madermouse's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- cliff-hanging September 10, 2003 I�ve been debating on writing here, wondering if I should be honest or if I should scurry away from the truth like the frightened mouse I feel. Success, failure, challenges met, disappointment, obstacles overcome, elation, goals met�I have both done and undone these things many times during the past years. But no matter what, I have not lied. I have always been honest even when painful or difficult. I have made a pledge to honesty no matter how boring or ignorant or scary. I�ve always shared these ups and downs (and downs and downs and downs) with the faith that simply revealing the truth would in turn keep me honest, would keep me aware. Why would today be any different? I�ve grappled. I�ve strifed. I�ve come undone then pulled myself together, then come undone again. I�ve screamed at myself and threw things when no one was looking. I�ve curled up into a ball of clothes that no longer fit and cried myself to sleep. I discovered the drug that sleep is. Dreams are easy and I�m always thin and beautiful�even in nightmares I�ll pass a mirror and notice how thin I am. So I�ve slept until the mattress felt like stones and I crept from my room with the soreness of an old woman. I�ve tried. I really have tried. No, really, I have tried!! (keep saying this and it will be true) Dammit I HAVE tried�.at least a little, at least for half a day or an hour or 15 minutes when I�m talking myself out of a pint of Ben n� Jerry�s. Sometimes I try in the morning when I choose egg white omelet instead of biscuits and gravy. Sometimes I try by walking that extra stop to catch the bus. Sometimes I try by skipping. Not the skipping that a child does when she is happy in her new red shoes but breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then I find myself ravenous and angry at 2am eating peanut butter from a jar in front of an open cupboard. I know better, but it seems to make sense when nothing else does. I�ve eaten. I have eaten like this girl I used to know, an old Heather who never felt full. I�ve stuffed. I�ve gorged. I�ve felt pain�in my thoughts, sharp pains in my stomach, my throat, my arms, my back, in my knees. I�ve felt pain in places that haven�t felt pain since I lost weight. I�ve felt enough anger to fuel a revolution, and enough grief to smother a forest fire. I�ve avoided. Avoided mirrors and reflective glass windows and the gym which I have a membership but haven�t been to in 6 months. I�ve caught glimpses of my weight gain � in the return of my double chin, in the eyes of friends who haven�t seen me in awhile, in the pinch of the waistband on my largest pair of pants. But worse than all this, I�ve seen my weight in the look on my husband�s face when I got up off the floor one night. I know he�d never say anything to me, but it was such a look of pity and sadness � it made this gain true and real. And then somewhere in all of this ugliness, darkness and pain, I�ve hoped. It�s not a strong, definite hope. It�s not a confident hope. It�s not the kind of hope that makes you feel like everything is going to turn out in the end. But nonetheless, it�s still there, small and clouded and defiant. Some days I feel like I�m hanging off a cliff by this little shriveled up branch of hope, and my fingers are aching and I�m sweating and gripped by fear. Will I fall? Will I fail? 3:38 p.m. - September 10, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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