i tempi cambi

I’ve recently found myself lost in despair thinking about the past. Instead of being haunted by what I’ve experienced I’m drowning in grief over the realization that I’ll never see those days again.

Fall semester 2018 carpooling with my best friend and sitting in the library waiting for her to get out of her last class so we could go home. I’d sit in the quiet zone on the second floor. On the side of the building that got direct sunlight in the afternoon. I’d listen to music and read Catch-22 for my upcoming paper or do my homework for some other class. Or I’d close my eyes and lay my face on the desk facing the window so the incoming light could bake my face and back.

I tried to relive those moments over the past few years but it was never the same. In the library alone, usually at night. No longer majoring in history, now majoring in accounting. Alone. No more 4.0, struggling my ass off and still not really getting by. Cold. Nervous breakdown in 2020 left me feeling brain damaged. I’ve never felt the same and I’ve never felt right since then. Ouch.

Now I’m in Alabama. I have a new life. Degree received. New job. The job I went to school for. New relationship. Left the life I knew to be in a new one with them. New setting. None of the things I used to have are in my reach. None of the people I love are close enough to touch or hug. I can’t go to the library and read a book and listen to Astrud Gilberto because that world no longer exists. I’m hours away from that place and years away from where I was. Doesn’t knowing you can’t ever go back just bring you to your knees?

I’m very concerned with the rise of the fitness / skinnytok / whatever the fuck it is shit that I see everywhere now. I felt like I was in a good place for a long time. I lost about 60~ maybe 70~ pounds after covid and was just a little chunky. Size 12. Felt very normal until my weird skin disease thing happened & I gained 20 or so pounds after being on steroids for a prolonged period of time. Now that’s back off too. I’m thinner now than I’ve been in my entire adult life and I am struggling to keep myself healthy to an extreme.

After rotating out eating disorders for 12+ years I genuinely thought I was at a place where that stuff couldn’t get me anymore. I was wrong. I don’t consider myself in an active relapse but I don’t know how long until I will be. If I feel too full I lie and say my stomach hurts so I can go throw up. I don’t think I ever really stopped abusing laxatives and gut cleanses and supplements. I’m consumed with what exercise I need to do to get more off and keep it off forever. How many calories and what I’ll have to eat for the rest of my life.

I have atrophied every muscle in my body. A few years ago I was so strong. I was so muscular. I’m so weak now that it actually scares me. I couldn’t ever defend myself in a life or death situation. If I don’t go to the bathroom as soon as I get the urge I will piss myself immediately. I have no pelvic floor muscles. I bruise very easily. My hair is long but it lost some curl and it never grew back as thick as it used to be. Sometimes my heart beats so out of control that I think I’ll drop dead where I’m standing. I’m taking a heart medication. I never stopped seeing myself at my fattest and when people comment on my body I feel like I’ve lost my mind. Season 2 episode 2 of American dad when Stan lifts his shirt to show everyone how fat he is and he’s just bones. My parents and Edwin and my coworkers talk about my body or how far I’ve come but I can’t believe it. I can feel it and sometimes I catch a glimpse of the woman they’re talking about but it fades.

Thinking about how my dad was a little boy with hopes & dreams once upon a time. I’ve never asked him what he wanted to be when he was a kid. Thinking about how his experiences in childhood and his teenage years led him to join the army during a particularly shitty time. His drive to get away from his family was really strong.

Thinking about how I have the same bipolar disorder as him and his father & the same face as him and his father.

Everyone posting that Kate Bush song had me falling apart right now. She’s right. What a waste. Who knows what he could have been or could have done or what kind of person he would have been today if things were different. I can’t imagine my dad being a soft or gentle man, but what if he could have been? My existence is the product of my father meeting a woman in another country while on rotation in the 80’s. Had things been different I wouldn’t even be here, but I wonder if my sister and I make up for what he missed out on.