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Do you ever have those moments when you feel like you are the eye of the storm in a stormy universe that is so expansive that everything is just swishing around you like a gust of wind? At this exact moment I am calmed by the surroundings of my own home, my father, my cats, my things, my smells. But I am shaken by the events that have brought me here. Tonight I sit in my kitchen missing an unimportant Chi Omega event: Fall Barndance. I am missing this event, the “prom” of my senior year of college, by choice. A choice that was made due to the suffering my mother is experiencing from a disease for which no one on this planet can find a cure. I am here because of all of these things. I have a strong family and a strong mother who is willing to fight until her dying day, until her last breath. But when will that day come? Sooner than we hoped? I cannot think about weddings. Will she be there? I get weepy looking at elderly couples in the grocery store. Will my father and her have that opportunity? I am her in so many ways, she is my best friend. When she suffers, so do I. When she is in pain, I am too. As she lies alone in a hospital room, I sit at home saddened and angered by the course her life has taken. I am angry, but there is no one to blame. I am sad, but there is no one who can be named as the cause of my tears. I am so full of emotion but at the same time I am numb. I do not know where the next few weeks, months, or years will take us. How long will I have with her? What do I do now? How will I ever continue on… these are thoughts I have pushed out of my head for so many months and all of a sudden they sit at the forefront of my mind. I am afraid to ask these big questions, I am afraid of scaring her… but I am mostly afraid of the answers. I trust her doctors to do their job. But as she so often says “they aren’t Gods”. Well momma, that goes both ways. They may not determine your fate, but that may not save you either. That thought makes me shutter. Alas, I trust them. And I know her — she is the ultimate soldier fighting the ultimate battle: the battle to live.
Finding out about the tumors on her spine was the most agonizing moment of my life. Metastasized lung cancer is no joke and there is no quick fix. The radiation, the brace, the pain, and more chemotherapy are the just the beginning of this road ahead. I dread it with every piece of my emotionally tattered soul.
In loving memory, may he rest in peace. 1955-2011.
Following my ideology of losing weight, eating nutritiously, and getting fit through exercise there are certain things that still continue to shock me. I see the same blonde girl walking down Green St. outside of my apartment about every other day and every time I look at her the first thing I think about is if I’ve seen her in any “pro ana” or “thinspo” pictures on tumblr. She fits the mold… sunken eyes, transparent skin, tall, lanky, atrophied (deteriorated) muscles, a hug gap between her thighs, and protruding hip bones. When I look at her, I don’t long to look like her. In fact when I look at her I almost have to look away due to the utter disbelief that the image she has attained is what she considers beautiful… Or actually, she probably doesn’t yet think she is beautiful and she probably never will. When I look at her I literally want to shake her and bring her to the new burger place on Green St., ”Sliders”, and make her eat a burger and read my blog at the same time.
To site some statistics from my psychology book, prevalence of eating disorders spikes in females around 13-15 years old. This same prevalence rate decreases drastically when women hit their early 20s. The logic is simple, when we go through puberty our self-confidence is demolished and we maintain a very negative self-concept until our 20s. Early 20s is when females tend to regain their confidence that had been lost for so many years, thus less eating disorders. Some people never recover. Like this girl. Her image of beauty has not, and may never, move towards a fit, strong, confident woman. Instead she will starve herself of food, nutrients, and confidence and she spirals down to an unattainable goal. It makes me sad and it makes me wonder. But it also makes me happy to know that my head is in the right place and I am doing this the right way. Sadly, at one point in my life I thought that “thinspo” was beautiful [Disclaimer: I never had an eating disorder, nor have I ever starved myself to lose weight. Ever.] and although it was impossible, I longed to look like those girls. Today, I am a confident woman. I am a strong woman. And I am in touch with myself and my body. I will take my muscly calves, sculpted shoulders, and toned biceps any day over looking the way she does. Poor thing…
