What. A. Week.
Good things, and bad things and weird things and so many things!!!!! (warning: this post is probably erratic as heck but it’s representative of my emotions so buckle up, babes!)
I hit a depression this past week and a half that kept me in a really uncertain head space. Despite my anxiety, I’ve been working really hard at body love. I feel almost like I HULK smashed!!!!! my way out of an episode. Or maybe I’m swinging back into just being really excited or maybe I’m just happy to be un-sad. Emotion is weird and human. I am weird and human (most of the time).
This weekend was the delivery back into a lot of positive behaviors, and a full week without any negative or disordered ones! It still feels really weird to say that I have a week back from consistent, persistent bingeing–but I’ve learned that it’s less about the day count and more about making the days count.
A few months ago, I bought myself a single VIP ticket to see/meet & greet with Mary Lambert, the queen of everything/my favorite human of all time/the most beautiful fat queer babe to ever enter our plane of existence.
I was really apprehensive about going because I wasn’t sure what the food/drink situation was going to be, I was going completely alone, would have to ride the train to Manhattan alone, take the subway alone. I knew I would make friends at the show, because that’s just how Mary Lambert shows are–we cry together, we queer together, we sing together, we check each other’s lipstick that was drawn on in the reflection of a produce truck together.
When I walked up to Mary and met her for the third time since this fandom began, I didn’t know what to say (as usual). I showed her my “Body Love” tattoo that she signed for me three years ago, and how it’s been stretched over and out and modified to include her autograph — an addition I made in 2015 after the last show I met her at.
I let her know just how much that specific poem changed my life, how much I needed it then when I lived in that body, and how much I didn’t even know I needed it now in my post-relapse, undeniably fat body. She let me talk at her, while saving her voice, I gave her a letter and a zine I made and we took pictures!!!!
The rest of the night was magic. Rachel McKibbens, one of my new favorite poets, read some pieces from her new book. I fell in love with Mal Blum, and I told them so via a really obvious Instagram post. I screamed internally at their codependency poem because I related SO HARD.
I laughed out loud. Seriously. Check them out. They are a babe (Everybody is a Babe Tour is such a fitting name for any tour Mal Blum and Mary Lambert are ever on, esp. together).
Of course I cried when Mary came on stage, and cried harder when she played “Body Love”, and when she shook her butt at me while I sat first row and she played “Secrets”. I learned about loving myself again. I learned about what my identity means to me, and what my body and my life and my health and wellness are worth. I learned that I am not done taking up space, but that I am done apologizing for it.
I also sat there in a room full of queer women and nonbinary people, fat and thin and in-between, and just felt so at home again. I have been restless in my identity for a while, viscerally, spiritually, intimately and personally. But my existence is radical and fluid and I’m so okay and safe and valid in spaces like this, so much so that I really believe that on Friday night I was brought back to life.
There was so much I needed about this concert, and I made it a point to be so present even though I was scared and alone and speed-ate a Moe’s burrito while walking three blocks to the venue off the subway.
And last night, I did two things that scare me–I hosted an event for International Suicide Survivor Day. I was the person who introduced all the speakers, listed statistics about mental health, and supported a space in which people could honor and memorialize lost loved ones and learn about how mental illness becomes fatal.
We had so many intersectional experiences surrounding the issue of suicide come together to create a narrative with undertones of hope and resilience that I was so blessed to be a part of. THEN, as if I couldn’t be anymore out of my comfort zone, I sang! in! front! of! people! and! actually! sounded! amazing!
After the event and all the crazy goodness that was my weekend, I topped it off with a catch-up diner trip with one of my best friends and favorite people in the entire world (like definitely as important but probably more important than Mary Lambert kind of favorite). My friend Kait showed up for me at this event, spoke her heart out, and got onion rings with me all on her one year anniversary in recovery.
Being around women like Kait, who have struggled with disordered eating and so many more burdens of self-destruction in this life, is what anchors my soul. We shared a meal together and talked about treatment, struggle, body size perception, and our process. She is my voice of reason, the person who holds up a huge mirror to all my experiences and just an overall unbelievably beautiful friend and person. I told her then and I’ll tell her now, right here, in this post–I am so proud of her and so beyond honored to call her my friend.
We also incidentally spent today together, at a group I run, being the only two who showed up, and we made anxiety crafts while we talked more stuff out. It was something I didn’t know I needed. I also explored my fear foods today–a sugary drink, a really thick slice of pizza. And I didn’t freak out! I have been really hanging out in this fat body and paying attention to it. I let it experience hunger without deprivation, satisfaction without discomfort, and love without shame.
Royally Incomplete 