things

i feel empty right now.

(i took a picture of this empty house the other day. the door knocked creeped me out.)

but then, empty isn’t quite the right word for it.

but then it is again.

my brain is confused.

i don’t feel like blogging but i do feel like writing. rambling, really.

i read this earlier.

then laughed because i related on like, all levels. green backpack included.

after that i read this earlier.

wonderful.

so it inspired me to do this.

i’ve been stumbling onto really, really amazing and inspiring and invigorating blogs filled with beautiful writers and even more beautiful words. one wrote a book i bought and she asked her readers to fill a blank page with everything they loved. and, since i feel weird and uncomfortable and tavi mentioned reminding yourself off all the wonderful things in your life when you’re down, this makes sense.

things i love. written in no particular order. the other day. in my notebook. (plus a few added on because why not?)

WORDS. writing. music. nature. trees. hiking. mother earth. yoga. walking. breathing deep. making tea. cooking. reading. connecting. sharing. talking. listening. helping. hugging. kissing. photography. men. women. sam. my parents. my brother. laughing. breakfast. singing. dancing. acid. weed. water. my water bottle. poetry. sunlight. redwoods. nate. victoria. road trips. drug trips. bass lines. my journal. journaling. exploring. moving. chocolate. kale. cake. my hair. my eyes. my eyebrows. my smile. the beatles. animal collective. waking up early. staying up late. tarot readings. traveling. flying. san francisco. the beauty of marin county. orgasms. good food. good company. meeting new people. the night sky. summer. summer nights. mountains beyond mountains. swimming. earring. beautiful lyrics. rings. sunsets. sunrises. spoken word. chuck. old trucks. baking. orange. purple. scarves. indian food. thai food. skirts. brussel sprouts. my sunglasses. gender discussions. this american life. (and subsequently) ira glass.

aaaand i’m done.

what do you love?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: also, i love beauty and the beast. my dad put it on and i’m watching it with him. it’s kind of got a great lesson and as much as i hate on disney, i still like their movies. and belle was always the princess i identified with the most. she loved books. i loved her.)

(p.p.s: adding this p.p.s the day after. this totally worked in helping me feel awesome and reinvigorated, by the way! fell asleep happy.)

i have a fucked up view of my body. aka: i have a fucked up view of myself. (until i realize: ohmygodwhocares)

most days i walk around disconnected from my body.

during my exercise compulsion/restrictive eating phase, i worried all the time about my body, about how its folds and round edges presented themselves. i observed every reflective surface. i pinched, hit, scratched. i was only my body. all the time.

when i started gaining weight, i stopped looking at my reflection so much. i started delving past surface level because i no longer connected to or liked my surface level. beneath my skin, i recognized a dimly lit soul, obscured by obsession. i detached from my physical self, took the time to reacquaint with my spiritual, emotional, and mental self. suddenly i was not just a stomach with arms, legs, hands and feet. i was a person, too.

on the off days i catch my silhouette off-guard, i react in one of two ways. on the good days, i will smile, turn one way. turn another way. strike a pose. laugh at myself and continue on with a good day. on the bad days. well. we all know how the bad days go, don’t we?

generally i cry. like i am surprised at seeing myself, truly. in my mind i look a different way. i am the smaller version of myself, the one i spent hours studying in the mirror for two years. not the heavier young woman looking back at me with empty eyes. i don’t know her. i’m scared to see myself as i am.

you know about body dysmorphia (disorder)? crude judgement call: eating disordered people have it. in a few sentences:

Often BDD co-occurs with emotional depression and anxiety, social withdrawal or social isolation. The onset of the symptoms of a mentally unhealthy preoccupation with body image occurs either in adolescence or in early adulthood, whence begins self-criticism of the personal appearance, from which develop atypical aesthetic-standards derived from the internal perceptual discrepancy between the person’s ‘actual self’ and the ‘ideal self’

oh, hey life.

i see beauty easily in other people. i see it quickly. in smiles, in eyes. in the way shoulders roll back and chests lift. i see beauty in all sizes, in all shapes.

just not in mine.

i am measured in rolls, cellulite, and stretch marks. not by my intelligence, laughter, and kindness. i don’t see what other people see. i struggle with physical compliments. whenever anyone tells me i am beautiful, i cringe. i think, “how can you see that? do you not see this stomach? these legs? these horrible arms?” other women are allowed to look like i am and be beautiful. i am not.

really though, i don’t hate my body. i hate myself. the self-hatred manifests in the mirror.

i constantly battle the beauty ideals born from magazine culture. the rational side of me understands i deserve intimacy, authenticity, happiness, and love no matter the size of my stomach. she knows people find me attractive. she knows beauty shows up in a variety of ways. she knows personality shines just as bright as physical beauty.

none of that matters though when you put all your worth into your appearance. personality doesn’t matter when you can’t shake the idea of worth being directly tied to an uber-processed, shallow idea of beauty. self-love won’t happen when you can’t get over the idea that your body isn’t right, that it needs to be smaller because you’re too big for your height, for yourself, for anyone else.

deep down, i am terrified this will be my forever. that i will never gain a positive body-image and allow life into my life. i am scared i will never love the person i am. that is more immobilizing than living forever with this eating disorder.

the best i can do?

take it one day at a time.

what do you do if and when you find yourself in this struggle?

namaste

zoe

i wrote that last night before insomnia kicked in. i wrote it before i found two beautiful blogs i spent too many hours looking through. tucked in between those virtual pages i found photos. videos.

like this one. (scroll down till you hit the video of the little boy. he is more in touch with his fantastic, female sexiness than i am at twenty-two.).

and this one. (scroll down till you hit the video of the blonde girl reciting a poem she wrote. it’s fucking brilliant and left me covered in goosebumps).

i listened to some spoken word last night, about what it means to be female, about what it means to be fat. it got me thinking, about the word fat. about femininity. about bodies.

think about what you think about when you think about fat.

what words come to your mind? what emotions? what images?

more importantly: are they negative?

america has this unhealthy obsession with fat. we care so much about the bodies of other people, about the bodies we inhabit. turn on your television and count the number of shows about fat people (TLC is a good place to start). open up magazines and tally the number of articles geared toward losing weight. better yet, go count the advertisements.

america is drowning in fat shame and fat obsession.

the weirdest part is this: fat means nothing.

i’m going to say that again:

FAT. MEANS. NOTHING.

NOTHING.

it only means what we choose to associate with it. and, unfortunately, america generally associates fat with ugly, unhealthy, abnormal, shame, and unworthy.

what right do we possess that allows us to pass judgement on the body of another person? what happens when we do do that? when we judge, we create assumptions. how do you know a heavier person is not healthy? how do you know they do not exercise or eat healthfully? the answer? you don’t. nor should you care. it’s not your body. it’s not your life. (i am saying this as much for myself as anyone else).

the image of a toned, tight, and fit person haunts every single person in western culture, whether we fight against it or not. that ideal still exists, still floats in the back of our minds, still affects how we view our body in the world. womanhood and femininity do not come in a one size fits all. we just like to pretend it does.

worshipping the idol of thin is a religion breeding contempt for diversity.

and contempt for our own beautiful selves.

after i watched those videos, after i read through quotes and surveyed pictures, i stumbled onto one thought:

i am so lucky to have this female body.

no matter what shape it takes.

because people like that little boy will never truly be a woman. transgendered females will never be biologically female like i am. this body is a gift. it is something to be celebrated, not cried over because it’s a little round. to be a woman is an amazing, sometimes overwhelming, experience. there is a reason we look different.

so, my god, zoe, stop worrying about your body. because you are not you body.

you are a living, breathing, soul with beauty your limbs can never measure.

namaste

zoe

so i watched demi lovato’s documentary (this one is long)

and, surprisingly, i almost cried a few times.

(source)

girl was honest. at the end i wanted to like, sit down with her and talk and talk and talk. i know MTV showed her in a specific slant but she talked candidly about issues not widely discussed (see the post before last).

she said things i related to. brought up questions i asked and continue to ask all.the.time.

her honesty tapped mine on the shoulder, said, “come on, man, just let it out.”

so.

here it goes.

(THIS IS VERY OPEN)

friends relate to the thoughts. not the extremes. explaining thought processes to their fruition (e.g: ending up over the toilet) never happens. i keep a lot under wraps for a variety of reasons. mainly because no one i know is a bi-polar bulimic with anorexic tendencies. at least outwardly, anyway. additionally, a lot of friends dismiss my worries as needing to get laid or needing to reap more gratitude. not that i disagree entirely but. that hurts. that makes me think and believe my feelings are overly dramatic and childish and not worth discussing or believing. after a while you give up on honest connection and just fucking agree, you know?

i know a lot of what i experience emotionally everyone experiences emotionally. yet, not everyone chooses to hurt themselves. not every ends up acting out those creepy things lurking around in the darkness of your self. and i really don’t want to keep pretending i am not genuinely troubled.

if i survey my twenty-two years, i can tell you this sadness did not start a mere two and a half years ago. it started in my childhood. i remember being called a cry-baby at age seven. i remember friends distancing themselves from the overly-emotional and very sensitive child, whose contradictory bouts of wild energy caused teachers to speak privately with my mom and a friend’s mom to say something like “i don’t think you should hang out with zoe”. i remember feeling awkward and uncomfortable and worthless by age nine.

i remember friends in middle school telling me i was too sad too often. one girl told me i was depressed and wanted to drag everyone down with me. which was not true. not true. i just felt a lot and was confused and wanted someone to tell me it would eventually be okay. that i would eventually be okay. after that i shut myself up. stopped spilling the secrets buried in my heart. i stopped thinking i was special enough to be heard. i sealed myself off and learned to play the role of “helpful” despite crying myself to sleep frequently. by the end of middle school, my mom asked me one day if i wanted to “see someone” (a therapist, namely). i ignored the request because there was nothing wrong.

but i remember being angry all the time. i remember crying, hating myself so much. once, i jokingly played with scissors and my wrist. i was only half-joking. (i’ve never said that to anyone)

i cried myself through the first two and a half years of high school. the self-hatred formed in my childhood carried into my teens, multiplied and manifested. i mellowed out a lot my senior year. found a group of friends who loved and accepted me. the next surge electrified me my freshman year of college (makes sense). the crying started up again. the depression.

when i read through old journals, i am struck by the deep sadness written in the pages. part adolescent angst, part deep emotion children don’t regularly feel. the words hurt me now, years later.

of course, i’ve experienced happiness, too. i’ve had numerous happy days. i’ve had a lot of people in my life who love the person i am. i cannot discount any of that. however, the heaviness of my sadness often feels extraordinary.

and totally mystifying.

because i know the extent of beauty in my life. of privledge, of love, of abundance. i want to stress too that i never asked to feel the things i feel. i never asked for the thoughts that make no sense in conjunction with the elements that make up my life.

i understand the saying “you are what you think” but, sometimes, my thoughts do not feel like my own. they creep out of shadows. become a loud sound i can’t drown out with happiness or gratitude or a good fuck. even when life goes right, i still struggle. the heaviness never lifts entirely. sadder still is how well i’ve learned to numb it out, to shrug it off and pretend like all is fine (being vulnerable is hard).

i’ve been trying not to overthink. i’ve been trying to talk myself down. but, you know, it’s like, how long can you pretend you’re okay? i can’t do that to myself anymore, deny reality.

example:

one of the syptoms of bi-polar (II) is racing thoughts, ones that make you keep late hours and develop insomnia (because the brain won’t shut up).

and right now my mind is goinggoingoing. i can’t keep my focus on one thought for very long. my heart is racing, too. i’m all panicky. jittery. i feel like i have so much energy but i haven’t slept properly in three weeks (6 am bedtime last night though i got into bed at 1) and wake up heavy and slow. i don’t really feel like i can breathe well. i’m crying, not crying. yet, i started the day over the moon happy. i wentwentwent all day. i laughed a lot. felt light.

yet.

here i am.

inching closer to midnight, exhausted in theory, but feeling incapable of sleeping.

i wrote this for a variety of reasons.

i wrote this for myself.

i wrote this because it’s okay to own your emotions and thoughts, to acknowledge them as real and worthy of discussing and i needed to prove that to myself.

i wrote this for you, sitting there, lost, unable to explain anything you think or do to anyone, even yourself.

i wrote this to show you’re never alone, even if you think you are.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: now i feel naked. metaphorically speaking.)

(p.p.s: and much lighter. talk about needing to let some stuff out, huh?)

(p.p.p.s: i really need to work on talking to people in my life i can physically touch.)

badvertisements (i’m so clever)

critical thinking comes to me naturally.

(source)
(also: TRUTH.)

if you couldn’t tell.

i ask ‘why’ all the time. i always have. sometimes it gets me in trouble. sometimes it winds up hurting me. sometimes though, it helps in sorting through the bullshit.

like advertising. i am okay with judging the shit out of advertisements. especially those aimed at men, women, weight and appearance. my heart goes fluttery fast whenever i watch television commercials in particular.

like the progresso commercial where a woman calls and speaks with a male chef who, because he is male clearly (clearly) doesn’t care about the customer’s weight loss and the joy she expels. so she asks for a woman, instead. because, obviously, all women turn into dithering piles of giggles and claps whenever one of us loses weight.

or the nutrisystem commercials claiming prepackaged, processed, gnarly foods covered in plastic will help you shed the weight you so-desperately-need-to-lose. maybe it will. but nutrisystem won’t help you develop tools to build a foundation with food not in little boxes. it won’t teach you how to view food as nourishment and as enjoyable. because, for real, boxed food rarely compares to homemade, hand crafted deliciousness.

or how about the workout programs we see in between our shows? the ones showcasing dramatic body transformations? yes, i do believe discovering a healthy weight will increase a person’s confidence as well as health. but no, i don’t think focusing solely on physical appearance as a means to happiness and wholeness is good. it’s superficial. it leaves out the person inside, the one who believes her outsides matter more than the solidity of her character. additionally, what happens when and if you stop the work out regiment? what happens when you lose that “ideal” body and gain your natural one?

or what about proactive commercials? zits are unseemly. be smooth. be clear. be perfect. hide your flaws because they’re offensive.

or, man, the over-the-counter speed pills playing dress up as diet pills?

what the fuck are we selling here?

according to american media, our outsides matter over any other piece of our selves. the size of your waist directly affects the number of friends you have. no one will like you if you’re not thin, wearing straight hair, and a white smile proving your happiness. there is always something to fix. there is always something to improve. we’re never enough.

we’re selling unobtainable ideals. we’re selling body-consciouness and food obsession. we’re selling guilt and shame and depression. we’re selling inauthentic, pitting fake against real.

i am so angry. so frustrated.

because it doesn’t matter how smart you are (i’m pretty smart and i fell for this shit). this type of advertising weasels into all lives. it catches people unguarded. there is a reason western culture breeds eating disorders and self-esteem issues. there is a reason women trade dieting tips like old family recipes and don’t bat an eyelash when a friend complains about her thighs.

what kills me the most is the apathy, the blind acceptance, of the culture we live in. i know people fight against the negativity brought by american media. i know of body acceptance movements and women’s empowerment organizations. but i know intimately the shrugging, the “it is what it is” statements.

during the oscars my aunt kept referring to the “fat lady in the background”. pointing at the screen, at her, like some displaced wild animal in the zoo of perfection. my dad joined in eventually. i simmered. i bubbled. until, eventually, i boiled over, almost yelling as i spilled, “can we not call her fat? she’s a person, in a dress. she’s a person.”

it kills me how easily we attack one another and ourselves. how we judge without reason. how we build self-worth from the surface and stop there.

i encourage you to start asking questions. to start seeing the not-so-subtle messages tucked between dippy dialogue and uppity commercial jingles. further more, i encourage you to share your opinion, even if others think you’re nuts (e.g: my parents think i’m crazy every time i spout off at the t.v.). because, whether american would like to acknowledge it or not, some malicious force is sinking into our conscious. this isn’t okay anymore. this wasn’t okay, ever.

imagine a world in which depression, anxiety, body-shame, and self-esteem were not the biggest personal issues our culture faced. imagine if we started to consider our character, if we started to measure our worth in how much we loved, how much kindness we shared? what would we look like, then?

we have more power than we think. this doesn’t have to be forever “it is what it is”.

this doesn’t have to be shrugged off anymore if we don’t want it to be.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: ironically, i post this the week after nation eating disorder week. yeah. i would)

(p.p.s: i know it’s music monday but i wrote this last night and am still pretty fired up so. music later. and really, does anyone care? eh.).