Last week, I got busted, red-handed, white-faced. Terrified that they would turn me into the very person whose behaviour had likely inspired the ultimate betrayal, I apologized and returned to my seat as soon as I possibly could. That weekend, I did homework, culling information from various texts that would soon lead me slipping and sliding down a muddy path of self-destruction.
***
I was seven, I was chubby and it wasn’t unknown to me. What was, until I was nearing 20, was that the abuses I took at home from my father likely had more to do with my eating disorder than the kids who mocked me on the playground, the nicknames and taunting, the older girls in the bathroom who’d so graciously pointed out my double-chins.
At seven and precocious, I read everything there was to read about losing weight. I wore out my library card, flipping through the pages of most magazines aimed towards girls and women older than me – as long as there was an article giving instruction on waist whittling, dieting, cleansing or leg lifts, it was applicable. It didn’t take me long to wander into the abnormal psych area of the Dewey Decimal System, and I quickly paged through the psych mumbo-jumbo, getting to the good stuff – the case studies.
Every day at seven years of age, lunch is torture for me. I can feel eyes on me as I sit lonely, but not always alone, taking the same baloney sandwich out of my yellow She-Ra lunch box. Seeing the low-priced brand of pudding five days a week – the kind that held onto the notion of aluminum tabs that usually, but not always, broke off before you could even get the damn thing open far enough to attempt to enjoy the chalky brown sludge inside – even while other kids have wagon wheels or cookies, causes my shoulders to stoop. The thermos of warm milk, deemed undrinkable by most kids, must be drank or it will become my milk the next day and the next and so on, until it’s all drank or soured and solid.
One day, I get this epic idea. If I’m to lose weight, I should just stop eating so much. Whether Cosmo or Oprah or the devil or misfiring synapses brought me the knowledge, I don’t know. But I did know that if I didn’t eat my lunch, I would be served the same thing tomorrow, which was even grosser a concept than the fact that I ate the same thing everyday for lunch, anyway. So I decided to throw it out in one of the gigantic green garbage cans that sat in the middle of the school’s gymnasium, right for everyone to see. A silent protest of action against my overweightedness, if you will.
Of course I got caught. But the only one who noticed was the lunch monitor.
***
Today, I’ve come up with a braver, more stealth idea. The lunch room monitors don’t keep an eye on the bathroom, so I’ll flush my lunch down the toilet. And I do, hiding in the stall during the last few minutes before I’m to return to the second graders’ classroom. Watching the water rising higher and higher on the bowl’s edges, I wonder if I should have taken the plastic wrap off of my sandwich, if it being more malleable might make it less likely to clog. Eventually, the stress of the moment – waiting to find out if my shoes will get wet or not – overrides my need to see the job to completion and I leave the stall, tossing the pudding in the garbage on my way out of the door.
I decide that tomorrow, I’ll take the plastic wrap off and tear that food bank-provided motherfucker in pieces before pushing the plunger.
This post is a response to the {W}rite-of-Passage challenge. See more by clicking the linky, below:
Life is too real lately.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking for granted what I’ve got: a smart, though somewhat crazed, beautiful little girl; days to spend with her; good friends, who are like family. I’ve got it all – all I could ask for really – except for stability.
For the past nearly two years, I’ve had a cushion. When The Ex and I split, making first informal arrangements (then legal ones) for monthly support, I could breathe a huge sigh of relief. I dug in my heels and asked, hell, I bartered, for exactly an amount I’d need to be able to more than scrape by, with other forms of assistance. Enough so that I didn’t have to worry about paying the bills, if I was keeping my head screwed on right. He agreed.
It’s been an easy couple of years, financially, with only the two of us to worry about. Rent, utilities and groceries were the main concerns. People will always hand off kids’ clothes, regardless of our need for them; diapers always go on sale just as we needed them and had a mega-super-fabulous-deal coupon; we learned to do without certain things, like expensive beauty stuff and name-brand paper towels. I managed to keep up an expensive tobacco, caffeine and occasional-binge-drinking habit. (I use the word binge loosely, for the record.)
This is coming to an end, soon.
In fact, it seems like everything is coming to an end, soon. Too much change, too fast, all within the same six weeks or so.
In less than seven weeks I’ll be packing for the BlogHer conference, thanks to the sponsors in my footer – I don’t have the whole thing paid for, but my leftover expenses are a lot smaller now than they were. I don’t travel for a reason and I don’t shop at certain supermarkets for the same – I can’t handle crowds all that well. But mind over matter, I will have fun. Something I need to expend more effort searching for.
When I get home from BlogHer, it’ll be time to throw Isobel’s third birthday party. That’s a post unto itself.
In July, Isobel will be done with daycare for a month. The woman that takes care of her is going home with her family for the entire month of July. When they’re back in August, Isobel will likely resume her two mornings a week in the woman’s care, but the damage will have been done. I’ll have spent July scrambling to fit in 12 hours of work where there is no longer allotted time for it.
In August, The Ex and I agreed to renegotiate our support agreement. Meaning that logistically, I could have half the support that I receive now. It’s still a lot, but it wouldn’t be enough if I wasn’t making enough.
At the end of August, I’ll have to decide if we’re staying in this apartment, or giving notice to move to a larger, (and 99% likely) more expensive place. I don’t want to leave this neighbourhood, but part of me really quests for a basement suite or duplex that needs some fixing up that we’re allowed to do. With a stretch of back-, side- or front-yard, for her to leave crap all over that I can step on. For a dog or a cat. For my own bedroom. But, money is the biggest problem, as I’m honestly living in the best neighbourhood I know of, with the closest amenities, for the cheapest price. Moving will cost more than we’ll see as a reward – for a little while. But it would sure be nice to live in a space bigger than half the size of the first place I ever rented on my own when I was 15 years old.
During that same move-or-stay time, Isobel’ll start preschool. Financially, that’s not a concern because the government is real nice to single moms with low incomes when it comes to childcare. What is a concern is that right now, she’s signed up for two afternoons a week and we’re awaiting room in the five-mornings camp. That could happen by September, it could happen in the winter. I don’t know. If I keep her in just the afternoons, twice a week, that’s virtually replacing the childcare I’m used to her having now and paying $300 a month for – for free. Meaning I could still possibly do the twice-a-week daycare deal, too, since it’s the same amount of money.
This is all happening between July 23rd and September 6th. I’m freaking the fuck out.
I also have a new writing job and another coming up soon that, at the moment, are unpaid. They have awesome potential and if successful, will mean a lot to my resume. I also have a few websites to design – again, resume fodder (and, well, just fun). I’m also working on an ebook series. Mentally formulating what my portfolio and another domain will look like, considering learning Photoshop, still sitting on three different CSS texts, have the pre-existing two paying blog jobs, a need to shower and brush my teeth and am jonseing for a boyfriend.
Life is fucking fabulous, y’all.
I’m so scared that I’m going to crash and burn, and take Isobel down with me. I don’t know if ever before I’ve ever wanted to be taken care of so much. I don’t know if my current stress level will even let me allow someone to take care of me. I don’t know how to make it all better, besides just shutting up and doing shit.
So, these 900-something words are basically to say: I have a lot of stuff to deal with, I’m feeling like I’m going to drown, and instead of hiding and backing away from it all, I’m strapping on my shit-kicking boots and getting sweaty.
