Train Wreck?

I just saw Train Wreck, and of course Amy Schumer nailed it on the head.  When you get past all the awkward, gut-wrenching humor, there was a layer to the story that was kind of a wakeup call for me.  I might not be as extreme as Amy’s character is, but I have spent a lot of time hiding behind booze, sex, and self deprecating humor.  Two years ago I was in a boozy, angry, sad downward spiral.  I may have fought my way out of it with therapy and antidepressants, but that doesn’t mean that those tendencies aren’t there, lingering under the surface.  

I turned 28 last week, and although I pretended to be happy about it, said things like “age is just a number” and all the other things you say when you are aging with grace, deep down it bothered me.  Not because the number itself but the fact that I still don’t have anyone to go home with at the end of the night.  I know, I’m still young, blah blah blah.  It’s the fact that I am honestly starting to believe that there isn’t anyone out there for me.  Not everybody gets a happy ending.  I know, I eat lunch with 2 amazing women in their 60s who never got married.  Just because we want something doesn’t mean we get it, or that we deserve it.    

Maybe it’s the fact that I like inappropriate men.  I like men who are a little too good looking, or a little bit of an asshole, or are in my friend circles.  I find something wrong with every man  who actually likes me or I self-destruct.  I just hear the voices of every guy that has ever said anything negative about me playing over and over again in my head.  If I was fat 20lbs ago, why would anyone want me now?  I used to use sex to try to prove to myself that I was desirable, but now that I am not getting laid, I just feel worse.  It’s kind of like another Amy Schumer skit “Last F***able Day”.  Have I, at 28, seen my last Fuckable day?  Am I no longer desirable to men?  I remind myself that I want so much more than sex, I want someone who will actually love and respect me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be wanted.  

The last guy I liked, and I did, I really liked him - I still like him -  I walked away from because I knew it would never work.  He doesn’t have his shit together; he may never have his shit together.  He wanted a hookup buddy, and I want a boyfriend.  He wore cargo shorts and is younger than me, things I could have overlooked if I thought there really was potential for us to be something.  I know he isn’t what I ultimately want, and that is why I put a stop to it before I got in too deep.  I have not relapsed with him; I have stayed strong.  But there is that voice, the one that says well, at least he wanted you, that just comes up every time I am a little drunk and very very lonely.  

I am lonely.  I know I shouldn’t be, but I am.  How do you stop being lonely?  I have amazing friends who I talk to all the time and am content with my companionship, but there is a different type of lonely.  I am not talking about being horny either.  I am talking about when you just have a shit day, and all you really want is to curl up on the couch with someone while they stroke your hair and tell you everything is ok.  I am talking about when you are nervous about walking in a crowded room so they place their hand on the small of your back.  Or when they can tell something has upset you so they squeeze your hand to remind you that they are there.  I also want the opportunity to be that person for someone, to support someone in the way that only a significant other really can.    

I believe you should be a complete person all on your own, but there can be that person who complements you perfectly, who brings out the best in you.  I sure know that I have found several people who have brought out the worst in me over the years, and I have seen some of my friends find that much desired balanced relationship.  But there is a part of me that has hardened, that is beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, I am the kind of person who ends up alone.  In a dating world where it is so easy to just keep swiping instead of exploring the potential of someone, how do you really find love?  

Is my lack of love because I spent too much time partying and hooking up, sometimes just to prove that I could.  Did this high school prude become overly sexual to the point of forever loneliness?  Although I feel like I have really gotten my life together, not settling for less than the relationship I really want, and not hooking up with some guy out of need for validation, am I still a train wreck?  Deep down am I still one drunken hookup away from self-destructing?  Can you be too damaged to find real love?         

Amy Schumer’s character found someone she wanted to try with, like every rom-com, ending up with the guy.  Can you be a recovered trainwreck and still end up alone?  

A Crack in My Foundation of Strength

I know you have all been on pins and needles waiting to hear the recap of my trip across the pond, and you will have to wait just a bit longer.  Before I can get to the fun details and my love for London, I have to talk about something that happened there that has been haunting my thoughts.  The only way I am going to be able to get past it is to write about it. So here it goes - the incident that has me questioning everything about myself.  

You avid readers know that Chloe and my London adventure was prompted by Teddy moving there for a year.  On our next to last night Teddy said something to me at the pub that has really fucked with my head ever since.  The conversation went something like this:

*Insignificant Small Talk

Harper: *says something about not being able to pull off this very attractive younger guy.

Teddy: You know you could be really beautiful if you lost weight.

Harper: I’m sorry what did you say?

Teddy: I mean I think you could be a knockout if you lose a lot of weight.

Harper: Oh that’s what I thought you said.

Teddy: I mean your eyes alone.  You could be such a bombshell if you lost the weight.

Harper: (said something along the lines of) Well the reason you are alone is that you are a shallow douchebag.     

*Chloe comes back from the bathroom.

Harper: Chloe let me fill you in on the conversation.  Teddy was just saying how I need to lose weight, and if you will excuse me I need to going to the bathroom.

I barely made it up the stairs before the tears were falling.  It was as if someone punched me in the chest, knocking all the air out of me.  Everything I question about myself, every insecurity, was justified in that moment.  I was living my worst fears, the reality that I am undesirable the way that I am.  I am not a small girl, I never have been, but I am the biggest I have ever been, meaning my insecurities are at an all time high.  I am a size 16, and I teeter between straight and plus sizes.  I am 5’6’”, 195 pounds.  To quote Mindy Kaling “I fluctuate between curvy and chubby.”  My weight and size has been a constant thing of stress since I hit puberty, always seeking approval, like every good Southern girl does.  

By the time I reached junior high, being called fat was something I was used to.  It was the insult of choice for the pubescent bullies.  When I got to high school, I made an effort to skip meals when I could.  I would  tell my mom I ate at youth group and go to bed without dinner.  The truth is I didn’t have the discipline to be full fledged anorexic.  That, and I had a mother who paid attention.  She would support the diets like Atkins or what ever else I wanted to do to try to slim down, as long as I was eating.  I want to preface what I am about to say with the fact that I love my mother, and she loves me no matter what, but it hasn’t always come off in the best way.  My mother, someone who has struggled with weight herself, can be quite harsh when it comes to my body.  Telling me in high school, when I was size 12, that girls like us aren’t meant to wear bikinis.  

In college, fat was a word I continued to hear quite often when describing me, often times to my face, being called “Bee’s fat friend”.  Boys would not want their friends to know that we were an item, because I wasn’t the kind of girl people expected them to be with.  Even my own sorority sisters got in on the body shaming from time to time.  I was once told by a girl I thought to be one of my best friends that “girls like you don't land guys like the vice president of a fraternity.”  

My weight continued to yoyo throughout college as I went on and off Weight Watchers, but my self-esteem was consistently pretty low.  I looked for validation from the guys I made out with, or the many clubs and organizations I was apart of.  I never believed that I was enough.  Why would I?  Everything really came to a head when I was selected to be queen of my hometown the summer between Sophomore and Junior year.  This is an Old South tradition dating back to the 1920s with hoop skirts, cocktail parties, china patterns, and a lot of judgement spanning over a year.  I tried on the dresses of every “bigger” queen there had ever been, and none of them came close to fitting.  I remember standing in the seamstresses shop when she told me there was no way to make my favorite dress fit me.  The tears rolling down my face in silence, knowing I was the fattest queen there ever was.  That is the day that I decided I would do whatever it took to lose weight.  That is the day that triggered my eating disorder.     

I had 6 months to lose weight, and then had to stay exactly the same size for the next 4.  I started taking stool softeners and laxatives everyday.  No one knew I was taking those pills everyday; I seemed to have normal eating habits; I was working out.  Everyone just thought all the things that I had tried for years without results were finally working for me.  No one knew I was doing irreversible damage to my stomach in the name of beauty and conformity.  It was the thinnest I have ever been.  The pictures from the Spring of 2009 are my favorite pictures of me ever.  It was probably the only time in my life that I believed people when they told me I looked beautiful.                 

I have spent the last 5 years of my life trying to become comfortable in my own skin.  Loving yourself is hard, at least for me it is.  It seems like the first 23 years of my life were spent being told I was not worth loving.  As a bigger women you are expected to squeeze into your shapewear and face the world knowing it still isn’t enough.  If you thighs touch, or your arm jiggles, you’re not beautiful, you're undeserving.  Our society puts numbers on beauty that are unrealistic.  After months of therapy and stints on antidepressants, I had found a version of myself I could love, most of the time.  A version that didn’t need a man's approval, or physical gratification to know I am worth something.        

Why am I telling you these sordid details?  I have decided if I am going to talk about body shaming and my body issues, I am going to tell it all.  I want to explain that eating disorders come in many forms.  I am going to explain in detail why Teddy’s comments have shaken me to my core, cracking the strength that I spent years trying to build.  

When I finally stopped crying, mainly due to the wonderful British girls in the bathroom who offered to punch Teddy in the throat, I went to face the physical incarnation of all my inner demons.  Teddy hugged me and said he was “coming from a place of love” and that he just wanted me to be “happy and healthy.”  I actually think that might have been more insulting than the original comments.  I looked at him and said, “What about me says I am not happy?  I am the happiest I have ever been in my whole life.”  Chloe and I left the pub shortly after that.  I cried the whole cab ride back to our flat.  I cried myself to sleep, and I woke up the next morning crying.  

I texted my mom and told her what happened.  I know from what you read above you might think my mom wouldn’t be supportive, but you would be wrong.  She has come a long way in the last decade.  She might pressure me about getting married, but she is more supportive about my body image.  I don’t know if seeing me struggle with depression was what flipped the switch, or if it was me finally telling her about all the teasing and the eating disorders I had hid from her, but whatever it was, I am grateful.  My parents think I am beautiful no matter my size.  My dad would have hit Teddy if he could have gotten his hands on him.  A man of few compliments, my dad said to me that skinny doesn’t make you pretty.  

I know I should have written off Teddy’s comments and maintained my long fought for sense of confidence, but that isn’t what happened.  I have withered.  He said out loud what I have worried every man I meet actually thinks of me.  It was verbal confirmation that I am indeed undesirable.  I flip between anger that anyone could be so shallow and a despair that I am truly less than I think I am.  Words are blows that bruise deep beneath the surface, festering and manifesting in the darkest most twisted ways.  In the last month, I have found myself evaluating every wrinkle, stretch mark, cellulite and fat pocket on my body.  I have been more conscious of how my clothes fit or don’t fit.  I have stopped in the drug store twice and look at the bottles of laxatives on the shelves, coming so close to putting them in my basket.  I have let those words put cracks in the foundation of confidence I had built up one therapy session at a time.     

The thing is, I know I am a pretty girl.  I have breathtaking blue eyes, that pretty much give away my every emotion if you care enough to look.  I have lips that have just enough pout to make them perfect for lipstick.  The idea that those things are not enough to make me beautiful because I am not a size two is beyond crazy.  That I COULD be beautiful if I just lost weight is one of the cruelest idea.  Could I use to lose a few pounds? Sure, I would like that even.  But to think that my beauty is contingent on my dress size is beyond superficial.  Beyond the physical, I am a beautiful person because I love with all my heart, I care for people so deeply that I often put their wants and needs before my own.  I am smart, thoughtful, and loyal.  Those things make me beautiful too.

There are no words to ever express the level of disgust, disappointment, and offense I felt and continue to feel about the situation.  I don’t know that I can ever look at Teddy and not feel all of those negative emotions.  I think the worst part about it is he thought what he said was coming from a place of love.  He thought it was ok to say them, he thought he was being helpful.  If he had said I am worried about your health, it still wouldn’t have been ok, but it wouldn’t have been as insulting as saying I am not beautiful because I am bigger.    

If this post seems disheveled it is because my thoughts are disheveled.  I haven’t been able to get my head on straight since that night.  I second guess everything about myself.  But that stops now. This is me taking back my life, some might say this is my fight song.  I am going to find my confidence again.  I am not going to worry that if I lose weight, I am proving Teddy right.  I am going to do whatever makes me feel comfortable in my own skin.  I am beautiful and no person’s opinion can change that.      

Crossing the Pond

Tomorrow Chloe and I will embark on our UK adventure!  We have been planning our trip to London for the past 6 months, and I am ecstatic it is finally here.  We of course will be spending some time with Teddy, and hopefully the hot British friends he has made.  I can not wait to take in the palaces, gardens, and parks that I have been dreaming about for as long as I can remember.  This trip is a dream come true and I am so glad that I get to experience it with my best friend, Chloe.    

I can not wait to tell you all about our adventures when we return!  So prepare yourself for tales of the glories of London, and the many cute British accents that I am bound to fall in love with along the way!  

Does everyone deserve a 2nd chance?

I am looking at a disarming email from someone I had long filed away, closing off my heart to both the friendship and the heartbreak that I associated with them.  I find myself wondering if there such a thing as letting too much time pass, or damage beyond repair.  This email does not beg for forgiveness or ask for another chance, instead it’s exactly the kind of thing she would have sent when we were the best of friends.  Maybe it is her olive branch.  The question is what will I do with it.  

I know I have said this many times but I will say it again - my friends are like family to me.  I love and I trust with all my heart.  When I let someone in, I share all of me, and, in many ways, I blindly trust that the people I truly let in will never intentionally do anything to hurt me.  So when someone that I have grown to see as one of my best friends hurts me the way this person did, I don’t know if amends can ever be made.  People who don’t know the specifics might think that our falling out was over a boy, and yes there was a boy involved, but our friendship didn’t end over a boy.  Our friendship ended over her blatant disrespect for my feelings, over broken trust, and over her lack of respect for my need for time and space.  

I never thought I would be sitting here contemplating accepting a very small gesture that seems to be a start in making amends.  If I am honest, I never contemplated it because I never thought she would ever reach out.  Now that I am in this position - I don’t know what I should do.  Do I ignore it?  Do I respond?  Do I even want to open the door, even just a sliver, to reconciling?   

Some cuts run too deep, some things are unforgivable, I just don’t know if this is one of those things.  Could I trust her again?  Could I even fake a smile and be civil with someone that in so many ways broke my heart?  

I’m just not sure.  

A Final Attempt

I guess Dressgate was totally worth it since I have never had so many compliments on a dress in my life.  I felt pretty, and that was exactly what I was going for.  Taste of The South was such a fun event, although I still can’t feel my toes.  It was wonderful to see so many people that I rarely run into anymore.  There is one person who I still can’t decide how I feel about running into, Liam (The Many Loves of my Life, Strangers Now?).  

It’s been two years since I've seen Liam, yet he looks exactly the same, he looks good.  Boy always has looked good in a suit, and in a tux dear god!  It’s funny how seeing someone can trig things you haven't felt or thought about in quite a while.  I can’t remember the last time Liam had crossed my mind, but the moment I saw him I had a knot in the pit of my stomach.  I don’t know if it is because I will always have feelings for him, or if I just have never known what went wrong with us, but seeing him throws off my equilibrium.  

After a few cocktails I decided that I looked too good not to take this opportunity to talk to him.  Shoving my throbbing feet back in my heels I threw caution to the wind and went and said hello.  He was nice, cordial, asking several times if I was well.  We said let’s get drinks and catch up sometime and that was it.  I had done it, probably a little drunker than I should have, but at least I had talked to him.  

Although I am proud of myself for talking to him, I have not been able to shake him from my thoughts.  Liam and how our friendship abruptly ended with no explanation is one of my life’s mysteries.  I decided that I would email him.  Just a quick good to see you.  Glad to know you are well.  Let’s grab a drink some time.  Short and sweet and cordial, like our run in at TOTS.    

Sometimes you do things not because you expect something in return, but for yourself.  You need to know you did everything to try to possibly save something that once meant so much to you. That is what that email was for me. It was my attempt for him to get to know the woman I have become, and to find out what kind of man he has become. Four years ago I was a girl trying to figure out what it meant to be an adult. I was idealistic, believing that life could be as simple as falling into the job I always wanted and meet an amazing boy all at the same time.  I had yet to take off the rose colored glass that I wore to look at the world.  

Liam was the light in that world that was starting to be so much different that I had dreamed.  He was more kind to me than any boy had ever been in all my life, and truly no one has been as kind since.  I was used to being called fat, and written off by the guys I went to college with.  When Liam would tell me I looked pretty his eyes showed that he was sincere.  The way they would twinkle and the corners of his mouth would curl into the hint of a smile always gave his thoughts away.  Seeing him I felt like I was that 23 year old girl all over again, looking for that twinkle and that hint of a smile.  But I am not that girl, I am so much better.  I am a woman that seeks approval in myself, not others.  I know who I am, what I want, and that I am the only one that can get it for myself.  

I don’t know that I can ever truly express how much Liam meant to me back then, what he represented, or how hard I would fight for him in my life if it was a possibility.  That is what my email was, one more attempt to fight, just so I can know I did.  Liam won’t respond, I knew that when I sent it.  The final decision about our friendship was made by him long ago.  I guess I was just holding on to a tiny glimmer of hope that he might have forgive whatever it was that destroyed our friendship.  Now I know that any hope for that is gone.  Maybe now my heart won’t flutter if I see him, maybe now I can finally let go.  

Dressgate 2015

This Saturday is one of my favorite nights of the year in DC - Taste of the South or TOTS.  TOTS is a black tie charity gala where the states that make up the South (and some pretending to be the South) offer up their states’ famous food in themed booths. It is a fun excuse to get all dolled up, drink and dance.  For me, it holds an extra meaning since it reminds me of home.  

I grew up in a small, very old Southern town.  The kind with antebellum homes on every other corner, crape myrtles lining the streets, and the garden clubs still hold a certain amount of power over the social scene.  Cocktail parties and balls were a part of life.  Slipping on a cocktail dress is like slipping into my comfort zone.  Some might find the hours spent on hair, nails, and makeup to be tedious, but to me, it is one of the most treasured moments.  Some women thrive on a hike, in a yoga class, but I thrive in the very tiny significant details that go into the perfect formal look.  

Knowing this, you can understand how excited I get after the ticket to TOTS is purchased and the development of the evening’s look begins.  Usually after hours of online shopping and comparisons I choose a look and order a dress.  This year however has been unlike any other; it has been what I like to refer to as Dressgate 2015.  

Like any other year, I started looking online at the different department stores’ websites - trying to find a cocktail dress in a 16 that didn’t better belong on a mother-of-the-bride. To my surprise I found the perfect mixture of classic and sexy and at a reasonable price to boot.  My mom even said she would buy it for me!  I had a promo code that was only good on Sunday, so I decided to wait the 3 days to get the bigger discount.  Sunday rolls around and as I begin to purchase the dress - sold out! Panic sets in.  I am back to the drawing board.  I spent hours looking at dresses, sending Chloe and my mom links.  After all the online shopping sites became a blur I found myself torn between two dress, two different looks.  Mom said order them both and it felt like the dress fiasco was averted, but it had only just begun.  

A week later the dresses arrive.  I opened the Nordstrom box that held my front runner, and it was even more beautiful in person.  As I undid the plastic, I could envision my hair and makeup, this was it!  I try it on, and my heart sinks.  It doesn’t zip!  My chest is too large.  It’s a 16 and that is the biggest size they make!  All you ladies out there surely understand how finicky formal wear sizing is.  After a search for a plus size version, I began the hunt for other options, after ruling out dress number two for it’s odd fit and even odder color.

Swallowing my pride, I went to websites known for their plus size selection.  Yep, it is time to take the leap and accept I am plus size.  I ordered 3 different dresses and after looking at the size chart decided to go a size up.  Three dresses, all very different silhouettes, surely one of these is going to be THE ONE!  When the two boxes arrived I was so excited to see how pretty the fabrics were in person, only to find that they were all WAY too big!  At this point I feel a little bit like Goldilocks, not sure if I will find that dress that is just right.  

I once again took to the online stores, but decided two of my most recent options were very pretty and I would just size down.  I also ordered a 3rd, different option.  As I wait for the new dresses to arrive in what is now officially Dressgate, I start to really fall in love with one in particular.  A soft blue with gold lace, an adult homage to Cinderella.  I am envisioning my hair whimsical and my makeup soft.  This would be a moment to be pretty, not hot or sexy but pretty!  Pretty is a very underappreciated description, and feeling for that matter.  Feeling pretty puts a twinkle in your eye and a hop in your step.  Pretty is how I felt when I put on my first cocktail dress.  I remember the first boy that ever called me pretty.  Pretty is nostalgic.    

Tuesday - yet another round of boxes arrived, if you have lost count I have returned 5 dresses already, and I reach for my Cinderella dress first.  I slip it over my head and pull the zipper up with ease, too much ease!  It is still too big in the bodice!  It’s okay - I still have two other options, no need to panic, yet.  Dress number two is too look-at-me, and frankly I am not happy enough with my weight to drawl that kind of attention.  Dress three is still WAY too big.  Not sure that I can get the blue dress altered in time, I pull out my old faithful dress and see if it still fits.  It does and it is still very pretty on, but then I count in my head how many events I have worn it to before.  So the only thing there is to do is call the tailor.  

Now, my Cinderella moment is having 2 inches taken in on the sides.  I will not say Dressgate is over until I pick it up and know it fits, but it is safe to say that it has been quite the journey.  Yes, I had to find a dress, but it also directly relates to my current body image.  I love my curves, but I am not 100% comfortable in how curvy I am these days.  Nothing amplifies stress over your body then not being able to find a dress that fits.  I linger somewhere between regular and plus size, and no matter how hard it is, I have to remind myself that my dress sizes does not define me or if I am pretty or not.  

As I prepare the minute details for Saturday, such as when to get a spray tan, what colors should my nails be, and do i have a lipstick to match my excitement grows.  Even though finding a dress has been a bit of a challenge, I still can’t wait for Taste of the South.  

Why I've Stayed Away

I know I am WAY late on this, but Happy New Year!  As for my absence from the blogosphere, all I can say is life has been complicated the last few months.  I know it seems that my life is always a little on the complicated side, but this has been a different kind of complicated.  I wasn’t ready to write about it, and I didn’t know how to write about anything else without addressing it.  

On December 5th my grandfather lost his 4 year battle with pancreatic cancer.  Cancer is a bitch of a disease.  There is no eloquent way to describe cancer and the havoc it wreaks on the body.  Watching the person you love deteriorate is so very heart breaking.  I made a choice not to see him when the cancer started progressing more quickly.  That is a decision I have second-guessed many times over the past couple of months, but I can’t change it, and I have come to peace with that.  See, my grandmother succumbed to cancer when I was 15, and I can’t only remember her sick.  I just remember the frail shell of a women, and that is not how I wanted to remember Papaw.  I want to always remember him as the husky prankster with the best chuckle I have ever heard.  I want remember him on his Goldwing motorcycle and not in a hospital bed.  If cancer was going to rob me of my grandfather, I wouldn’t let it rob me of my memory of him.

What has been harder than my own grief has been watching my mother grieve.  My mother is one of the most giving women I have ever met.  She is strong and selfless.  Watching her say goodbye to her dad was even harder than saying goodbye to my grandfather.  As she made trip after trip to Illinois to just sit at his bedside and take him to doctors’ appointments, it was like a piece of her was deteriorating too.  With every phone call where I could hear her crying on the other line, I knew there was nothing I could say to fix it.  She couldn’t fix him, and I couldn’t fix her.  Cancer made everything terminal.   I know at some point in each of our lives, if we are fortunate enough, we will have to say goodbye to our parents.  It is part of the neverending cycle of life.  But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier when it happens to your family.  I am relieved, if that is the right word, that he is no longer suffering - that is the silver lining I suppose.  But if it were up to me, I would have him here and healthy.  

Writing about my are-we-aren’t-we relationship just didn’t seem right when I had not addressed the only thing I will remember about 2014.  When I look back on 2014, it will always be the year my grandfather died, the year the cancer gobbled him up and left my world a little less bright.        

Make a Donation to the American Cancer Society and help in the fight to find a cure.