gold guns girls

Here is where it lives, now: in the tiny spaces between my ribs, in the very very back of my brain under some blankets and dirty laundry. I do not count calories and I keep my food down and I try to eat normal, balanced meals. 

Sometimes I’m broke or sad or terrified, and lately, since I moved out here, I’ve been a lot of all three. I do well with routine and I do not have that yet. Maybe this is why my appetite is so small. 

It is extremely hard for me to eat for the sake of eating, which is a convoluted way to say for my health. An eating disorder is simultaneously the mark of a deep self-hatred and an extraordinary narcissism. Other people deserve food, but I do not; other people need food to survive, but I do not. 

There are so many little things that can get in the way, and all of the sudden it’s 4pm and I’ve eaten a sum total of one Cliff bar and I’m crying on the bus because my life seems unmanageable. Logically, I know I need to eat something, but I don’t really believe it, and this is how it creeps up.

It’s hard to explain because I don’t feel like I need or even want to lose weight. It’s just that it’s been ten years and these behaviors are hard-wired into my brain. I don’t remember not having them. 

It’s so hard to pull myself out of it. I’ve spent most of today at home and I had some leftover Chinese food at noon and for the last three hours I’ve been willing myself to eat something else. I haven’t moved. 

I’m in California and I’ve been here over a month. The list of things I need to do to make this place my home is so, so long. I need to find an apartment for January, but I also need to buy a pair of shorts to wear to run. I signed hiring papers for work today but I can’t go sign up for my background check until Monday because it costs $75 and I don’t have that until tomorrow. It’s a lot of that kind of stuff. I try to stay organized, not overwhelmed. Traditionally, this is not my strong suit.

Still: it’s warm here and I walk a lot. I can get to Carly in a twenty-minute walk and Genevieve in a twenty-minute bus ride. Everyone made me terrified of moving here without a car, but I’m not finding it any worse than getting around Boston, and snowstorms will almost definitely not shut down any trains or buses. I’m seeing a lot of the city. It is another country over here, maybe another planet. I walk around every day in near-shock at all these people just living over here, like it’s normal.