going to one girl's parents' house to hang out in the hot tub for a while. Despite acting gleefully smug to A about having been invited (we've been joking for a little while that we need to host a party at these peoples' house so that we can use the hot tub) I'm terrified. It's been a long time since I was semi-clothed in front of anyone but him. Apart from a few hours briefly last summer, when we went swimming in a tributary of the Thames in Oxford, it's probably been a couple years.

Half of me wants so badly to see these old friends that it thinks "just go. They're your friends for heaven's sake" and half of me shrinks back in fear from the thought of being seen.

Mustn't purge, mustn't purge, mustn't purge.

Sunday 26 December 2010

Post-Christmas

0.2 lb down over Christmas. I don't put any stock at all in these tiny tiny variations because I think they're likely water loss/retention, the scales being an inch away from its usual spot, my not standing in the exact position I normally do, or any one of a hundred little deviations from the routine. But it's not a gain, and that's all I wanted.

I relaxed in the run up to Christmas, did lots of baking for family and friends, enjoyed being on holiday and being able to eat leisurely meals with A, and had a wonderful Christmas dinner with him and my parents and brother on the day. It was a good Christmas, and I'd resigned myself to gaining as a result, but overall I'm just that tiny smidgen down, and it makes me happy.

The next thing is New Years. Only a week away, I know, but would love to be just a little less fat for 2011... I'm going to work really hard this week, and I expect a pay-off!

Also, I'm going to Dallas mid-January for a work conference. I've mixed feelings about this; the US is notorious here in the UK for the abundance of unhealthy foods and lack of day-to-day integrated exercise such as walking to the office (in fact when I suggested that I'd be happy to walk the 2 miles from my colleague's house to the meetings on the days she couldn't drive me in, they moved me to on-site accommodation so that I wouldn't be walking 'that great distance'! Go figure...). So it's kind of frightening to be in that environment, but, being away from People That Love Me provides an opportunity to restrict more severely. I'm thinking the way to do this which will attract the least suspicion is to produce a severe stomach bug around the second day of the conference; that should allow for a few days when I 'can't keep anything down', a few days of 'just trying liquids - broths, juices etc', and a few days of 'just a little food, to see if it stays down'. Then after that I think people will pay less attention if I'm a little picky about what I do and don't eat, or avoid certain foods etc.

I found some syrup of ipecac for sale on Amazon. Has anyone tried this? All the warnings that it's potentially fatal make me a little nervous, but I wonder how bad it can really be when it was advised by doctors for such a long time. Marya mentions in 'Wasted' that she drank a whole bottle, with pretty debilitating effects, but she didn't die. Surely a little can't be that dangerous?

Tuesday 21 December 2010

Giving

A has given me back my blog.

I think he's giving up. I told him that I'd already hacked into the account and changed the password, that I just wasn't writing anything because I'd promised I wouldn't.

But I'm lonely. Suddenly my days yawn open into long silences, gaps of non-time, and moments that don't fit. It disorients me, as if my thoughts don't have a place to go anymore. So they tumble around my head, illogical and contradictory, questioning, dark and tempting and unholy.

And he said, sadly, 'then write in your blog; do whatever you need to.'

I don't want him to feel like this, but he's tired of half-truths, of my eyes not meeting his, of contradictions; laughter, screams, love, hate, joy, rage, fear, spilling from my mind like bursts of oil and water, immiscible, jostling for space in our little home, filling the spaces between us, pushing and pushing and we run and we run and we run. He's tired of nothing making sense, of never knowing where he's at, who I'm going to be that day; it drains him. It drains us both, but it's newer for him, and hard.

He's tired of trying, and he's tired of my sadness. He's wonderful and kind; flawed but strong, and with a good, good heart the size of the ocean, and it's not his fault I'm like this. He loves me and loves me and loves me, and I still can't accept it. I'm just on this constant, frenzied, wearying search for what I can change, how I can be better. Yet at the same time, it's a search to destroy myself. What am I even punishing myself for anymore? It's been so long. But I can't remember anything else; I don't remember how to be different.

What if one day he sees me, really sees me and the sight of my flesh, moreso, my soul, my mind, drives him away? But I need to be better, perfect even so that never ever happens. And if it does, I will have already destroyed myself beyond the point that anyone else can destroy.

To be perfect on the outside and empty on the inside - surely in this way we are protected.