Turning borrowed time into time worth living.
Side quest.
Me: I haven’t weighed myself in a couple of months, I know I shouldn’t base my self-image on my weight but come on, I’ve been dancing hard and working on situps and shit…
Also me: Back up seven pounds.
Also also me: It HAS to be muscle. [Shakes gut] See?
I have officially determined that it is important to have enough belly fat to jiggle during a shimmy.
…
I weighed 235 last year when I started dancing. Whatever it is that keeps the Knippling side of the family up and running and half-fae (metabolism? ADHD? pure psycho genes?) had been collapsing for about five years and I was likely heading for diabetes or a heart attack. I still felt trapped in a lot of fear, too, from walking on eggshells for so long. Constant anxiety and panic attacks. I’m still unpicking the subtle little fear/react buttons he built in me.
When I got fired last year I didn’t WANT anything anymore, and it scared me. I was falling apart.
I went, “The ex isn’t here to sabotage and/or harass me, so why not have fun with trying to put myself back together?” And I used to dance around a lot, before I started dating the ex and he took that out of me, so I went with dance. No gym required and I was listening to more music again by then anyway. (Oh yes, he took that, too, at least being able to play that put loud or to practice. I still don’t have playing an instrument back.)
At the same time, I started putting my relationships back together. Taking in new things. Trying stuff I hadn’t let myself, before. Letting myself get emotions like anger back. Learning how not to be afraid of myself, how to be proud of escaping, to admit how much he’d fucked me up, body heart and mind.
Living.
When people talk about the best revenge is living well, it really is. My strengths drew him to me. My strengths kept me in a bad relationship because I was strong enough to endure it. When he couldn’t just steal my strength for his own, he sabotaged it so at least I would be weaker than him. And finally I was weak enough that I couldn’t endure it any more, but not yet so weak that I couldn’t leave. And it all popped.
Now I have at least some of that strength back. And he’ll always know that he was the one who was weak.
So really it’s about taking this feeling of living on borrowed time, and turning it into time worth living, however I got it. Being able to move, to be fit enough to do new things, to eat reasonably recklessly, to have the energy to manage my ADHD. BONUS, being able to see my own face again, instead of just my mom’s. To be able to give a shit about ANYTHING without knowing that it would soon get ruined for me.
Current weight: 232. Or… [Steps off scale, then back on again] 229.
High kick: over my head.
Shimmy: jiggly.
Heart: Spiteful and glad.
Here’s me, spiteful and glad.
Midjourney’s idea of a witch, spiteful and glad. Not bad.