According to Trish

Shh. It’s early. I have sneaked (snuck?) downstairs to have a little rendezvous with you before the kidsters are awake. I inadvertently made coffee the consistency of pancake syrup but I’m just going to suck down that nasty bidness anyway so my brain can wake up. And then you and I can have our special time together.

Because I have missed you.

Let me just get my excuses for not writing out of the way so we can move on to more interesting things: moving, doubling my job, kids underfoot, little bit o’ family travel and some grownup-style socializing here and there (momma must get out, after all) have all teamed up and roundly kicked my roundly ass. As a result, my body is no longer accepting the synthetic sleep serum that I’ve been offering it (caffeine) and is instead insisting on the real deal. But sleep is like organic fruit — I know why it’s better for me but it’s so darn expensive sometimes.

It’s before 5:30 AM as a I write this. I’ve become quite fond of this time of day over the last 7 years since I’ve become a mother — not because I love getting up early but because the wee AM hours are often the only time I can grab to work or to write. And I’d like to make a little report to those of you who aren’t up at this time: It’s getting pretty sweet out there right now. That’s because it’s still dark. I love the summertime as much as anyone but the delicate slide into fall gets me every year. It’s so impossibly gentle yet so powerful, like the small of a woman’s back. I just want to grab a seat on a hillside somewhere and not get up until it’s November.

So enough of that. I know that’s not why you come here. You want to find out what’s going on in the life of single-momma Trish — and I suspect that you don’t want to hear about the dishes that need done or how fast the kids are growing. You want the good stuff. You want to know if I’ve gotten over that shy thing yet (nope — but working on it), if I’ve started hiking my boobs up to my chin in order to attract a little attention from the male-creatures in the tribe (not quite to my chin) and if I’ve managed to entice one of those man beasts to press his lips delicately or not-so-delicately against mine (not telling, bitches).

And it makes me laugh that you all want to know about that. But I get it. Because while so many of you have expressed your concern, your sympathy and your support during this time, you’ve also expressed another thing: jealousy.

Not that anyone wants to get divorced. But I think the prospect of a little freedom is tantalizing to a lot of you married types. The thought of getting “out there” again, knowing all that you know now … oh, the things you’d do.

And there’s another interesting thing going on with all of you since I dropped the D-word. Let me explain: When I was in college, I had a delightful friend who couldn’t keep it in her pants. (Yo girl! Holla!)  This was no secret, first of all because we lived in a dorm and second of all because she was quite generous in sharing tales of exactly who was or was not circumcised. And she was/is a screamingly hilarious chick. (No, I’m not talking about myself.) And, as often happens on co-ed college campuses in our great nation, there was a lot sex going on — much of it of the guilty variety. You know, girls sleeping with people they later regretted or sleeping with guys to land a boyfriend (which rarely works), people neglecting to use proper protection, classmates adding new and exciting levels of kink to their sexual dance cards … you get the idea. As it became known that my hilarious friend was pretty open about her exploits, people started talking to her about theirs. I guess it was like no matter what you (I mean they) had done, you could go confess to so-and-so because she always had a story that would top yours. There was that reassurance of thinking that what you’d done wasn’t so very bad after all.

Since I’ve come clean about the divorce, I sort of feel like that girl in that I’ve slept with everyone in my dorm (kidding). But now that I’m out there with the failed marriage thing, and been open to certain point, I find that people want to tell me their stories about their marriage woes. And I want to hear them. Not because I get off on hearing about people’s problems, but because I’m interested and I care. (Because I looooves you!)

I also suspect that people want to tell me about their marriages as a point of comparison. They want to know if they’re having normal marriage trouble or if they’re having big, scary trouble that will eventually be their undoing. It’s like talking to a cancer patient who started out only having flu symptoms — and maybe you’ve been having flu symptoms, too. You want to know how to tell the difference  between a minor bug and a potentially fatal condition and you’re wondering if the cancer patient has any insight.

Now let me pause right here to say that if you have shared your story with me, please know that it is safely tucked inside my head and I have no intention of hauling it out for the world to see. If you read something here that sounds like you, please know that someone else  or several someone elses have told me similar stories. Because many of the stories I’ve heard are strikingly similar.

The fact is, marriage can be a lonely place. Even if you’re married to your best friend. Even if you wouldn’t change partners for the world. Even if you’re still attracted to the person on the other end of that ball and chain. Why is that? Is it because we stand there in front of the whole world and go, “See this plate of spaghetti? I love it. I love spaghetti and this plate of spaghetti in particular is so intricately delicious that I pledge, for the rest of my life, that this is the only food I will ever eat again! Come visit me in 50 years and I’ll be sitting right here, still chowing on this exact plate of spaghetti! When I’m on my death bed and they ask me what I want for my last meal, I’ll say it loud and proud, ‘Bring me my spaghetti!’”

But come on. It’s a tall order. That’s not saying that I don’t believe in marriage, because I think there can be a lot of fantastic things going on in the good ones. But I’m saying it’s really easy to get tired of doing the mental work to relate to that spaghetti anymore. And eventually it becomes easier to just skip some meals rather than go back to that same plate of food.

OK, I think my little metaphor is falling apart here. Let’s speak plainly, shall we? Here are the things that I’m hearing over and over:

1. My spouse doesn’t understand what I’m going through.

2. We’re not having sex.

Right now I’m imagining a bunch of you going, “Wha? You mean we’re not the only ones?” Nope. There’s a whole subculture going on here, people. I have heard this A LOT.

I wish that I could trot out some great advice for all of you celibate, lonely married people at this moment but honestly, I’m too busy trying to get laid. (Another joke.)

However, since I’m a chick I can offer just a wee bit of insight to the dudes out there. This probably won’t help any of you, but what the hell?

If you’re in the land of supposed domestic bliss, and especially if you have children, you need to help the fuck out. (Said with love. Lots of love.) I think some of you are great at this. I have seen this in action. But I’m talking this kind of help: Send your woman off for the day (or several days). Hold down the fort. Don’t be a whiney baby about it. Let her go off by herself or with some girlfriends and let her remember who she is. Because the mental load of motherhood is much more formidable than the list of tasks on her to-do list. Yeah, she wants to sit down and take a break, but she also wants to stop thinking about what everyone else needs and just think about herself for a bit. Let her remember that she’s funny and interesting and worthwhile for a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with getting someone’s breakfast. Motherhood can be phenomenal in a million ways. But it can also be a big, fat identity crisis. When roughly 99.2% of your day belongs to the care and upkeep of other people, it’s pretty easy to not feel so sexy. Having the expectation of 0% privacy throughout the day doesn’t help, either. It’s hard to take the time to conduct all of that personal groundskeeping that women require when you have short little people peeping around the shower curtain.

On the reverse side, ladies, you need to take the time if he’s offering it. Go. Don’t look back. If he’s not offering it, comandeer it. Explain why you need it (which he may or may not get — doesn’t matter) but then GO.

And obviously, men want more sex. And if they’re getting plenty, chances are that they still probably want more. And then even more. I’m just guessing about this …

Sooo … the question is, how do we get this all humming along so that everyone is happy? I read something a while ago by John Gray (the Mars/Venus guy) that relationships are cyclical, in that woman need romance and intimacy in order to feel sexual and men need sex in order to feel intimate and romantic. The thing is that someone has to get this cycle started. So if you’re reading this, I challenge you to be the one. Consider it your homework assignment. BUT …. but, but, but … don’t expect an overnight miracle here. You have to work this program for a while, I think, before the cycle starts running on its own. I also just recently heard something from a wise person who said, “You wouldn’t go to the gym once and then go, ‘Well, nothing happened so I guess it didn’t work.’” Put in the time. (And yes, to answer the obvious question, I applied all of this to my own marriage. I’m not saying this system fixes everything but it’s an important starting point.)

Obviously, I’m no expert at any of this. However, I have a friend who I think is a good case study. She is the most contented person I know, in her life and in her marriage. Her husband really shares the load at home (they both work). They each let the other get away, guilt-free, pretty often. They’re getting busy a couple times a week — not always like rock stars, but still, there’s a frequency. I think they have some pretty spectacular fights here and there but they’re airing things out. Another key: I suspect that she feels pretty sexy — as she should because she’s a hot momma. So there’s something to be said for taking care of yourself (although between you and me, I doubt the bitch has ever had to work very hard on it). But even if you don’t have a rockin’ bod, it’s worth taking the time (yes, I understand time is hard to come by) to wear clothes that make you feel pretty and to go out get a good haircut, etc. Those things help. Because ultimately, neglecting yourself is neglecting your relationship. Ladies, speak up about this.  Spell it out. Inform your man-beast that it takes work to look hot and sexy and to FEEL hot and sexy so you’ll be motivated to get him all hot and sexy.

And it’s now 9:00 in the morning and I’ve been writing all of this while getting breakfast for the munchkins and changing diapers and sitting in a lawn chair in the basement so I can keep an eye on them while they’re playing and now sitting on the sticky deck. If they only knew what their momma was up to. Enjoy this now, peeps. Someday they’ll be old enough to have Internet access and then I’m going to have to start writing about knitting patterns and how to make a great meatloaf.

Reminder: Do your homework. Report back.

Update: This blog probably doesn’t make sense anymore since I changed the photo. But since this blog rarely makes sense I’m not going to worry too much about it. If you want to see the photo I’m referring to, it’s on my “fan” page. While you’re there, you can “fan” me. Incentive: Once I get to 50 fans, I will disclose something embarrassing about myself. What that is I don’t know, but luckily there’s a big pool to choose from — and I’m sure many of you will be all too happy to offer suggestions…

Did you see my new blog candy? Over there, that way ——->…  you can now “follow” me on facebook. Because I’m going all kinds of interesting places. Or at least I feel compelled to do so now that I have that thing up there. This way I can be “friends” with people I don’t know without having to worry about them looking pictures of my kids. Have I watched too many paranoia-inducing TV shows? Haven’t we all?

What do you think of the pic? Does it look like I’m trying too hard? That’s because I am. I am in serious need of a good photo of myself. So when my almost-7 year old starting taking pics the other week, I admit that I thought, “Maybe one of these would be OK…” But, really. What was I thinking? I’m in my “mom uniform” and I’m just sitting there on the steps like I’m waiting for the mailman or something. Please, someone help me with this because any photos I take of myself look very, very scary.

But don’t get me wrong. I am a big, big, big fan of social-networking self portraits. I love ‘em. I actually have thought several times about how I could stage one myself. In my dream photo, the final effect would look as if I’m in the middle of a joyful laugh as the wind rustles my hair and the sun sets behind me… as if a professional photographer just happened to be roaming the countryside and just happened to notice me at the perfect moment –instead of me trying to pose for myself in front of my iPhone and ending up looking like I’m in a fishbowl.  However, my favorite self-portraits are the sexy ones. Oh, how I enjoy thinking about the preparation that must go into getting the hair and makeup just so and how long it took the person to arrange their face into the dazed but suggestive ”I just got done doing something nasty” look — mouth slightly open, possibly biting part of the lip…  I mean, it’s an art form. I’m sure there must be a Web site dedicated to this somewhere. Send it to me if you find it.

I actually have another post started but I’m feeling self-conscious about my goony photo so I had to address it. (Is a goony photo better than no photo? Show of hands, please…)

So if I ever get past this next deadline, I’ll have a new bloggity blog for you, my pretties. Until then, I’ll be looking behind me in case you’re “following” me (and if you thought the photo was bad, the view from behind is something else altogether…)

Guess what, little blogmuffins? We got noticed! (I say “we” because I couldn’t do this without you.) According to Trish is Blogher.com’s Voice of the Week! Forgive me as I channel my inner Vicki Gunvalson for a quick “Woo hoo!” (Real Housewives of Orange County reference. If you didn’t know that, congratulations. You clearly have more of a life than I do.)

Here’s the link with the writeup:

www.blogher.com/blogher-voice-week-according-trish

I urge you to navigate around the site a little bit, too. Lots of thoughtful, interesting writing by lots of intelligent, fabulous women. Dig in!

I unfriended my scale. I threw it out. We’ve never been real friends anyway. My scale was one of those fake friends who pretended like it had my best interest in mind but then acted like a catty little bitch whenever it had the chance. I heard a phrase a while ago that reminded me of my scale: People who believe in brutal honesty are often more interested in brutality than honesty. Yeah.

There was no positive reinforcement from my scale. There was no “You had a great day yesterday! You said no to birthday cake and you know that you love birthday cake!  But you didn’t take any! So here! Check out THIS number, which is reflective of the emotional sacrifice that you just endured! Yippee! Go, you!”

None of that. Instead it was more like, “You saw cake. You thought about cake. I’m going to have to charge you five pounds for that.” But I didn’t eat it! Not one crumb! “Doesn’t matter. You wanted to.”

All scales must be Catholic.

So I’m done. I don’t need that kind of judgment in my life.  

I threw out my scale once before. When I was in my early 20s I moved to New Orleans and went through some life-changing stuff — living far away from my family, getting my first “grown-up” apartment on my own and also dealing with the tiny little detail of horrible, soul-crushing betrayal and heartbreak. I hit bottom. The bottom of the bottom. At one point I sat there in my apartment and said, “You know, no one knows me here. I could just stay in my apartment and quietly go crazy and turn into an alcoholic and there’s not a soul to stop me.” And I realized that that wasn’t going to be an option for me. I chose to survive as a real member of the human race. I chose to not go running home because my romantic life blew up in my face in a spectacular fashion. And I chose to be me.

So I said to myself that if someone wanted to love me, they were going to have to take me exactly as I was, at whatever weight I was. And you know what happened? My clothes started getting looser. I had to buy smaller sizes. Friends came to visit and remarked on how great I looked. And I felt good. I had no idea what I weighed but for the first time I felt like I had a decent figure.

But I didn’t stay that way, unfortunately. A couple of up-and-down years went by and then the babies came.

I don’t need much in the way of an excuse to pig out, so pregnancy was the perfect scapegoat. One of my lowest points was after my first child was born. I was downstairs early in the morning, bleary-eyed after watching bad TV all night while nursing the baby who never stopped crying. It was 6 AM and Tom came downstairs to get ready for work. He was greeted by the sight of his disheveled wife in her giant bathrobe, nursing the baby while standing in front of the TV with the phone in one hand and the credit card in the other, ordering a $300 Pilates machine from QVC. I could actually feel the crazed, guilty look in my eyes when he came down and found me there. (Which reminds me, I need to put that gadget on Craigslist — anyone want to make me an offer?)

It took forever to lose the baby weight. I thought it couldn’t be as bad the second time around. But — you guessed it — it was worse.

However, tossing that scale back in January has been empowering. Since then, I’ve dropped one pants size. And the new pants I got two weeks ago in the new size are already too big. I don’t have to unbutton my jeans to get them off — which is sure to be useful in all kinds of situations.

Granted, it has taken me a long time to get to this point. This has taken a lot of reading and self reflection. One that I really love is called I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna. The very over-simplifed concept of the book is that you eat when you’re hungry. You stop when you’re full. You pay attention to what you’re eating. You fully enjoy it. You eat what you REALLY want to eat, even if it’s cake. That way, you don’t get all rebellious later and binge on stuff you’re not supposed to have. (And by “you,” I mean “me.”)

And the baggier my pants get, the more motivated I am to be aware of what I’m putting in my mouth.

For example, a few days ago I was at the car dealer for a long time. By the time they were done with my car, I was starving. I haven’t had a doughnut in a really long time (for me, anyway) and decided that that was what I really wanted. It felt like a little treat to myself and I was looking forward to enjoying it on the way home in the car BY MYSELF — no kids yapping at me, no Hannah Montana on the CD player. Just NPR, me and a coffee roll. Ah.

But about halfway through the glazed mess, I realized it didn’t taste as good as I thought it would. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. And I also wasn’t hungry anymore. So I decided to stop. Just stop. No more eating just because there happened to be food in the vicinity. In the past, stopping would’ve required me to toss the doughnut out the window so I would be FORCED to cease and desist. But not now. So I tried to put the doughnut back in the bag. But I dropped it. Near my feet. Near the brake pedal. I got scared because when I was in college a girl died because a soda can rolled behind the brake pedal while she was driving and she plowed right into an intersection.

And that’s when I realized it: This doughnut was trying to kill me! It was like it decided that if it couldn’t take me out with its fat and sugar, it was going to find another way.

I managed to wrestle it away from the brake pedal and keep the car on the highway at the same time. I returned the evil little bastard to its bag where it couldn’t hurt anyone else. It took me a minute to catch my breath but then I had to laugh. There I was, feeling so proud of my recent weight loss success. What if I had been in a fatal accident? The police report would say, “Cause of malfunction: Glazed coffee roll under brake pedal.” (Incidentally, I drive a Toyota. I wonder if that would’ve sparked a new inquiry into the cause of Toyota’s recent defects. Perhaps Toyota owners have a higher propensity to eat — and drop — baked goods while driving.)

So I survived. To write another day. To eat another day. To live. To enjoy. To quit beating myself up! To be KIND to myself! To be loving to myself so I can be loving to others. And to share another story with you all.

Have a lovely night, peeps. Watch out for those devious doughnuts.

(NOTE ON COMMENTS: I started the blog because I wanted an easier way to look back on conversations without having to weed through the landfill of my facebook account. However, some of you have mentioned that you don’t like to login to make comments. I have twice attempted to set the blog so you can comment without logging in and both times I have gotten murdered with spam. So dear friends, I ask you to please not be afraid to comment here if there’s something you want to say. It only takes a sec to login and no one else will see your email address unless you want them to. You will not get spammed in return for your comments. And that way I can look back on our conversation and remember how smart and witty you were. And how nice your hair looked when you wrote your smart, witty comments. And how nice your breath smelled. Do you want to cuddle?)

A facebook buddy of mine just joined the gym. She is reporting all of those mixed-gym feelings I always get when I go through a gym spurt — trying to feel motivated and proud but also feeling like I’m giving a presentation to my colleagues and I neglected to put on pants first. Gym anxiety can be tough stuff.

My friend’s recent status updates reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago about an experience at the gym. So I thought I’d share it with you all, dear blogmuffins.

The Anorexic

Once upon a time I became obsessed with a woman in my Pilates class. I thought about her all the time. I waited for her to show up. I watched her every move and was ready to respond at the slightest provocation. And then one day she wasn’t there anymore.

When I told people about her, I found myself speaking in breathless tones, as if I had just spotted Gwyneth Paltrow on the street and she’d had wrinkled, soggy toilet paper hanging out of the back of her pants. Starstruck but repulsed.

 “Are you sure she’s anorexic?” a friend asked. “Maybe something else is wrong with her.”

“Sure,” I said. “Maybe she was just liberated from Auschwitz and decided to come to the LA Fitness so she could bulk back up.”

My mother informed me that her father, who died from blood cancer before I was born, had been just skin and bones his last few years. Perhaps the girl had cancer, she said.

 “Do you think grandpa could’ve taken an exercise class?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” she said. “He couldn’t even lift his head off the pillow.”

As far as I was concerned, I had my answer.

The first time I saw the woman, I was sitting on my sticky mat waiting for class to start. I was looking at myself in the big mirror and doing the usual comparison of my shape to the other girls’ – fatter than that one in the black and pink fitted tank top, but thinner than that one in the baggy T-shirt…

Then the anorexic walked in. She placed her mat on the floor directly in front of the wall-sized mirror and began stretching.

I tried not to stare, but it was hard. Everything about her appearance was just wrong in the context of a gym.

In a room of people dressed in various concoctions of workout clothes, this girl wore a baggy, white turtleneck topped off with blue hospital scrubs. Even with both shirts tucked in, the drawstring on her pants looked like it could’ve wrapped around her body three times.

Her distorted features wiped away any clues to her age. She could’ve been 19 or 40. The angles on her face were so sharp I imagined that she could pop a balloon with the tip of her nose. Her long, auburn hair looked dyed, dried, almost charred. Tired and abused, it resigned itself to be gathered in a low clip at the back of her head.

I watched as she started stretching out. In her freakishly skinny state, every action looked slightly exaggerated because there was nothing to soften the angles of her limbs. Even her baggy clothes couldn’t keep her from looking like a marionette. In a way, I think I would’ve felt more comfortable seeing strings attached to her too-long arms and too-long legs. Thinking that her tiny, overtaxed body had to power her movements made me nervous.

The heat and the sweat from the previous class still hung in the air. I wondered about the turtleneck. Was she was cold because she had no body fat to keep her warm? Or was the big shirt meant to conceal?  The top of the garment sagged a little, allowing just a peek at a neck that appeared so brittle it didn’t look as if it could support her skull.

I looked at my classmates as I, too, began stretching. No one else seemed to be looking at the woman. The instructor walked in, right past her, just like she wasn’t there. It was like the Grim Reaper had just joined the class and no one could see it but me. I half wondered if the girl was really there at all. Maybe my brain was lashing out at me, rebelling from years of self-abuse relating to food and figure. No, I was never anorexic, but food had long been my drug of choice.

The teacher announced that we were going to warm up.

My eyes got wide and I felt my heart beat faster. The instructor was going to let this girl take the class. Just let her. Couldn’t she see that it wasn’t safe? What about professional responsibility? What about liability – could the gym get sued if the girl didn’t survive the class?

My adrenaline kicked in and I suddenly had an impulse to rescue the girl the way a firefighter would pull someone from a burning building. I wanted to run to her, scoop her up in my arms and bolt through the gym to the parking lot. I would tell her, “It’s OK. You’re safe now. You don’t have to go in there anymore.”

But I had seen enough after-school specials growing up to know that merely taking the girl away from the gym – feeding her, telling her she wasn’t fat – wouldn’t fix her. It wouldn’t help her any more than it would help me to have someone advise that I should only eat when I’m hungry. I hear the words, I know what they mean, but I don’t know what to do with them.

Throughout the class I watched her. As the exercises got progressively harder, as I began to sweat and strain, I kept waiting for the anorexic to collapse. But she didn’t. In fact, she did the hardest variation of each movement. She even used all the optional weights.

At one point we had to lie on our backs and raise one leg in the air. The girl’s pant leg rode up. I allowed myself one shameless, gawking look. I looked so hard I could’ve probably counted every bone and vein through her over-stretched skin. The leg was impossibly narrow, with a small bulge where her knee bone resisted any demands to retreat further into the skin. Her bare foot looked proportionally huge – like a flipper – anchored at the bottom of a leg that wasn’t much wider than the narrow end of a baseball bat.

When class ended, the girl remained in front of the mirror, continuing to exercise, while the rest of us packed up.

As I was getting my things together in the locker room, the anorexic came in. She went to the mirror and pulled a brush out of a massive, fuzzy, animal-print pocketbook.

I had an urge to get closer but I wasn’t sure why. I considered going up to the mirror and brushing my hair, too, so I could make small talk. I didn’t know what I’d say. Maybe I thought if I could speak to her I would magically come up with the words that no one else had been able to find – the right verbal recipe that would make her eat. Or maybe I was just being voyeuristic. What was in that purse anyway? Were there laxatives in there? What about a toothbrush to cram down her throat to make herself throw up? What does an anorexic need when she’s out and about?

I loathed myself for thinking these things but it was too easy to dehumanize her. She didn’t look quite human.

When I went to class the next week, I watched myself in the mirror while I waited for the anorexic to show up. I thought back to the first time I took the class,  when I dreaded the thought of standing in front of my own image for an hour. But I decided then that maybe that was the best thing for me. Cold, stark reality would force me to work hard and sculpt this potato of a body into shape. I put my mat right in the front, so I’d have an unobstructed view of my spudly self.

Then I saw something I never expected. Standing against the backdrop of the other girls, I looked more like them than unlike them. At 33 years old, I discovered, for the first time, that I was a woman.  There, in a virtual police lineup of females, I was recognizable as one of them.

To say this was revelation wouldn’t be overly dramatic. I’d spent a lot of time thinking that I wasn’t good enough, hiding, apologizing for my flaws. A real woman, I thought, didn’t have a belly that got all squishy like dough when she sat down. A real woman didn’t have thighs that rubbed together. A real woman could wear a bikini without being an eyesore. So as far as femaleness went, I’d always figured that I was in the ballpark, but only in the stands. Turns out, I’d been on the playing field all along – in the game without knowing it.

I wondered what the Anorexic saw when she looked in the mirror.

When she finally came in for class, she was wearing scrubs again but no turtleneck. Instead, she wore a neck brace.

I considered putting my mat right next to hers. I wanted to see if she really had a lot of eye makeup on, or if the bluish color around her eye sockets was from her flesh getting thinner. I wanted to see if the whites of her eyes were still white. I wanted to hear if she got out of breath during the hard parts.  But I stayed where I was.

A few minutes after class started, one of the guys from the front desk came in. He looked around for a moment, then spotted the anorexic and went over to her. Kneeling down, he whispered something. She listened, then got up quickly and followed him out of the room. She seemed unconcerned, but she walked quickly, as if to end the interruption as soon as possible so she could get back to exercising.

Then we, the class, turned our heads en masse to watch through the glass back wall as the anorexic walked to the reception area. The instructor kept moving – we all did – but every eye in the room was on the girl.

A moment later, the anorexic started back toward the classroom, trailed by the gym employee. Still walking quickly, she went to the side of the room and began digging in the pockets of her brown bomber jacket. She produced something – it was small, about the size of a member’s pass – and handed it to the staffer. Then she came back in and finished the class.

The next week, the anorexic wasn’t there.

I wonder what happened to her. I wonder if she joined another gym. I wonder if she ever got better. I wonder if she’s still alive.

I wish I could say that I learned a powerful lesson from seeing this girl, about self-love and abuse, about taking things too far, about distorted images. I would like to report that from then on, I stopped weighing myself, cut the tags out of my clothes and just decided to love myself, no matter what my weight.

But I still struggle, even after my own realization about my womanhood.

However, I have come to a certain awareness that those parts of my body that I lament are also the softest. And soft can be pretty good when I’m snuggling with my little girl or when I’m cuddling with my husband. I think my softness is one reason that they love me and want to be close to me. And if that’s true, then maybe someday I’ll be at peace with my softness and I’ll stop trying to force it away. Someday.