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.

I Do Not Consume Food, It Consumes Me

Hunger consumes every single thought.  My stomach aches, begging for something to eat.  I silence it, for ignoring it will hopefully stifle its cries.  I tried so hard to find food that was safe, but to my complaining stomach's dismay, I failed.  No dairy, beef, gluten, cane sugar, eggs, soy... the list seems to expand in my mind whenever I try to recall it.  I can never remember the complete set of culprits, these enemies that silently destroy me on the inside when they manage to infiltrate.  My eyes scan labels like tiny robots, picking up on ingredients, evaluating the amounts of allergens in relations to the food, and calculating the risk of eating them.  My lips taste orange juice mixed with mustard colored powder, taken through a shot glass and chased with warm water.   My body aches all over: back pains of the past resurfacing and fatigue taking a toll on my mental function.  My eyes are weary and barely open.  My body feels weak and there is less of it each and every day.  "You lost more weight" he says as he wraps his hand around my waist, nearly grasping my midsection entirely in his grip.  I sigh.  This time I did not intend to.  The way the numbers on the scale drop is scary.  I feel too thin, like my bone structure cannot handle walking.  I no longer allow myself to exercise.  I crave the bike.  I want to plank and feel the sweat of hard work drip off my forehead.  For now I am this skeleton of a creature I once knew, starving unintentionally.  I want food, I need food, but try as I might, I cannot have it.  Is this what an eating disorder feels like?

Beauty is Happiness

On May 11, 2013, I did not feel beautiful.  This was the day of my Senior Prom.  Although I made my nails look perfect the night before and spent nearly two hours getting my hair done in a curled up-do with fake flowers, I did not feel beautiful.  I donned my gown and heels and took a look in the mirror.  My face, free of blemishes, still did not look beautiful.  My hair, pinned to perfection, did not look beautiful.  My gown, which flattered my imperfect body, did not make me feel beautiful, neither did the corsage on my wrist nor the heels on my feet.
I was not told that I looked beautiful by anyone.  I could not even say it to myself.  I did not feel beautiful.  The more I look back on events such as my Senior prom, I realize what beauty is.  I was supposed to feel beautiful because I "looked beautiful".  Every girl looks beautiful at Prom, right?
I discovered on that day that beauty is so much more than what is seen on the outside.  While we all try to embrace that ideology and accept this as truth, most of us are completely unable to separate inner beauty from outward beauty.
I will say this: my inability to feel beautiful that day was not due to my inability to feel beautiful in general.  I realized this fact last Friday night, nearly a year after the night of my Prom.
I spent nearly an hour preparing to go out to a party with a few of my friends.  I put on an outfit that made me feel confident and my roommate did my makeup in a way that was subtle, yet alluring.  I spent this time and prepared for the festivities happening at a party in my building, but my mind was changed.
I walked down the stairs of my suite into one of my roommate's rooms to talk before going out with my other friends.  There I found her and two of her other friends, one old and one new.  The latter caught my attention as I found him interesting and entertaining, and because of this, I decided to stay behind.  I realized that I did not want to go to a party where I would be surrounded by strangers.  I would much rather stay with this group, wear some more comfortable clothes, and have a quiet night in my own suite.
This small group of us talked, laughed, and connected.  I felt the love of friendship and the caress of shared emotion embracing me.  Soon, our conversations turned into a pillow fight.  Slowly between two, then collectively among the four of us.  I was laughing, smiling, and having the time of my life.
In that moment I felt beautiful.  I was wearing yoga pants and an old sweatshirt from high school.  My hair became a mess and I had fuzzy socks on.  I was not beautiful on the outside, but for some strange reason, I felt it on the outside.
I was smiling like I hadn't smiled in a long time.  I certainly did not feel this joy at Prom.  This happiness is what translated into my feeling of beauty.  I feel beautiful when I have a genuine smile on my face. This was the first time I had felt beautiful in a very long time.
Beauty comes from the inside.  I always felt that this was the case, as I see outward beauty as being of little or no importance.  I have always had this belief, but this was the first time I experienced living up to this value.  I felt so beautiful in that moment because I was expressing happiness.  My cheeks were raised to my squinting eyes and my mouth slightly opened as I revealed a toothy grin.  In that moment of a pillow fight with friends, I felt beauty.
Beauty is not something on the outside.  We can spend money on Prom dresses or spend time having our faces and hair made to look "beautiful", but that will never equate true beauty.  True beauty is an emotion, not a label.  I felt beautiful in a pillow fight, not in a gown.  I will always feel more beautiful when I am smiling with friends than when I am "beautiful" on the outside.

On Writing Fiction: My Lifelong Mission

In 2008, I completed my first short story that I was actually somewhat proud of.  Unfortunately, shortly after completing it, I destroyed it.  As a young seventh grade twelve year old, I was very afraid of what people might think of my writing.  I wrote a story about superheros, a juvenile but fun subject.  I cannot remember what the main character's name was, but I do remember she had the power to control water.  She had a psychic sister and the duo went to a school that taught them to use their superpowers in the best way possible.  In the end, she and her classmates worked to save Times Square from dark forces that could only be stopped by their superpowers.  I worked very hard to come up with the characters and the plot and when I was inspired, I wrote.  I loved it.
Flash forward to 2010.  I tried to harness the power of the pen and write fiction again.  I decided I would try to start NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month.  It is an insane writing challenge that occurs every November where participants write fifty thousand words (an entire novel) in just thirty days.  I imagined a character and attempted to write about her.  Her name was Ginger and she had red hair and she was an outcast like my superhero with water powers.  I abandoned this project after less than a week and very few pages.
Flash forward again to 2014.  I am trying yet again to write fiction.  Unfortunately, I have such a hard time coming up with stories because all my characters end up the same.  They are outcasts that are introverted and very different from their peers.  They are all stuck in worlds that do not understand them.  Moreover, they are cursed with a creator that abandons them in these unwelcoming, fictional worlds.
This author, confused by the world around her, tries to reflect her views of it through her writing.  She attempts to recreate the world as she sees by putting these views into the first-person narratives she writes.  She sometimes gives them superpowers and other times she only gifts them with red hair.  Other times they remain nameless and are only featured in a simple paragraph that is eventually scrapped.
The only qualities that these characters have in common are that they are misunderstood and that their author quickly leaves them behind, moving onto different writing, whether it is academic, self-reflective, or in the form of meaningless tweets.
I have these ideas for characters that are based loosely on my life.  These characters are introverted outcasts.  Creative types with the dream to be understood, they are stuck in worlds where nobody understands them.  Neither the fictional world around them nor their reckless creator is able to give them the attention that they deserve.
So I as a writer promise myself and these abandoned characters that I will one day complete a finished fictional piece.  It will have an outcast character that is not understood, whether it is the main character or not, because it is the least my fictional muse babies deserve.  One day I will do it for you, you beautiful creations that have emerged forth from my wild mind.

My Favorite Color

When I was five years old, I remember being asked what my favorite color was.  I was in the car riding home.  I cannot remember who was with me, who asked the question, or why I have this unusually vivid memory of a simple question, but I do remember my answer.  As we passed down an old barn that had been converted into a preschool that was painted a maroon, I said "red".  Red was my favorite color.  loved the color of firetrucks and finger paints.  The red I loved was the color of circles on a Twister mat, and of strawberries in June.  I was certain of this fact, that I loved the color red.

When I started Kindergarten, I was asked by teachers and classmates what my favorite color was.  I was the only girl in my class that said her favorite color was red.  Why was I so alone for having this opinion?  Why were there only boys that agreed with my affinity for this beautiful color?  All the girls loved pink, purple and blue.  I felt obligated to conform.  Red became in my mind a boy's color, so why should I, a girl, like it?  My new favorite color became purple, because as a girl, it was the right thing to do.  

Us girls were told at a young age which colors we should like.  My parents were obviously not going to try to make me find a new favorite color.  It is something so simple and nearly meaningless, but if it was completely meaningless, would I remember it so clearly thirteen years later?  Why did I feel the pressure to conform and agree with my female peers and choose purple as a new favorite color?

As a girls, we were told to have these opinions and to love these "girl" colors.  We were taught to not love a color such as red.  Red was the color of firetrucks.  It was the color of blood, the blood that flowed when boys jumped off the swings and scraped their knees.  

The boys were not afraid to jump off the swings, even if it meant their knees might become scraped up.  I wanted to jump off the swings too, but I was afraid.  I was not afraid of scraping my knees or getting hurt.  I was not afraid of being different from my friends.  I wanted to show them I was fearless, but I could not.  I was afraid of what the teachers would think.

The teachers expected the girls to be an example.  The girls had to be well behaved in order to set an example for the boys.  They had to uphold the behavior that was expected of the class.

The boys were jumping off swings, climbing up slides, and standing on the monkey bars.  The girls stood by and never did because we were the role models.  We were symbols of what children were supposed to be like, right? Or by standing aside, not participating in adventure, deciding to choose purple as a favorite color over red, were we carrying out hundred year old stereotypes about girls not being able to break out from their assigned gender roles?

My Anti-Bucket List: Things I Really Could Go Without

People invest a lot of time into thinking about their bucket lists.  My personal bucket list contains activities like travelling to Paris and London (again), dying my hair an unusual color (just once), and going to a Red Sox game.  These are all perfectly attainable and I hope to do so at some point, but that will take time.  I could sit here and plan out my bucket list, but everyone does that.  Instead, here is my anti-bucket list.  This is a list of experiences I have not yet had and would be perfectly content with going without for my entire life.

1. Get into a Car Accident
Everyone gets into a car accident at some point in their lives.  My car has been hit four times and I was only in the car during one of them, but all incidents were minor and in parking lots.  I have never been in a major car accident and I would love to never be involved.  The sad part of this is that it is almost inevitable.  Statistically speaking, it is going to happen.  I just hope that when it does, it will be something that causes very little damage and does not harm me or anyone else.

2. Get a Tattoo
I have expressed my feelings towards tattoos many times.  I have friends and family with tattoos and while I love them, I hate their tattoos.  I have never cared for them and I would not mind going the rest of my life without one.

3. Own a Dog
I am a complete cat person.  Dogs completely disgust me and I find them annoying as well as putrid.  I do not find them cute or appealing at all.  I would love to go the rest of my life without ever owning a dog (sorry future kids).

4. Go See a Horror Movie
I hate horror movies with a passion.  Out of politeness, I will watch horror movies with my friends if they decide it is what they want to watch, but if I can avoid them, I will.  My first horror flick was "The Silence of the Lambs" (required for a psychology class) and I was unable to walk around my house at night without being completely petrified for an entire month.  I will never go to a movie theater and pay money to become terrified.

5. Cheat on Someone
No matter how unhappy I am in a relationship, I will never cheat on anyone.  There is nobody that deserves that kind of heartbreak and I will certainly never be the person to cause that much hurt.  I would have the decency to end a relationship before pursuing another person.

6. Go on a Cruise
I would feel pretty trapped on a boat with hundreds of strangers, relying on a floating hotel to take me around the ocean.  Being reliant on Dramamine and the company of strangers at every corner?  No thank you, please.

7. Ride a Roller Coaster that Goes Upside-Down
During the summer of 2012 I rode my first "real" roller coaster, meaning that there was no height maximum and it was not penguin-themed.  I tried it and felt very proud of myself.  All it did was go up and down, but it was fast and very scary.  I will never ride a roller coaster that goes upside-down.  I hate roller coasters because I am proudly that boring friend that will pay forty dollars to enter the park and only go on the merry-go-round just so she can spend time with her friends.

8. Ride/Drive a Motorcycle
Motorcycles scare me because I fear that a reckless driver is going to hit the bike.  I will never drive a motorcycle or be a passenger on one.  No matter how much faith I have in the machine or the driver, I will not be able to trust ignorant motorists that do not know how to handle being on the road with motorcycles.

9. Shoot a Gun
I could never picture myself shooting a gun because the sight of guns scares me a little.  I would love to go the rest of my life without picking up a gun or shooting it.  I have no problem with hunting--I'm from Vermont, I am so used to everyone doing it.  I have nothing against gun ownership for the purposes of hunting, but I could never feel comfortable being the one handling the gun.

10. Hook Up With Someone Random
Whether you define a hook-up as a make-out or as something more, I assure you that I will never do it.  I cannot comprehend how people go out or go to parties, meet someone, and then hook up with them.  I do not understand why random make-outs happen and I will never completely understand the concept of a one-night-stand.  I would never do this because I cannot separate emotion from these acts.  It might just be me, but I do not approve of going about affection in this way.

11. Get Addicted to a Television Show
I have certain shows that I love, and I will certainly watch the entire series (looking at you, "30 Rock" and "Parks and Recreation").  I will watch them in their entirety when the series is cancelled or it ends.  I do not have the time or interest that is required to watch a show religiously, tuning in every week.  If I missed one, I would probably have some major F.O.M.O.  Therefore, I will watch entire seasons of a show at a time, but I will not watch the show when it plays on a weekly basis.

12. Go to Antarctica
One of the items on many bucket lists is visiting all seven continents.  Where I live, -20 is not an unheard of temperature.  I hate being cold and there is nothing that could ever make me want to go where it is any colder than a Vermont winter.

So there it is, my anti-bucket list.  Things I could easily go without for the rest of my life.  Enjoy my lack of ambition, or rather, my decisiveness towards what I certainly do not want to do.