Dawn - repost.
May 28th, 2006 by Kevin
I went out for my walk today, earlier than usual, and everything was relatively quiet in the ‘hood. I have never been much of an early person, but lately it’s nice to see the morning; and since I am on a bit of a nostalgia kick it’s brought me back to a time in which I used to stay up all night until the late morning every day.
My apartment was down the street from one of those all-night diner deals, and at five or so I would walk there, grab a paper, get some coffee, and read the morning news. The waitresses usually did not attempt to banter with me, because I did not eat.
I never ate during those days.
Starvation brings with it a dull ache that is not unlike the aftereffects of being kicked in the stomach. It feels sore and bruise-y and very like food just might be the most ridiculous notion ever, because who could possibly dream of insulting such a wounded, obviously incompetent organ with a barrage of heavy toxins?
Coffee, however, was warm. Warmth was in short supply in my chattering, rickety bones. I wanted to bathe in coffee, dip my face in bowls full of it, allow it to flow over my cold red fingers. Nothing felt as good. The endless cup of coffee for sixty-five cents was, to me, the most wonderful and kind thing in the universe. I would drink until my lips felt like charred rubber.
Watching the sun come up over the polluted skies of south Chicago is incredible. Our grey, steel-mill-sullied, chemically-poisoned skies may look like nothing special in the harsh light of day, but at dawn they are surprisingly striking: a dull-looking plant that blooms stealthily with beautiful flowers when people are least likely to be watching.
It made me hurt sometimes, watching all of this color and light. I didn’t feel the hope that I assumed was supposed to come pouring from my chest while watching sunrises like that.
Where do those assumptions come from? Reading too many bad novels?
All I could think about on those painfully cold mornings was my coffee, the news (nothing like global destruction to get your mind off of your own), and the ache in the pit of my stomach that sometimes caused me to walk too quickly to the bathroom, hurriedly lift the seat, and vomit coffee grounds.
I never could understand how the coffee in my stomach had miraculously transformed itself back into its original state. It would be years later before I would learn that the coffee ground-looking stuff was actually dried blood.
I loved to watch people eat, so much so that I was often caught staring and dropped my face back into my paper, embarrassed. Usually the other patrons in the diner were shift workers from the mills who had just gotten off for the night or who were just about to go in to work for the day. Watching these men dig into breakfast food with vigor and relish fascinated me. Huge bites, messy mouths, chomping, talking with mouths full, jaws working… It was so much, so much.
When you deny yourself food to the point in which it has ceased to be an option, you deny yourself many other aspects of life as well. I rarely socialized. I didnt speak to anyone in school. My phone did not ring unless it was my mother, worried, who came by once every couple of weeks and brought food, food that I would throw away, sometimes after cooking it first just to enjoy the smell.
The smell of food was particularly intoxicating to me. Even now, especially in an ethnic kitchen or restaurant that utilizes pungent spices, I will lift my head and breathe deeply, savoring the different aromas.
It’s as good as a meal if you haven’t had one in a while.
Morning was my good time. Nighttime was dark and cold and depressing. I would lie on my ugly orange and yellow couch at night and watch infomercials and MASH reruns, wondering whether or not I would continue to go on as I had been for years to come, or whether I would just sink into the fabric in a heap of skin and bone fragments. The ache in my gut had a pulse at night and spoke to me softly, murmuring “You. Will. Die.”
Clearly there was nothing for me to do but stay awake in hope that the solace my endless cup of coffee offered would get me through another day.
Years later I would torment myself for not being able to psych myself back into a state of anorexia. You fat fuck, I thought. Stupid, weak-willed cow.
It’s amazing how selective the memory can become when the mind said memory occupies is desperate to fit back into a pair of size six jeans. No, a four, chides the voice. Possibly even a two.
You could do it, you know. You’d just have to get back on track. Willpower.
I have willpower. I can be as stubborn as an ox when I put my mind to something. I remember it all too well, though. I remember that dull, awful pain, and those bleary, seemingly endless nights. Most of all I remember feeling so horribly hopeless.
The sick part of my head wants me to think that it was all about fat and weight and body and jeans size, but the sane part of me remembers that it stopped being about that pretty quickly, and that after a fairly short amount of time, I couldn’t have sat down to a meal even if I’d wanted to.
I thought about it as I walked, why it was I’d definitely gone back and forth with various destructive eating behaviors but had never really gone back to that old familiar behavior of starvation. Although I’d always sort of berated myself for having been weak or simply not tough enough to deny myself all over again for the sake of a Smokin’ Hott Bod, I don’t think that was it at all.
I think that somewhere in the back of my mind I always remembered what it was like to be empty, and I think my body and my subconscious came to the conclusion that simply put, I’d just rather fucking be fatter.
I still love an endless cup of coffee, but I rarely drink it alone. Instead I have managed to open myself up to a life that has included friends and family and even food, even in public, jaws working, people watching, the whole shebang.
The coffee feels warmer this way, somehow.
mish wrote on 06/14/06 at 2:26 pm :
I just read today (so I like utterly and completly believe it) that anorexia is one of the hardest mental disorders to overcome, so confuckingradulations for managing to do that. It also has one of the highest suicide rates, so you can also pat yourself on the back for being alive.
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