The Buried Past On My Thighs

I keep going over in my mind the differences between “burying the past” and “letting go of the past.” We all do both, but one–letting go–somehow gives more life to us than the other. One puts more cellulite on my ass, the other helps it come off. Why?

I never try and pretend I was not molested. I was. I also recognize its indelible mark upon me. My DNA changed the first time John touched me. The boundary between the girl innocent and unmarred and the one raped crossed once and for all. I will always wear my scarlet “I” for incest. I could not run away from it, although I tried. I ate and ate ice cream all day long to make my body as unattractive as possible so John would not touch me. Then I found out he still would, but by then the binging comforted me too much to go back to the thinner version of myself. Plus, once I grew up and away from his terror I insulated myself from the panic another man would touch me–even one I might want to touch me–by keeping a hundred pound wall around me. You could not look at me and pretend something bad did not happen. I wore it from head to toe.

I did bury my feelings of loneliness, isolation and general grotesqueness in the weight. With each pound I gained I sank further into a world where all the true dreams for my life mattered less than the all consuming fear in the present. I flourished in the areas I could control–school, friends, family, church–and floundered terribly in the one place I knew no one could ever love–the whole me. See, no matter how much love and intimacy the love of family and friends brings, without sex it only goes so far. Thankfully. I would not want to have sex with my family at all, and a good 99.9% of my friends! I really only want one person for sex, and one who really loves me, the whole of who I am and who I will become with life transformations.

The first time I slept with someone–The First–I weighed over 260 pounds. I let him bore a hole through all those walls and find me. He felt safe because of his status as a good friend and because I knew I would never be with him for the long term, even as letting go later proved difficult. I found sex allowed me to un-bury the past in my cells and begin to let them go. Ounce by ounce the weight dropped off my body. I worked hard at it, of course, but the inner work let the outer begin to reveal itself from its mask.

The inner work of my life consists of over $100k of therapy and an utter determination to face the shit of my life. I know if I do not face things, the only one buried in the past will be me. I practice complete honesty. I say “practice” because I realize how similar to playing an instrument or a sport truth telling really is. I find I must apply myself again and again, and I can never rest on the truths I told before. I understand the truth of yesterday may not be life-giving to me today. Today, I must find and tell the truth again.

Today’s truth is that I keep gaining weight here recently. I talk to myself about it over and over again. The Mono back in November took me down to within six pounds of my birthday goal, but by my birthday I regained six additional pounds. I probably am up ten all together now, but I do not see the end unless I find the truth of why I need to gain. Yes…need…I need to gain the weight.

I feel all the ways I am free from the pain of The Bean. I know he is not the reason, although I also know the truth about why I needed comforting food at Valentine’s Day and my birthday had his name all over it. I am a thirty-six year old woman and no man has ever really loved me. Not even for a minute. I never received a New Year’s kiss or a Valentine, and I guess I thought this year would be different back in November when my heart flowed with love for The Bean. I really believed he loved me too, but he did not. I allowed myself to dream and expect in places where I never let myself. Year after year of disappointment–in myself as much as anyone else–teaches a girl not to use her imagination in places dead to her. I never begrudge anyone any silly holiday because being on the outside of all of them creates a longing so deep I would never want to take away one precious moment of happiness from anyone else.

I think the trust it took for me to let The Bean into my life fuels the current weight gain. I trusted and lost. I feel like I wasted my heart on someone who took it, saw it for what it really really contained and could become, and then threw it away. He threw me away. I do not want to trust again like that. I need to hide. I can feel still–feel all sorts of things–but it kills me. I keep trying to push away the moments of trust, curiosity, desire and longing I feel. I want to hide behind my thighs again so I will not be in a position of trusting someone else who will automatically possess the power to destroy me.

I also know I must practice risking this again. If I do not, The Bean will be buried on my thighs and forever written into my DNA. There will be no room for anyone else. No room for loving again. No room for sex, with all its glorious fucking and making love. No room for my desires. No room for my dreams. No room for me.

I guess letting go is that moment when I risk just a tiny bit towards the future instead of holding onto the pain infused past. My run this morning contained more than a few steps in the right direction, but I do not know if I will find my footing and momentum today.  I guess I will just need to practice again and again.