While getting dressed, I notice the four small fingerprint bruises on the inside of my arm. A couple nights before, I had dug my nails into that arm, trying to quell a panic attack.
I stood, my glittery pink sneakers glued to the cement floor of the stadium we had just waited in line for an hour and a half to get into.
My husband, brother, sister-in-law, and I had come to Phoenix to see P!nk perform. I had been a fan of hers since high school. Over 20 years. But I’d only very recently told anyone about it unapologetically. A silly little destructive thing my OCD likes to do is shame me for anything that could be perceived as shallow or insignificant. So finding meaning and validation in pop music of all things, felt like a deep dark secret.
On the twenty-minute walk to the venue, I’d already had to breathe through the start of a panic attack when my sister-in-law showed me a picture she’d taken of my husband and me from behind. “Look how cute you guys are!” she said. Cute was not the word that came to mind when I saw myself. After 2 months of severely restricting calories and walking 2-3 miles a day, I still felt that familiar stone-in-the-stomach feeling seeing how my baggy jeans weren’t as baggy as I’d hoped they’d be, and my tummy and arms were still soft. I’m sure my face was already red from walking in the 100-degree heat of “Fall” in Pheonix, but I felt it flush even more. I was embarrassed about my body, but even more I was embarrassed that I cared. It was October 9th, 2023; a day before my 38th birthday. Disordered eating and body dysmorphia seemed like such immature issues to be dealing with. I thought I’d be over myself already by now! Like at some point, don’t we get to just exist without all the self-surveillance and constant inner judgment?
But here I was, caring. Another deep, dark, vapid secret.
I just smiled at my sister-in-law and kept on walking. But Andy noticed my chin start to quiver, and my hand begin shaking in his. He gave it a little squeeze and smiled down at me. I knew he knew what I was feeling, and he knew it wasn’t the time to argue with it. He has never given me a reason to feel that my body size would have any effect on his love for or attraction to me. And yet.
I was determined not to take this experience away from myself, so I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and tried to remain present as we waited in line, and my makeup melted off my face.
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