Trajectory
<<2003-02-21 - 10:13 a.m.>>

Feeling closer to the edges of my skin. Yes, that's a good thing. It means I don't have to prod so hard to get a reaction out of myself. It means I don't feel my chest collapsing in on itself.

Also, by the way, I'm fucking sick of being fat. At least half the time. The other half the time I do not want to be thin. The prospect of being thin is definitely a scary one. I mean, not that it's going to happen in the near future, but I measured my waist last night and I've lost another inch in the last couple of weeks, and I look in the mirror and see the funny concave look that the line of the bottom of my chin gets when I've just lost a few pounds, and I just don't know what to think. On the one hand, God, I wish I were normal. On the other hand, what am I getting myself into?

I eat my 1300 calories a day and I try not to think of where I'll be in two years. I try not to think that everything will be different.

But in a really obvious sense, "thin" acts, for me, as a stand-in for "normal." For "okay."

Still I want to be the golden girl. I want to be flippantly successful, hardworking, amazing. I want Kip to say the things about me that he says about Moira. I want to be brilliant and beautiful and I want to slide my graceful way through days and laugh a burbling laugh and be effortlessly protected and loved.

Protected, that's a big one. As scared as I tend to be of those of the male persuasion, I still definitely have the desire to be protected by a man. A man, specifically. I don't know why. Oh, God, father issues, bane of the woman trying to grow up.

Speaking of home, which I always sort of seem to be, I'm going home for spring break. Not just me. Everyone's going to my home for spring break. Kara and Miriam and Rowen and Megan and Chris, though Chris will be staying in his own home. I bought the tickets last night (took initiative, organized, followed through). I'm excited. I want to go home, even though my parents won't be there—I want to see Chloë and Nikki and Avi and John.

I haven't called John. I've been meaning to for days, now. Since Valentine's Day and its scramble of angst.

One day maybe I'll tell him. But (I impose on myself) I have to be thin first. It has to be a possibility. John epitomizes protectiveness. I remember him putting his hand solemnly on my sister's shoulder and telling her that if anyone ever hurt her, she should tell him; he'd take care of it. I remember him listening to some story of mine (about being harassed on the street and not being able to tell the guy to leave me alone, I think) and telling me that he was concerned that I'm not careful enough, telling me he'd break my heart if it would keep me safe.

I miss him. There's no one like him, in my life or anywhere else. I know he's scared. I'm scared too. We talk for hours on the phone and then when I'm in New York, sometimes we can't even make eye contact. Sometimes we talk on the phone instead of in person, even though he's just uptown. Because it's easier to say the things we say in the dark, when no one's looking. I've never lied to him; I don't think he's ever lied to me.

I find a resounding apathy about my weight lately. Every now and again, as happened this morning, I have a twinge of wouldn't it be nice to just be thin already? but ultimately, I'm carrying through the routine and ignoring the goal, pretty much.

It's all so tangled.

Most of the time I've felt like I have a trajectory laid out for myself. I want to be happier, be more honest, lose weight. Or I want to be able to improve my study habits, keep my life in order, feel content. I don't have that right now. I'm moving ahead because there's nowhere else to go, and I can't stay where I am, this precarious balance of order and chaos. Teetering on the highwire. No, where I am now is no good. And I don't think I could go back. I go forward. But by default.

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