Butts and Bruises

Guilt! Let’s talk about it! 

C’mon it’s not that scary. I joke about my horrible-decision-packed past all the time! I honestly think it helps me withstand the memories.

Joking isn’t the lack of ownership or responsibility for the horrible things I’ve done, but a way to speak about it without putting too heavy a weight on whoever’s listening. A win-win? Eh. At least a laugh and a sigh. 

So yeah, joking about stupid decisions from a new place–one where you can look back honestly–isn’t a sin. If you consciously and consistently choose to act differently these days, a little ha-ha is a-okay by me.

Now for a secret.

Dear reader, I am not a saint. I know, I know. Deep breaths.

I used to regularly hide food, pretending that I ate it so as to get out of a few hundred calories. I called a dietitian a “frigid bitch” to her face. And meant it. There was something called “the spaghetti incident” which is still too tender a topic. Objectively, all funny. 

Here I sit with new tits and an ass that can’t quit, and the fact that my butt used to look like two deflated balloons is hilarious to me. Like, you could lift up a cheek and it would float back down like a feather in a light breeze. Remembering how I let myself get to that point–guilt. Talking about how easy it was to wipe my ass back then–hilarious. It was like brushing something off my shoulder. I exhaled and my asshole sparkled.

On a bit more serious of a note, I used to be reckless–not caring about myself or my body for more than 5 minutes at a time. My sense of importance would fade and I would be, as they say, back on my bullshit. I made a lot of bad decisions outside of eating disorder stuff too.

Guys. I dated a MIME. A RUDE DISRESPECTFUL MIME. Though incredibly briefly, if that is not indicative of the absolute chaos I created until age 20, I don’t know what is. Fuckin mess.

Jokes aside just for a moment, I think being vulnerable with guilt is incredibly brave, even and especially when addressing yourself. This isn’t a hot take–I know that–but it’s incredibly difficult in practice. I’ll laugh at myself all day long, and then write something incredibly sad when I’m filled with shame at 3 am. Both are honest. Both are necessary.

So, having already made the asshole jokes, it’s now time for the vulnerability. Here is something you didn’t ask for but are getting anyway.

I wrote it at 3 am. It’s about being a dumb kid from the eyes of a slightly less dumb adult. 

 

I didn’t give it a title and am open to suggestions.

 

I realized I was just a child, then. That I didn’t know the things that would make the choosing easy.

that I didn’t trust myself to carry my own weight further

than the door frame. Bouncing between the good and the careless and the careless good and all of it tasting

like all the rest. I stop to count again the tallies on the back of my hand.

 I stopped after five horrible things. 

when the lines crossed back over the past, they got longer–eating the land

my mother set aside for me as a child–then sealed to the world and to me, who was cause and effect and affected by none of it. skin 

became canyon, as if asked to open wide. now fixed 

to the looking I no longer want to fill, but to gauge the time.

I look not for salvation but for the end of all the choosing. 

one final horrible thing. to truly see the damage and to sleep 

with the weight of it pressed flat against my lips. 

a mirror to watch my eyes close. 

 

Well that was dark. Um. Go back and read the butt stuff again if need be.

Dear reader, take care.

 

Big love. Just an absolutely obscene amount.