Musings of a disordered eater
Or, “I’ll get better when you give me a reason”
Normally I wouldn’t let them have me, not for a second, not especially if they have the audacity to mouth for my attention when I’m visibly headphone-clad, but I let this one slide and slide the headphones off. The lanyard has pride stripes on it (including some of the pale blue and pink ones — that’s important); maybe they’re doing something remotely hopeful.
I haven’t eaten enough (read: anything whatsoever) today, so I can’t do much more than flit my eyes back and forth between the lanyard and the clipboard. I realize I should probably try to find the solicitor’s eyes, too, because that is socially correct. Something about Boston Children’s and parents from all over the world coming for the utmost care and how this costs money. Okay, so the lanyard is happenstance. Good cause, though. He’s readying the clipboard.
His glasses have semi-transparent frames with this excellent iridescence that I appreciate. His given name happens to be my surname, so there’s an entrypoint to the rapport. The wind is oppressive (but thankfully not in a cold or sleety way), and a plastic sign from the restaurant we’re in front of starts to slide and blow over and we both catch it and position it back upright while he talks and I nod. I try to remember to look at his face again and, oddly enough, don’t feel the primal urgency of escape that a reasonable introvert normally would. It’s the goddamn lanyard, I guess. Someone, in a small way, hinting at a safety that I never thought I’d feel the need for.
I realize, especially now, that the angst and the ridiculous lanyard feelings are a little extreme, and most certainly related to the fact that it’s 18:48 and I still haven’t eaten today.
A shame; I can write and walk and avoid solicitors coherently and maybe even intelligently when I eat. But today, I have managed to visit two coffee shops and one proper bakery, each about two miles from the next, and to buy assorted pastries that I won’t touch until tonight or tomorrow, and to waste a chai latte that I didn’t have the mental energy to handle the caloric energy of.
I manage to tell the lanyard man that it isn’t a good time.
I thank him personally for the lanyard. I blaze lethargically down Mass Ave and get a little damp in the eyes (god, it was much nicer for my ego when I didn’t cry. I really need to eat something, don’t I?) when I notice that one of the Central Square crosswalks has been painted with pale pink and blue and white stripes. Has it really come to this? There are much more worthwhile and interesting things to tear up about.
I’m still calibrating my newly-technicolor, testosterone-fueled emotional capacity, and today it seems that a city saying “hey, we haven’t turned on you yet” is enough. But I’m still not eating. Not right now.
The disorder remains a fallback when the world feels less and less like a place that will take care of me. Or, to word it less selfishly, when the world feels less and less like a place that won’t do the opposite. The high I’ll get when I do eat later — nearly all the day’s calories at once, ritualistic and full and rich and primal and neurological and sugary and safe — is something I’m loath, even angry, to let go of.
I can’t believe the utter shamelessness and entitlement of the thought, but I want the state of the world to make ‘recovery’ actually worth my while. It’s failing. And so it’s not.
Not right now.
