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Song in my head: for some reason, every time I go to answer this, the theme song from Malcolm in the Middle pops into my head Mood: impatient Current book: The Dead Zone I wish that the morning news would tell me "make sure you wear a long skirt and your winter coat." For some reason, my brain does not know how to translate the predicted temperature and sun conditions into a sensible clothing choice. So today I picked a cute outfit - navy sorta-mini skirt, navy tights, blue cardigan, blue scarf with butterflies, with my black suede jacket - and within ninety seconds after leaving the house, I was totally frozen and miserable. And my skirt kept riding up on me. I was reduced to tying my scarf (made of see-through type polyester or something equally not as warm) around my head a la Julianne Moore in Far From Heaven to try to stave off the worst of the wind from attacking my exposed ears. While I sort of enjoyed feeling like a 50's housewife with a tragic love life, the romance of it wore thin pretty damn quickly. And I was going to go on a walk at lunch time too, like I did yesterday. Yesterday I threw on sweats (I changed in my office - I've got a post-it note for the door that reads "do not enter - changing!" - and why I felt that was an important piece of information, well, I have no idea) - and I put on my headphones (I've been listening to Snow by Spock's Beard incessantly, thanks Dad!) and went for a somewhat aerobic stroll through Morningside Park. Funny, this movement stuff. I totally want to hibernate in the winter, and then the minute it gets warmer or lighter out, I want to go roaming all about town, get moving - but my body gets so cranky because I haven't been moving at all during the winter. (Although this year I had yoga to help me out.) I find it so hard not to beat myself up for getting out of shape, for judging myself for not being as fit as I would like to - because really, the only time I truly mind being fat is when I'm not exercising. That's when I feel so out of touch with my body, and out of sorts, and uncomfortable in my own skin, and leaden, and cranky, and self-conscious, and unattractive... and so on and so forth. And then that feeling makes me anxious and unhappy and I feel like I need to run run run get back in shape now now now!!! Which is a good way to turn me off to movement totally, when it starts to feel like a punishment, instead of a joy. So that's why I didn't force myself to go for a walk today in the cold rainy dank - I can just dance in my bedroom tonight. Or not. If I want to make lasting changes, I can't be a drill sergeant. What's also hard about this movement stuff is that binging and not moving makes it easy for me to numb out, it's like a drug, and once I do start paying attention to my body again, living in it, feeling connected to it, I start really feeling stuff, things I don't really want to feel. Of course, I also feel great things I don't feel when I'm stationary, so it's a mixed bag. Like yesterday in Morningside Park, I got to be in the sun, and the daffodils were coming up (daffodils always make me think of Shalini) and there were loads of happy dogs at the dog run, and I was elated and satisfied. But Morningside Park is the park across the street from where I lived with the SDM last, and I was reminded of the hope that I had when we moved into that apartment. I really (stupidly, maybe) thought that it would be a fresh start together, that escaping the old messy dark depressing apartment, where we never had enough room and were tripping over ourselves would somehow get him to not hit me again (and you've got to understand, it had only happened twice at that point, I really thought that they could have been anomalies that would stop in a better environment.) And I walked through the park and felt how I felt that May, almost a year ago, when I thought that my love for him would fix things, when I got up in the morning in a lovely new apartment in bed next to the man I loved, and I would walk to work through this park and see the blooming blossoms and the ducks and the heron (a green heron in Manhattan! It delighted me daily) and I felt so much hope. I would come home and fix good meals, lots of fresh veggies, real meals, no reheated frozen dinners, and I would walk, and the night before I left we went to the pool in Central Park, up by the Harlem Meer. I was so excited to know that I could go swimming after work every week and I loved my life as long as I ignored the hitting, the cruelty, and I really thought I could make it stop. The hardest thing to remember is that hope. I walked all though the park - never entirely unaware of the fact that I could run into him, that I was on his turf, partially wanting to, wanting to call him on it, confront him like I never got to do, although he'd probably just be satisfied that I'm still hurting (and so often I wonder if he's found my diary, part of me wants him to see, I want him to witness what he's done to me) - but I walked through the park yesterday moving, waking up, feeling, feeling this strange combination of the death of my dreams and the struggle of renewal somewhere in there. These nine months since I left have left me older, bitter, cynical, yet still hopeful - there's got to be more to me than this pain, this effort and I just need to grieve over all that I've lost. |
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