Sometimes

sometimes
when i wake up
in the morning
and see all the faces
i just can’t
breathe


And Sometimes I Sit

and sometimes i sit
down at my typewriter
and i think
not of someone
cause there isn’t anyone
to think
about and i wonder
is it worth it

-- Nikki Giovanni

giving me the finger

My Frans has been spotted recently sporting a new, sparkly, ring-resembling addition to her person (suspiciously located on a certain and aptly-named ring finger), and calling This Man her fiancé.

That’s right, people. My Frans is officially engaged.

The news left me (slightly soiled in my short pants on account of my shock, but mostly just) excited, and happy my friend has finally found a fellow worth the loving and the long-distancing and the (definitely-not-too-dainty) diamond-donning. And while at first I though her crazy (endearingly, of course) for falling in love with a Mobile (Alabama, that is) man, it seems now to make sense somehow. I even admire the unconventional, internet-assisted way this engagement has evolved, a connection cultivated over months and miles, rooted not in fleeting physicalities, but in the honestly of intellect and the rawness of emotion.

Frans has asked me to be her Maid of Honor—a task to which I will devote myself wholeheartedly, sparing no expense (monetarily and morally speaking). If this means purchasing and subsequently wearing an unflattering frock for the ceremony, I’ll do it. If this means getting fresh with a groomsman (or two) for the sake of matrimonial tradition, I’ll do it. If it means consuming copious amounts of alcohol at the reception and performing an embarrassingly incoherent speech (complete with profanity, karaoke, and crying) for the enjoyment of all in attendance, consider it done.

Congratulations, Frans. I love you. And though you now have a Chris to complement your Kerri, know that I will forever be the Hans to your Frans.

Also: You better start preparing for the bachelorette party I’ll be hosting in your honor. Your wedding is my excuse to become grossly intoxicated, act immaturely, and behave inappropriately. It’s going to be awesome.

of consequence

Earlier this week, I was stunned to learn that a high school friend of mine had taken his own life, jumping to his death one week prior, shocking both family and friends with actions that seemed entirely incompatible with the man they knew him to be. And even though I haven’t spoken to or of this friend for years, I found myself in tears over his passing, saddened by his decision to forfeit his life so suddenly and so finally.

After graduation, I left high school behind without looking back, anxious to embrace and indulge unabashedly in the absolute unfamiliarity of my impending college experience. Two years later, I had severed all hometown ties completely, and—with a few rare exceptions—have not conversed with these old friends in the four years since passed.

But in spite of my eager high school departure and subsequent loss of many long-time relationships, I have always hoped the best for the individuals with whom I once shared a certain intimacy and understanding, with whom I somehow survived the sometimes suffocating halls of high school, whose presence made my better-at-the-end emergence a possibility. It is devastating to imagine that one of these friends has surrendered, given up, and is gone. Though years and miles away, I am still and acutely aware of his absence.

We are of profound consequence even to those at a distance.

in pursuit of satiety

My body has been everything but ally and self. It’s been enemy, weapon, victim, liability. It’s been other in every possible way, as I’ve struggled to make peace with my uniquely flawed exterior, to reintegrate body with self and feel once again whole. My struggle, I believe, is a distinctively feminine experience, a battle fought by every woman who feels uncomfortable in her own skin, every woman devastated by her failure to embody (the illusion of) aesthetic perfection.

For years, I fought the fight for physical flawlessness, refusing to consume necessary calories, compulsively and excessively exercising, despising my shape and constantly criticizing its shortcomings, even slicing my own skin as punishment for imperfection. I embraced self-denial wholeheartedly, sliding into self-destructive habits effortlessly, shamelessly indulging in despair, and failing to see the selfish nature of my behavior.

I’m embarrassed by my time spent in utter disengagement from environments and individuals, time spent using my body as an excuse for a mostly isolated existence, believing physical faults might somehow and adequately justify emotional detachment. In her memoir Appetites: Why Women Want, Caroline Knapp reflects upon this kind of embarrassment, the way worrying about the self—particularly in terms of the external—can be “devastatingly blinding,” taking us out of contact with the wider world, allowing us to become comfortable in the discontentment of tight jeans and big thighs while others face the real devastation of poverty, hunger, and war.

I have experienced this kind of reality firsthand: the kind that makes starving myself seem reasonable even as people everywhere fight for enough food to survive; the kind that allows me to harm my body, cut into it, while others struggle just to keep theirs alive. And, having recognized the absolute idiocy and narcissism of this reality, I have chosen to change and reject it, to begin inhabiting my body, responding to its hungers, celebrating its assets (and even its flaws), making peace with my physical self as a way of eliminating its distractive influence in my life.

The stomach I used to despise for its slightly-soft-even-when-strong appearance, is now something I consider essentially female and sexy. I embrace my once-loathed, ample, ballerina-style ass as an attribute inherited directly from my mother--whose beauty I find breathtaking, any part of which I am proud to possess myself. I value my body for its athleticism and not for its aesthetics, for the fact that it runs farther and faster and stronger these days than it ever has before.

I’ve abandoned my habits of physical self-abuse in favor of connectivity and engagement with others, no longer allowing superficial flaws to consume and exhaust me psychologically. And as I settle into a healthy appreciation for and comfort within my body, I turn my attention to my equally damaging tendency toward emotional self-destruction, my pattern of perpetuating relationships that inadequately nourish me while monopolizing my emotional energy, stifling instead of enhancing my experience of intimacy. I have (mostly) relinquished my fear of physical imperfection, choosing to feel corporeally sated (in spite of flaws) instead of starved. Emotional satiety may come at its own price, may force me to forfeit my familiar fear of loneliness, may ask me at this moment to just let go.