Hey There Delilah

Tom Higgenson looked straight at me as he sang the beautiful lyrics that reminded me of my middle school days.  I swear he did.  I was in the front row, admiring the Plain White T’s and their beautiful voices mostly singing songs I had never heard.  We made eye contact as he sang with his heavenly voice.  Other students called the concert mediocre, but I had a wonderful time.  

I captured their most popular song on video with my phone.  Occasionally I look back on the event and I listen to the song, this version containing more of the crowd singing along than the song I originally recorded off of the radio with my cheap MP3 player as a seventh grader.  I love listening to this song as it never gets old and always stirs up nostalgia.

I remember riding home on the bus and listening to this song in my cocoon of a seat.  Propped up against the window with my backpack on the other side, feet on the seat and head down, I absorbed the words.  I thought to myself how sweet the song was, but how long distance never works.  “Why bother?” I thought, “If you have to go to such great lengths, then it’s obviously not meant to be”. 

Many changes would happen over the course of the six years between 2008 and 2014.  I found love in 2010 and had my heart broken in 2013.  While many problems lead up to the eventual breaking point, long distance was the deciding factor in the relationship’s predestined failure.  This reaffirmed my juvenile beliefs.  Long distance does not work.  If long distance is a factor, it is obviously not meant to be.  I now believed that no matter how strong love is, it could not last the test of physical separation. 

I found true love in 2014.  It came in the form of the most wonderful man to ever walk into my life so perfectly yet so unexpectedly.  I had experienced loving someone before, but not being in love in such a powerfully pure way.  I fell in love nearly instantly, knowing from the moment our eyes met that our romance was inevitable. 

I swore I would never let myself be hurt by long distance again.  Long distance was pointless because it meant miscommunication and forgetting the love once shared when physical barriers were not in place.  Long distance was the cruel demon that had the talent of finding the weaknesses of a relationship and proceeding to destroy it in a ruthless quest to end happiness. The situation was comparable to a death wish.  Long distance was a grenade, ready to explode, leaving memories in the dust and shrapnel of the explosive break ups it caused. 

Long distance scared me when I met him that March night.  Long distance scared me as he tenderly kissed me in April on a Sunday.  Despite my previous thoughts on the matter, long distance no longer scared me as Tom Higgenson sang the adoring words of his love for Delilah.  This song, restoring my faith in love that could survive struggles, made me realize that if the bond between two is strong enough, long distance could possibly work.

I miss him dearly, even though it was only last week that we said our goodbyes and hugged one last time before I drove to Vermont and he flew to Pennsylvania.  I was not scared of long distance when he held me in his arms.  I was not afraid of our love dissolving into thin air.  I was no longer terrified of this heartbreak I had once feared.  This monster, long distance, once like a vicious lion, became a tiny kitten. 

This kitten is always with me.  When I think of him, the kitten purrs and cuddles up against me.  When I remember the sweet words he said to me and the way he ran his fingers through my hair as he told me he loved me, the kitten curls up and sits with my memories.  Occasionally, the pain is hard and the kitten nibbles at my ankles.  I try to soothe it, petting it as I recall the happy times moments we share together and the love I have for him.  The pain is annoying, yet sometimes its teeth are sharp enough to cause me to cry.  I know in the end, the kitten means well and the pain is temporary, but I cannot wait until August when I will no longer be its caretaker.  

Long distance is mild in comparison to the dastardly behemoth my mind had made it out to be.  Perhaps this is because the love between me and my Delilah is strong enough and we are willing.  I consider myself lucky to experience such love in a way that is unbreakable.  I consider myself lucky to understand that long distance is nothing more than what the mind perceives it to be.  I consider myself lucky to be his.

I Lost Weight And Got A Thigh Gap — And Still Have To Defend My Body

May 2013:

My thighs touch in a tight prom dress that is unflattering to my figure and makes me more self-conscious than any bikini ever could. The masses of muscle and fat press together, making me feel disgusting and ugly.

June 2013:

It is my birthday and I watch movies on the couch. It is sticky and hot. We lost appliances, the phone, and the internet from the lightning the day before. The rain keeps me inside. I sit in my hot sweat and my large thighs press firmly together. The cellulite sticks and the sweat drips.

July 2013:

I go for a walk with my mother through the trails near my home. My thighs shake and they start to itch from the jiggling. I tell her about my struggle to eat food without gluten and she sympathizes, knowing how hard it is to shop and cook for my new diet.

August 2013:

The weight from my thighs as well as the rest of my body starts to fade away. The scale moves from 163 to 151 and my thighs which barely squeezed into a size eight were now able to make it into a size six. I feel better eating the safe, gluten-free food now.

September 2013:

I pose in my short, lacy black dress with my thick red belt, standing next to my newest best friends. These friends who I would later consider as close as sisters smile with me. I feel these smaller but fatty thighs press together. I pose jokingly on a bungee chair trying my best to hide my thigh size. An unforgettable picture is snapped.

October 2013:

Kim Possible was cartoon version of a skinny supermodel with big orange hair. The cartoon had the most impossible body imaginable. Halloween was my chance to dress as my favorite heroine from my childhood days. I was a proud 141 and my thighs were drifting apart. They used to touch for about four inches of stretched out skin when I stood with my feet together, but now they were completely separate.

November, December, January, February, March:

My thighs never touch. They are very far from touching when I stand. I eat healthy foods and go to the gym. I have the thigh gap everyone wants so badly. I see 133 on the scale. Thirty pounds ago, a thigh gap was deemed unattainable.

April 2014:

A small part of the media glorifies the thigh gap. An even larger part labels it “unhealthy” and “unnatural”. They say that it is sexier to be curvy and to have thighs that touch because it shows healthy bone structure and it is what “real women” look like. I am five foot six. I proudly weigh 133 pounds. I wear a size six and a medium top. My feet are a size nine. I have a thigh gap. My body is quite average, maybe just a little smaller. I am by no means considered skinny, but I have this thigh gap. Am I not sexy, natural, or beautiful because I have something that others cannot attain? Am I not as desirable because I have something that some people say makes women look sickly and stick figured? Am I not a “real woman”? I am just as attractive as any girl with a bigger thigh gap or with no thigh gap.

I am just as beautiful as I was at 163 pounds. This new thigh gap does not define me. The thigh gap or lack thereof does not equate the worth of a person. Stop obsessing over this space between legs, because you are beautiful with or without one. The media needs to stop telling everyone they need a gap between their thighs. Everyone who finds this offensive should stop attacking this meaningless absence of leg mass. Size does not and never will equate beauty.