i. Dear lord, please hold my hand.
It has been eleven days since my last Starbucks scone. How I miss that
sweet dense bread, with the glazed frosting that breaks so gently under my
teeth.
ii. Down 3.8 lbs at my first Weight
Watchers weigh-in, but already I am feeling hopeless, anxious, like I can’t
do this and do I even want to? I want to eat better to feel better but
this week I feel worse – dizzy, nauseous, anxious, panicky, hopeless,
overwhelmed. These are not the feelings I wanted. I feel like I might not
be well, and in a big way.
iii. What is it about being in a cab
at night, in the rain, that is so melancholy? Saturday started out bright
and sunny and so I wore a white sundress, but I was out all day and by the
time I went home it was dark out and raining, and my dress felt strange and
inappropriate. I got in a cab and leaned my head against the window and
watched the rain. We drove through neighbourhoods I used to live in, but
barely recognize anymore, and outside I saw women dressed in short black
dresses and high heels, laughing and leaning against the arms of men and
dashing across streets to get into the bars and out of the rain. I
thought: I do not know how to be a woman in this world. And it felt weird
to think of myself as a woman, because in my head I am still a girl. But I
am 30 (31 next month) and I doubt that society considers me a girl
anymore. I am wearing a white sundress in a cab, and I am going home to my
house and my dog and my husband-to-be. Not a girl anymore, no.
How did this happen? How did I become this person, with a
house and a dog and a husband-to-be? I don’t know how to be a woman in this
world.
The radio in the cab played Tom Jones and I had to laugh,
because it was so incongruous to how I felt at the moment. It was so grown-up. I
wanted something else, like Smashing Pumpkins, something that reminded me of
being 16 and having a million roads open to me and not having to walk down a
single one of them. Tomorrow’s just an excuse away.
iv. Yesterday I ate saltines, a whole row, with a bowl of chicken noodle soup. I dreamed about the ocean.
