At first, I was good. Walking excessively in Busan wearing my tourist shoes meant that I had little care about what I was eating nor the amount. But as the weeks came and went, that little person inside of me that whispered eat, eat, eat managed to take over. So I gave in. I ate bread – a huge trigger food for me. I laid in bed, defeated, my stomach, bloated, and I didn’t know what to do. I hated the feeling of being full. If my stomach bulged out just a little from food I would go into full panic mode. When I was younger, this resulted in a kind of panic exercise induced black out. However, on this day, I had no where to go to exercise, so I fell back on something that I swore to my college self I would not do anymore.
When I was younger, I was obsessed with everything that wasn’t my immediate reality. Like most children, I dreamt of finding fairy circles deep in the woods, waking up one morning to find a letter on my desk inviting me to learn magic at some school far far away, or coming across a dragon egg while playing hide-and-seek on my friend’s ranch. I even redecorated and painted my room to look like the Gryffindor common room at one point so I could pretend just a little longer that I was living in an entirely different world far from the one of those around me
Sometimes I think in the midst of writing resolutions and starving ourselves for the newest fad diets at the start of the year, we forget about those little moments, what those bits and pieces look like when tethered together just tight enough. We spend our time moaning about how horrible the year was, how this year will most definitely, definitely (just you watch!) be better, then make silly promises to ourselves and others just to hold a semblance of accountability.
I had this list in my head, it went something like: acceptance of others, meditation – things of that nature. It was a very easy-going new year’s resolution list straight out of a women’s magazine – nothing too crazy, nothing too “Eat, Pray, Love.” But as I’m sitting here at my desk staring at this candle that has the phrase “Love Heals Every Body” printed across the front, in all capital, all assaulting, all very, in-your-face letters, I’ve narrowed my list down to one thing. One aspiration. One dear-God please grow up now or I’m throwing the towel in: Stop looking for validation from men.
I felt strange. Not really a tourist or visitor, but feeling like one in my own city. Connected, but not necessarily, and really only just in the occasional situation, and occasional environment. I felt a bit fragmented like I had been unraveled and was desperately trying to piece myself back together, yet I was always missing a few bits, and I found that they were much more important than I originally thought they were. I spent much of my time in America wandering, both mentally and physically. Much of my days passed at the backs of coffee shops alone or wandering through bookstores trailing my fingers along shelves, yet buying nothing.
Let me preface this post with a warning… I wasn’t going to post this. I didn’t want to. This reluctancy was born out of a
It’s 11:09am and I’m sitting in Starbucks. Despite the weather being annoyingly typical in its adherence to maintaining its unpredictability, I’m still sticking to drinking
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