{ too much, and it's only the beginning }

no, this isn't a picture from tonight. the me of tonight is the same as the one i'm showing you here. she's also completely different. her hair is four inches shorter, for starters.

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i've been wanting to write something for a long time. pieces of it keep coming to me, in the moments between more immediate things. but what is more immediate than the thoughts edging their way through my crowded mind, pushing to the forefront, pressing against the inside of my skull?

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the me of tonight just took a full six minutes off my normal walking route...by running half of it. i've been trying to walk-run: run one block, walk three. run another, walk the rest of the way home. tonight i decided to start running and walk only if i felt i couldn't run anymore. my legs carried me further than i thought they would. i am stronger than i realized. much stronger.

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confession: sometimes (more often than i think is probably kind) i scroll through photos of the girlfriends of male celebrities i find attractive. yeah, i know that's fucking ridiculous, but it's one of my (now not-so) secret girl behaviors and i might as well be honest about it. my traitorous thumb pushes image after image of these unbelievably gorgeous creatures across my vision and i rake criticisms across my insides.

well you're obviously not his type
since he evidently gravitates toward
impossibly thin
radiantly blonde
exceptionally beautiful women

oh, not surprising:
she's minuscule 
with blue eyes
and delicate wrists, ankles, knees

an attractive person
would never find you attractive

(i mean, first of all, AS IF I'D EVER BE IN A CIRCUMSTANTIAL POSITION TO BE NOTICED, MUCH LESS ADORED, BY A CELEBRITY? okay, honey. there's the first embarrassingly fallacious part of this whole scenario. really? secondly, what is wrong with you? yeah, you aren't unbelievably fit or even remotely reminiscent of what the world would call "skinny" so unless your shoulders magically shrink by like four inches and thirty-three percent of your ass dissolves off your body and several other physically impossible things occur, i mean, please. stop.)

blonder hair, flat chest
tv says, "bigger is better"
south beach, sugar free
vogue says, "thinner is better"

pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts
pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
we try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see
it's the soul that needs the surgery
{ beyonce, "pretty hurts" }

but it's not just the devastating truth that i'll never be noticed or pursued by a breathtakingly exquisite male specimen that pulls me down. it's the belief that no intelligent, witty, strong, admirable, successful man would ever consider me worth being interested in, because i am not an intelligent, witty, strong, admirable, or successful woman. i don't say it to be pitiful. i say it because it's one of the persistent, sulfuric, unwieldy truths i've carried my entire life and will probably always carry. something about being given up as a child has left a hole in me that even the most genuine and profound love has proven unable to assuage.

ergo: needy people repulse and repel me.
because: i fear, and try to reject, my own neediness
ergo: i construct my life in order not need anyone
because: needing someone leads to disappointment
ergo: if i never need, i will never be disappointed
i mean, people, i feel anticipated guilt for when i do let myself need someone else, and he disappoints me, and he becomes aware of this, and feels badly about it. i would feel guilty for making him feel badly for disappointing me, because the fault would be mine for needing him in the first place.

oh, twisted insides.
will you ever be okay?

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the thing is
all of this, these few measly paragraphs
are so much
but it's only a few paragraphs
in a story so heavy
i'm not sure the entire world's shoulders
are broad enough to bear

so i will bear it
as i have for thirty two years
i will carry it in these two hands
these hands that type over 100 words per minute
that produce the most beautiful handwriting
that play silent chords when the music is on
these hands that no one holds
this soul that hums
all through the night
forever, like a dream