There's Beauty in the Breakdown

Frustration, jealousy, anger, and bitterness are awful emotions. But the worst feeling I have endured thus far in my young life, worse than being fighting mad or green with envy, is a sense of absolute helplessness. Completely helpless. It's that rotten, empty pain I felt in my gut when I learned that my childhood best friend died far too young in a car accident before our senior year of high school. It's the feeling I relived when I learned my high school crush and another high school friend died in separate tragic accidents a couple years later, not even 2 weeks apart. It's what I felt over and over again as I watched people I love damaging their souls and spirits with destructive behavior. It's that aching in my chest when I learn someone I love is sick. It's the feeling I have as I sit here right now. Helpless. 

There are things in life that we have absolutely no control over and, to be completely honest, that drives me bat shit nuts. I come from a long line of disciplined, organized women. Fixers. We may not know the right answers all the time but we will work tirelessly until we figure it out and we will do so in a timely fashion. Guaranteed. You need a dozen bars for a bake sale? We'll make 2 dozen! You need somebody to chaperone a dance? Done. And we'll find a friend to help too. You need somebody to be on the most boring church committee in the history of church committees? Oh sure, I suppose so. I mean, what would Jesus do? 

We Wold women are good with problem solving, that's for sure; but give us a situation where we have no control, where we are forced to give it to God, to karma, to any power other than our own two hands and the brain in our heads? That is our achilles heal. We're not so good at giving up the reigns. I used to think that I was the free spirit of the family, the one most likely to accept things as they are, to trust that it will all turn out as it is supposed to be. But as I grow older and as more painful things happen in my life, I find that I am asking one single question more and more - WHY!?

Why do things just seem to fall into place for cold-hearted people while the most painful experiences happen to the sweetest, most loving people I know? Why did two of the most genuine, authentic people I ever met die before they could even have a legal drink? Why do I get to marry my best friend while another woman, who has just as much love in her heart, has to visit her boyfriend at his grave? Why does an athletic, hard working 22 year old man have to fight for his life, then fight to regain basic life skills, while others his age are risking their life every day with drugs and alcohol? Why is my closest friend, my sunshine and confidant, going through such a confusing, painful experience without any clear answers? Helpless.

My friend Amy - the friend that taught me to love without limits, to accept people as they are instead of how I wished them to be, to dream without fear - the same friend who died the summer before our senior year, she choreographed a dance to the song "Let Go" by Frou Frou the year before she died. The main line in the song, a line that repeats over and over, states: "It's alright 'cuz there's beauty in the breakdown." 

The helplessness in a moment of pain and frustration has the ability to form an emotional prison. There are moments in my life when I feel just that, imprisoned - trapped by a sort of emptiness and hurt that caused me to curl up in my bed, crying for the kind of hours that seemed like days. Yet right there in that moment, right in the middle of the whys, the what ifs, the if onlys, there is a sort of beauty. A release. An acceptance that I don't need to have it all together all the time. A beautiful breakdown of all that I was holding in for far too long. 

Never expect to have all the right answers. Don't try to do it all by yourself. There is a special kind of strength in asking someone for help - to listen, to hug, to remind you that it will get better. There is always a glimmer of hope in the darkest of situations and, just like that song foreshadowed so many years ago, there is always a little beauty in the breakdown.

A Decade in the Making

The main difference in the two pictures above? CONFIDENCE!

I remember how self-conscious I felt when I was 12 years old. As if middle school doesn't completely blow already, an ill-advised perm and a serious case of childhood obesity make it cruel and unusual. I remember how it felt to be that girl - the girl who uses a pillow to hide her stomach any time she sits on a couch, the girl wearing "mom jeans" before entering middle school, the girl going into the "cool stores" with her friends and being humiliated that they didn't make clothes for girls like her. What were girl like me called anyway? Chubby? Curvy? Thick? My personal favorite: big boned? 


No. I knew what I was. It was the one thing I noticed in every school picture. It was the first thing I saw when I looked in the mirror. It was the thing I cursed every single day. It was the reason I was learning to hate myself before I had any clue how great I could be or what I had to offer. In my twisted little mind, I was one thing above all else: fat.


I've heard it said that you can hear a million compliments but the one thing you remember more than any of them is the one rude remark some jerk made a hundred years ago. Isn't that the truth?! I remember sitting on the bleachers at a varsity boys' basketball game. Two of my sister's guy friends were sitting in front of me - the kind of guys you practice writing your name with on your notebooks. THOSE guys. Somewhere between my staring and drooling, I heard one of them refer to me as "8-Ball." Having no clue what they meant, I laughed at it. The other one, picking up on my ignorance, turned and whispered, "Do you even know why he calls you that?" Nooo, I admitted. "It's because you're..." he said as he motioned a half around his belly. It clicked. It's because I'm fat. At the time, I was speechless. I sat on that bleacher, pretending to watch the rest of the basketball game while I attempted to swallow the knot in my throat and force back the tears forming in my eyes. The taunting nickname continued well into junior high but somewhere along the way it faded and died off, just like those boys' athletic fame and glory did in the years following high school.


I'm not speechless anymore. I have a lot to say. This is my response, a decade in the making, for those two boys who scarred me worse than they could have ever imagined. It may be petty, insignificant, and outdated for them but it is something this former "fat" girl needs to say. If I could, I would get on a chair and scream it across the lunch room. This blog will have to do.


Dear silly little boys, 


That. Freaking. Hurt. It's a decade later and that one little moment of my life, that moment that you two thought was so clever, it still haunts me. That comment, along with countless others I've heard over time, are so representative of the sick culture we live in - where photoshopped models are the "body ideal," where eating disorders are increasingly common yet nobody seems to want to talk about them, where high school girls are starving themselves for days on end so that they'll fit into their prom dress. Though I doubt you understood at the time what you were doing, you damaged me. As if I didn't suspect it already, you convinced me that I wasn't beautiful. Your "joke" was NOT funny. 


But even though I still think what you said was pathetic, I do forgive you. You're the product of a society where we learn that skinny is hot, fat is not. I get it. But, just so you know, I would have been the beauty ideal for much of human history. Small waist. Thick thighs and back side. Wikipedia the greek goddess Venus real quick... BOOM. Roasted. 


Also, I want to thank you. Thank you for giving me a little bit extra fight when I'm about to give up during a multiple mile run. That's right, I RUN now. I'm 45 pounds lighter and 10 million times stronger than the girl you used to make fun of. As I cross the finish line of the Fargo marathon relay two months from now, I will be grateful for you two. You made me never want to feel the way I did that day at that basketball game. You didn't inspire me to lose weight by any means. You crushed my spirit and self-esteem. But you did make me realize how unhappy I was by treating my body with such disrespect. It took an entire decade, countless failed diet attempts, a whole lot of sweat and tears, and a unbreakable spirit but I think I have recently conquered what I once thought was impossible: I LOVE my body. 


I love that good food converts into grade-a, kick ass energy to fuel my body. I love that I can run farther and lift more than I ever thought imaginable. I love my body because it carries me where I need to go. It may not look like magazines tell me it should but it is mine and what's not to love about that?


P.S. This "8-Ball" has some clear answers for you now:
Did you break my spirit back then? It is decidedly so.
Was I the only girl you hurt? Very doubtful.
Could I ever forget what you said? Don't count on it.
Will I forgive you? Signs point to yes.
Will you give a shit either way? Outlook not so good.
Am I still glad I said it? Yes. 


Sincerely,
Lauren 

High on Bitterness, Drunk on Pain

(Circa 2007 )

Who is this stranger standing so arrogantly in front of me?

You look at me with those blue eyes that have seen me cry so many times.

Doing nothing to stop my tears.

Wait. 

For a second I thought you let your guard down.

But I must have been mistaken.

You remind me that I always am.

Now smile that cocky smile and walk away.

Please drive away without ever looking back.

As long as you're gone, try to forget about me.

I dare you.

Then later tonight just call my name and I'll be there.

That's what you're so used to now.

That's the reason I'm beginning to hate me.

I am torn and pathetic. And you use it against me.

Break me into a thousand pieces then tell me how much you love me.

That word is a joke now.

Please stop using it on me.

Promises are your lies.

Alcohol is your truth serum.

Make up your mind.

Put out your cigarette.

Be the man I used to know.

I used to love.

Trust me when I say I am not the only one who can see it.

That disguise of yours, it doesn't flatter you.

Please don't ever sing that song to me again.

You don't know what those words mean anymore.

Lies sung to a familiar melody are particularly painful.

Someday I will hear that song on the radio and I won't want to cry.

I will think of a man who knew the words by heart,

A man who could never fulfill the promises the lyrics made.

And I will forgive him.

I will have a new song by then.

A song to be danced to in bare feet on the kitchen floor.

A song to sway to in his strong arms. 

He will never sing the words.

But he will show me what they mean.

And I will forget the words to that familiar melody I used to love.