So, here goes.
For a while, at my therapist, there were a couple things I would not talk about. I wouldn't talk about my parents for a while, but my therapist was persistent. I wouldn't talk about the internet, but sometimes now I can grudgingly talk about something that has remained an important (though no longer central) part of my life. But my body? The last time I saw her, I tried to choke out words about my body, my poor beleagured body.
I joined weight watchers, because my doctor told me to. I got a personal trainer, because my mom asked me to. (I let her get away with murder. She wants to remake me - she thinks I'm grungy and overweight and usually I acquiesce to whatever she wants to do to me. Wanna blow dry my hair? Have at it. Make me stronger than you ever will be? Be my guest. Finance a manicure? Sure, I pick my battles.)
I decided that I want to be the best version of myself that ever could be. (I've mentioned this before, but it's grown grander and more beautiful.) I outlined my Master Plan to Becca the other night, and she thinks I've been spending too much time by myself in the library stacks. Perhaps she's right.
But let me tell you, my maternal aunt inspires me to better myself. To list them shortly, we are:
1. Prone to addiction.
2. There are bipolar depressives, a suicide, and alcoholics. Most of us are just depressed. I think we must single-handedly support the anti-depressant market.
3. Prone to be overweight.
4. There's a whole plethora of nasty [physical] health problems, too. I can look forward to migraines in about ten years, lucky me!
Is my biology my destiny? One should hope not, but it wouldn't hurt to fight against the dying light that is my maternal family. I will be strong, and my mother (bless her heart) will finance it.
So, my Master Plan involves being greater than my biology. Every day, I steel myself, and try to be courageous. I am going to learn a language. I hope you realize that this is big - I think it had always been an assumption that it just wasn't something that we are very good at doing. Don't laugh, but I'm learning Welsh.
I'm working on a proposal to go to Wales for the coming Spring semester. When I started planning it, and found out that I missed the deadline, I felt desperately sad and started bawling. My mother said "You can always just stay at Bryn Mawr and that would be fine." But that is not what I want to hear - I don't want the easy way to be an option at all. She took the easy route (she stuck with geology because she was afraid of the humanities, and sure she couldn't write well) and it has made her miserable.
I am going to Wales, and nothing the school can do will stop me. If I don't get my program approved, I shall go to York and spend a substantial chunk of my time and personal savings in Wales. God, I just need to be courageous and I think I can be.
This has a lot to do with my body. It's a lot of work to lose weight. It's hard, and sometimes scary, to try to change my habits. I have nightmares that I binge, eating for pleasure or for boredom. But I think I'm going to be okay. I probably sound like a wretched self-help manual, but that's alright.
And then in a few years, I want to find someone who will love me (and good enough for me to love). College has not helped me gain experience with either sex. I once accosted a guy I really liked, while drunk, and told him that his cheek was like "pat the bunny" and slurred how much I loved him. It didn't work out so well. And then I thought I loved a girl, but she's in love with a man who would marry her if he could. So, yeah, I'm hoping that I will become desirable through my courageous Welsh learning skills and my farewell to excess weight.
And then I will fall in love with someone and we shall have a baby girl and I will love her and let her not-go-to-school and play instead of school. She will be unschooled. We will play the piano and let her decide what she wants to study.
That's my big plan.
2002-08-12, my big plan
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