gifts

The body is a powerful tool. It can be so instrumental in everything we do. It can also be the curse under which we bury ourselves in a thousand pounds of guilt, shame, and failures. I needed to be a failure. I needed to permanently purge the demons of self loathing, starvation, and enjoying the physical suffering that comes with it. Sounds sick to probably most anyone reading this, but it was (and in many ways still is) a huge aspect of myself. I like self denial. I like it far too much. I like telling myself that I can't have something that I "need" and then forcing my body to comply, whether or not it wants to. It makes me feel alive. It makes my head feel clear and my flesh feel free.

I can't stand addiction. I can't stand the idea of something dominating or controlling me. Food, weight, size, cigarettes, caffeine... I suppose you could say I'm addicted to not being addicted. So I smoked. I smoked the hell out of some cigarettes for years. I smoked packs and packs of cigarettes a day. And then one day I said to myself that cigarettes were not going to dominate me and I quit. It was as simple as that. I didn't care that my body, my brain, my hands craved a cigarette. It didn't matter to me. I was going to purge myself of this "need" that I didn't want to have and I did...

Because the reality that we all seem so hell bent on completely ignoring is this: we "do" what we want to. Period. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. If you genuinely do not want to do it, then don't. It's called self control and it's a notion that seems to be so completely lost on society. My body is mine. It isn't a cigarette's or a coffee bean's, or even food's. It's mine. I tell "it" what to do. Not the other way around.

I'm so often confused by the number of individuals who tell me that adultery "just happened". I can't even tell you how many times I've heard "well... I fell it love. I couldn't stop it." I love how the idea of our choices being some avalanche hurling towards us at the speed of sound, and that we are so helpless to prevent is so popular these days (enter sarcasm here). I'm going to have to call bullshit on that. If you don't want to cheat, then you wouldn't. If you don't want to abandon your child and move across the freaking world and claim that you "believed" it was best for her, then you wouldn't. If you don't want to treat your husband like complete trash and resent and blame him for all of your own failures, then you wouldn't. If you don't want to live in a perpetual cycle of self abuse, or self loathing, or self pity, then you would make it stop. But the real hard cold thing to accept is that so many of us genuinely don't want to. We find the loathing comfortable. We find the drama of a marriage falling apart comfortable. We find the misery inviting, refreshing, and comforting... or we would change it.

My body has been a powerful tool in my life. And I allowed the physical aspect of a thousand pounds of guilt, shame, resentment, and self loathing to bear itself out on my bones. I allowed my skin to stretch and pull because I didn't believe I deserved anything different from that. I punished my flesh for failing my children. I buried my muscles ten feet under pounds for not saving me from Awful, or from the loss of our unborn children, or for not carrying our three babies for longer than I did. I was angry. And someone had to pay. The failures were mine. The fault was mine.

It's amazing how many demons seek to rear their ugly head as the pounds fall away and my muscles and bones begin to breathe a sigh of relief. It's powerful how much of myself was under ten feet of pounds and is now exposed to life again...

Our priest said last week "Let food be a gift, not a problem." Finding freedom from my need to punish myself is intense. Finding the ability to accept and forgive myself is a journey. Finding the reason to put on my dancing shoes again and to completely let loose in front of a room filled with mirrors is freeing. To tell my story with motion is terrifying, but it's the most beautiful gift I can ever give to myself.