Step Class

Purple v-neck tee, black crop leggings, florescent pink and blue sneakers. I look like an average girl at the gym. Then why do I feel so out of place here? I don't actually go often enough that's definitely a reason. But it's also because I believe myself to be unathletic, which I've found to be more hindering than any other factor keeping me from physical fitness. Gym class was never a place where I shined, or even enjoyed myself. It was a source of dread and shame. Now here I am, a college graduate and actually paying to do the classes I used to hate.

This evening's class was step aerobics. I arrived a little early, just enough time to put my coat in a locker and watch the end of the class before. It was a bootcamp with a large black man with a booming voice. I liked him, he seemed encouraging and jolly. As it turned out he was the teacher for my class, too. As soon as everyone had said hello to each other (they seemed to all know each other! I felt conspicuously new) George bellowed to the class to get ready and with no further introduction started a very fast step workout. Everyone in the room started doing these step moves to his directions, lunging and kicking and stepping and grape-vining and sashaying almost in unison. I was constantly four or five steps behind and embarrassingly moving in the wrong direction constantly. The older woman behind me gave me some pointers over the break and I tried to concentrate on being as dancerly as possible to keep up with these insane step workout people. 

I'm proud of myself for actually going, and I did a pilates class last week. Last night I did some lifting with L and his buddy, and my arms and thighs are definitely sore. Trying to keep up an actual fitness routine, I want to take up hiking in the spring. 

L isn't here at the moment and I feel his absence acutely. We've been spending days on end here, ordering in food and watching ridiculous television. Smoking and going out to parties, wild sex at all hours. Then there's the fighting, the worrying, the lies and truths all muddled up. And the love, the sweet, true, exhilarating love. My heart flutters when he says nice things, refers to our future together, when he smiles at me with his doe eyes. It sinks and shrivels and dies in my chest when he turns away from me cold, offended by my applications to faraway jobs. I love him, I need him by my side. 

Shouldn't Have

These size 6R American Eagle "super skinny" jeans are cutting into my fat rolls. This pair fit me fine at 130 and even 138, but started to get uncomfortable after I got past 140 and then 145. 148 this morning, I am a disgrace.

I joined a gym that's just down the street but I've used it no more than 5 times so far. I have to cancel it for my finances sake, it's dumb to pay for something I almost never use.

Yesterday and the day before were lost days. My city was sent back into lock down mode because of yet another snow storm. So I spent all day monday with my boyfriend, watching movies and having sex and eating pizza and chinese. Tuesday I was alone, but I repeated monday's activities except for the sex. Now, two days later I am awakening from my hazy marathon binge and I feel awful about myself. why do I keep doing this?

I cannot wait for summer to come.

Relationships

To those who don't live on the east coast in the US, there was a blizzard here this week. It's basically all anyone can talk about and we've been in snow day lock-down here in Boston. I spent most of the snow holiday drunk and watching tv and hanging out with roommates and friends.

My last post was a giant complaint about feeling awkward and alone. Monday night made me feel very much outside the group. Tuesday night was completely different, though. I went along with some coworkers to a party at my manager's house. We played beer olympics drinking games and drank a lot of whiskey and beer. I threw up in the bathroom on purpose when I felt like I'd had too much, and I think it helped me from losing control completely. Then my manager started handing out Adderall to everyone at the party and like a stupid idiot I took some. I felt nothing at all, so I took another one a few hours later. By 1 in the morning I was super wired and intent on learning Spanish for some reason. I walked home and felt beautifully alive, I couldn't stop talking and doing things.

L, my boyfriend, came over after sledding with his friends in the closed-down streets. "You're acting really weird," he told me. I explained the amphetamines and he laughed. He had been smoking pot with his buddies and was tired and relaxed. Me, on the other hand, I was talking a mile a minute about anything and everything. Hours passed in what felt like mere minutes and soon it was four o'clock in the morning. 
What was simple in the moonlight by the morning never is. 

I told him things I've never told him before. That I have intense guilt about my body and not being pretty enough for him (that was humiliating to say out loud.) That when we met online I was going through a weird phase and didn't even really know what I was getting into when we took a chance on meeting in real life. He said from my profile I seemed lost, like I had stumbled into a world where I didn't belong. He had been sleeping around a lot at that point, too. And I'm sure for a long time after we met. I asked him to please, please sleep around still. "I just want you to feel free, to be happy," I told him. He said he wouldn't, he wants this relationship to be different. Which made me so happy, in a way I wasn't expecting at all. He wants me, for real. He wants to know me and care about my day, he likes having sex with me but he also likes to drink coffee with me and watch the movies I like. I feel special, knowing that now.

My pupils were huge from the drugs and he just wanted me to sleep. So we started drinking, spiced rum this time. Then like an even bigger idiot than I'd already proven myself earlier, I took two hits of a bowl he packed. Alcohol and weed together make me almost immediately violently ill. I ran to go throw up and got all the booze out. Still sick. I tried to lay down and had to keep leaping up to throw up again. Agony. He was sweet about the whole thing, but if the positions were reversed I'd have been so annoyed. I bet he is. In the morning I felt ill, partially from the booze and weed combo and partially from the amphetamines, but we made love all day anyway. "made love." Such a cheesy name for sex. Fucking. Screwing. Sleeping Together. But after all the honesty last night, I'd call it making love. I trusted him more, was more sure of who he is and what we are.

I'll exercise more and eat better and blah blah blah as soon as I'm on my feet again. For now, I have sleep to catch up on.

Flirt

I can hear my roommate having sex with her boyfriend right now. Which is awkward for me since I have a weird tension with him. I think mostly it's just because his primary way of interacting with women is to flirt with them. Actually it's likely both my roommates are having sex right now, both of their boyfriends are here tonight.... yup, just walked down our narrow spiral staircase enough to confirm my suspicion that the other four people in this house are having loud passionate sex at this very moment. In fact they are all crying out with pleasure. Direct quote: "Uh! Uh! Uhhh!"

Yeah. I'd say this moment kind of goes with the key themes of today. It's some sort of insanity that is only brought on by apocalyptical news broadcasts like "Record Breaking Blizzard." I spent the morning making breakfast and chocolate chip cookies with my boyfriend. But we burned them because we were too busy with more important things. Funny thing to explain the hockey puck like things you have to offer as an excuse for the odd burnt smell that's all over the apartment. And then the evening was spent at work for only two and a half hours, a complete waste of the money I spent on transportation getting there.

In the evening I smoked too much and ate too much and drank too much and played cards with my roommates and their boyfriends. Do I post weird stuff when I'm inebriated?

Crowded

The first snow of the year is coming down outside my window; a beautiful, white, train-delaying snowfall. I woke up only minutes ago with that hazy what did I do last night? confusion at the front of my brain. I know I smoked last night, darn it. Did I eat anything after I got back from the party? Oh yes, I remember.

Yesterday's daylight hours were spent napping in a heap on top of my blankets. Then when it was dark out and I was finally awake, I felt the resounding loneliness for the first time. Loneliness, whatever else it is, is always surprising. It sneaks up on me and then with a pang I look around to find no one and start to regret and pity myself. So I walked aimlessly, finally deciding to go sign up at a gym. I've been meaning to do this for ages but yesterday I finally made that awful financial decision. At a price that adds up to more than $2 per day, I better really like this place and use it a lot.

Then I took a meandering loop home, stopping to try on a few sweaters that all make me look huger than I already look and peer into windows. Home again. Alone still. What to do? I pack a few bowls, watch a television show on Netflix, drink decaf coffee. Then I brake the healthy few days I've been having and binge. (greek fro-yo bar, peanut butter, crackers, pretzel twists, nutella) I'm not bursting full but I've ruined my intake for the day. This is why I'm fat, this is why I must give up this awful smoking and eating alone habit. Because of the peanut butter I don't even consider purging, pb is always too painful and difficult to get back up.

A text from my roommate. A party down the street. I get dressed, apply eye shadow and so much cover-up, grab a belgian white beer from the mini-fridge and meet her downstairs in the kitchen. She's already drunk and high, I'm only high and full of food. We walk to the party together, almost getting lost on our way to a place we go all the time. She quickly finds her crush and they disappear together, leaving me to wade through crowds of underclassmen I've never seen before. I feel suddenly old. Upstairs I find the people I know, but I don't want to talk to them either, really. But I stay until 1:30 anyway, simply because I was stalling the lonely walk home when I'd have to pass large raucous groups of boys, stumbling giggling groups of girls, couples pressed up against a brick wall outside a bar. Home again. More tv, more snacks, more shame on me. I finally fall into fitful sleep around 3.

Recognition

First shift back at work, everyone was very excited to see me. It felt almost as if I'd never left, in fact waiting tables has never been easier. I've made fewer mistakes in the last two shifts and gotten a lot of complimentary comment cards, which always feels great. Another big plus- I get tons of steps on my fitbit. Yesterday I got over 16k, my personal best!

Funny/terrible thing happened on the shift last night. I greeted a table in the back of the restaurant and immediately recognized one of the two women. Who is she? Why do I recognize her? And then she started speaking and I realized she was one of the case managers from my eating disorders outpatient program. In fact, she was the one who pushed hardest for me to be removed from the program because I wasn't meeting the attendance requirements. Talk about awkward. When I asked for their drink orders she looked at me and I knew she recognized me, too. Thank goodness she didn't say anything. My heart beat so quickly as I was walking away, my hands were shaking when I poured their two glasses of ice water.

After work my boyfriend met me at my apartment. It was exciting to see him after a full month away. I left on December 20th and flew back yesterday. We talked and when he finally kissed me, it felt like a memory. Sex started slowly, like we were jus getting to know each other again. And it hurt for me, my body is out of practice. After only a little while I had to ask him to stop, and asking made my tears well up. I'm so embarrassed, for ruining what should have been a special reunion, for not living up to his expectations of me. I know he was expecting a hot, steamy, marathon night. Instead I was reduced a shaking crying puddle, nearly sobbing in pain and unable to speak from the humiliation.

I wanted to tell him to cheat on me. Please, sleep with someone prettier, someone with a nice body. Not a pasty, dimpled, lumpy blob like me. Please, cheat on me, you have my permission. I'm a disappointment and I can't live with this guilt.

1/21:
b-black coffee and lemon water
l-pear turkey walnut salad, baguette, iced coffee
s-raspberries
d- (haven't eaten it yet but thinking about some pizza, maybe soup.)
s-beer beer beer

Going to have drinks and sing karaoke tonight with my roomies and school mates. Missed them dearly while I was in Pennsylvania and now I get to be back in their routine.

Chubby Cheeks

Wisdom teeth are out, I definitely feel dumber. Or is it all the narcotics I'm being prescribed?

My face is still puffy and I have a small blue bruise on my left cheek, but other than that I'm actually doing really well. Going under anesthesia was a little nerve wracking, but I barely remember anything. As soon as I made it back to my car I fell asleep again, and then my dad helped me get back to bed. After a 4 hour nap most of the numbness in my mouth was gone and I felt a lot better. I had two bowls of vanilla ice cream and a packet of ramen noodles, not a great intake in terms of nutrition, but whatever. It's a sickie, right? Or at least that's what I tell myself so I won't feel so terrible about my lumpy fat self.

Today I got all my steps in, almost 14,000. My dog Molly and I walked to the local coffee shop where I got a latte. I sipped it from a little beige and brown to go cup on the walk home and it was a little piece of heaven. Why coffee tastes better to me in to go cups I don't know, but it's one of my favorite treats lately.

Thursday, January 15th, 2015

b- mixed berry and banana smoothie

s- latte (w/skim milk)

l- penne and red sauce

d- penne and red sauce and 4oz grilled salmon

Too many carbs today, the only protein I got was from the fish and the milk. Tomorrow hopefully I can chew a bit more so I can have a few more options in terms of food. In the morning I plan on going for a walk with my dog again, maybe some place downtown. Then she has an 11am doggy salon appointment for a haircut and a pedicure. How funny does that sound? But really its because she looks shaggy and her nails are too long and make loud clicking noises on the hard floors. While she's in the salon I'm getting lunch with my Nana and then packing for another ski weekend. On Monday when we get home from the mountain I have to quickly pack again for my return to Boston.

I've really loved being home. It's as if my whole personality has changed back to the person I am within my family. But now I have switch gears and be a good roommate, girlfriend, and waitress again. I'm almost a little sad to be going back, wish I could stay here and find a new job. But I have obligations there; an apartment, a boyfriend, a life. Time for me to get back into the swing of things.