every night before i shower, i strip off all my clothing and i look at my body in the mirror. i am naked and i look at myself meanly with a harsh and cruel eye. i touch the softer parts of my arms, i breathe a small sigh of relief when there is still a hollowness between my ribcage, i squeeze the softness of my lower stomach, i pinch the skin around my hips. i look at my body from the front and then from the side and then from the front again and one more time from the side. i inhale and i exhale, sucking in and letting it out. i try to calculate how much weight i’ve gained since i’ve stopped taking adderall. there are pairs of jeans in my closet that i am terrified to put on because i know it will cause me to spiral and feel sickened over something i should feel nothing toward.
sometimes i am tempted to text jeremy and ask if he thinks i’ve gained weight and if so, how much. but i know that he will tell me he can’t have that conversation anymore but he cares about me and maybe i should look into getting a therapist and he will undoubtedly remind me since we are no longer together, he doesn’t have to answer that question. it will be a short and curt response and i will plug my phone into it’s charger while feeling guilt and shame wash over me. it occurs to me that even after our split, he is still the only person i ask that question to. in spite of everything, i still come to him to be the bearer of my shame.
i’ve been abnormally sleepy lately. on days that i don’t have very much to do, i find myself waking up at 7.30 am, drinking 3 cups of coffee joined by one american spirit on my fire escape and then getting so drowsy that i can’t help but take a morning nap at 9.30. sometimes i wake up with a burst of energy that lasts a few hours and then by 2.30 or 3 pm, i’m ready to take a short nap again. sometimes i set an alarm, sometimes i don’t and when i don’t, i wake up 3 hours later only to go back to sleep around 10 or 11 pm. i don’t like feeling like this. a part of me wonders if this is just my body recalibrating after being on too many stimulants or will i be this tired forever? was i this tired before? am i still depressed? i don’t know why my mind goes here but with each nap i take and each meal i enjoy, i imagine myself getting puffier as the fat tissue slowly accumulates on all parts of my body- little blobs finding it’s perfect little place on my hips, between my thighs, my stomach, and my arms like tetris.
there is a big part of me that is grieving the past year. i was able to distract myself and i was able to push a lot of it out of my mind but now that my mind is so quiet, it’s hard to not process what has happened. and what has happened is loss. there was the loss of my relationship, the losing of romantic love, the loss of the familiarity and stability and comfort, the loss of what i thought i wanted for myself, the loss of a home that felt more like home after i moved out, the loss of my imagined future, and the most important and the biggest loss: myself.
grief makes me tired. i realize that now. grief makes me fucking exhausted and irritable. i think i feel brave enough to say that now. there is still a big part of my heart that is sad for me, sad for jeremy and sad for what it was and what it wasn’t and what it couldn’t ever be and what it could have been if it were a different universe or a different timeline or if i were a less of this and a little more of that or if he were a little different, too.
i am lying in bed and i am watching the eighth episode of a show that i just started earlier in the day. i am eating a drumstick ice cream cone - vanilla caramel- while i’m propped up against all four pillows. i debated eating the ice cream for a solid twenty minutes, pacing back and forth from my bed to my refrigerator, wondering if it was worth it or what would happen if i ate it. if i did eat it, how would it show tomorrow? what is the worst that can happen if i do eat this? did i eat one last night? i can’t remember. i don’t think so. maybe it was the night before. i feel anxious and panicked but i force myself to open the freezer to grab an ice cream. i deserve this and more importantly, i want it. the plastic wrapper crinkles happily as i unwrap the ice cream cone and i lazily leave the wrapper on my kitchen counter. i say out loud to no one: i’ll throw it away tomorrow. i crawl back into bed, suddenly feeling little qualms about devouring this ice cream. i know a small shard of the thin chocolate coating has fallen into my bed somewhere and it will melt and smear and i will go to sleep with it. and this is who i am. i’m messy, i’m scared of certain things, i’m insecure, i am irrationally worried about not being thin forever but i want to be happy, i want to be full but i love feeling empty, i want to be loved but i am not always the best at loving, i want to devour but i want to abstain, i want to express and say what i feel but i am so fucking tired of talking and i am so tired of hearing people talk, i want noise but i want to scream.
jeremy asked me what my favorite part of being single is. we were walking back to his house after getting frozen yogurt- something we used to do when we were together. sorry if that’s kind of a weird question. i shook my head and told him it wasn’t. he rarely asks me introspective questions like these so i don’t mind them. hmmmmm, the plastic frozen yogurt spoon is on my tongue. it’s not the freedom to date or fuck someone. it’s not the freedom to stay out as late as i want or do whatever i want without being beholden to anyone. it’s not even about meeting someone new and falling in love with them. you know how i’m a little messy? we cross the street and he laughs. oh yeah.
it’s more about that. i can just be myself. i can be lazy, i can be messy, i can be whatever i am feeling. i can just be myself.
we walk silently for a bit and he nods. he agrees and i understand without us saying anything why he also feels that way. we continue walking, in sync, eating our frozen yogurt and for a minute, i lean the side of my head to his arm as we walk and for a second, it felt like nothing had changed at all.
Hi Ethaney, I hope you’re doing ok. Please can you put trigger warnings on your emails. You have started talking about some very triggering topics recently and it would be very helpful to have trigger warnings in the email subject. Thank you
Hey Ethaney, I’m so glad I found your blog. I’m also a fellow griever this year and it’s hard I’ve learned in my solitude how giving love is such a big part of who I am and although it was a personal choice it can be hard but I appreciate you for opening up about your experience. Coming into your own even if it is laziness somedays is a step towards healing! Love my laziness it’s art 🙃