There are a lot of things that I think I know about myself. The one thing I am certain that I know about myself is that I cannot see.
I cannot see myself.
Twenty seven years and counting on this planet and I do not believe that I have ever seen myself.
Not really.
I am very much like the proverbial three blind men groping the elephant (think proverb not distasteful erotica) who, for all of their wisdom, have only their sense of touch and the part of the elephant directly in front of them to discern what the creature might be:
The trunk - a vacuum cleaner?
The leg - a footstool?
The tail - the pull for a bell?
It is none of these things. And somehow all of these things, in some way shape or form.
And so it is with me.
I have absolutely no ability to discern either how I am perceived generally as a person (mis)behaving and interacting with the world, or specifically, a dot forming part of the human landscape.
Who I am and what I look like remain enigmatic concepts to me - at once separate (probably for the benefit of trying to seem like I have at least a shred of endemic mental health, not facilitated along by antidepressants), yet hopelessly conflagrated in my mind.
The rough contours of myself that I am able to make out are only coarse approximations, made through rough fumblings into the shadows of the past tense, of things long passed, trying to make out the outer edges of something, anything.
And so, I feel the trunk, the leg and the tail, as they existed yesterday and as they may exist today, but with no guarantees of tomorrow.
The trunk, the leg, and the tail of my self, are, at this moment, most likely embodied in my resume. A neat piece of paper, clean and crisp, with tiny, distinct font which tells the world in black-and-white exactly who I am in 8 1/2" x 11": From top to bottom: A person with an address, A college graduate, a law school graduate, a Bay Area native, a bilingual, a person who enjoys baseball, a person proficient in Windows, and someone who apparently has been consistenly busy for the better part of her life.
These are the things I know.
These are the things - the opportunites and advantages - that make me feel I should be grateful.
And they are the things that make me feel interminably guilty - because I know I am not.
I am sad. I am wretched. I cry. I whine. I feel alternately oppressed and ignored.
I loathe myself.
With the onset of my Happy Pill and the massive quantities of self-actualization with professional help, I have found that the loathing is no longer a high tide default. It ebbs and flows in wave-like fashion, allowing me some moments in the sunshine.
But I am left to wonder: Does it ever go away? Is it too much to hope for evaporation? Or is it always to be a shifting back and forth, like one of those executive desk-top toy wave machines?
While I hope for the former, I fear it is the latter.
My self recognizes the new and unfamiliar ratio of loathing, and therefore (over)compensates for its perceived loss. Like I had some sort of metaphysical liposuction and my metaphysical self needs to restore the balance of old.
In short, these days, the better I feel about daily life and the less convinced I become that I am a truly awful individual, the more I hate what it is that I do manage to see in the mirror.
It is such an odd and seemingly untenable duality. Yet there it is.
The more I feel able to calmly assess certain situations around me, and not appear stricken by even the smallest little thing. The more I absolutely despise the vehicle which carries me around from place to place.
My body is not my temple; my body is my prison.
I also know that this should not be the case. And I know, and fear, that one day, I will be grateful for what it does for me and how good it has been to me despite years of verbal and physical abuse, only because I will not have its services anymore. It will fail me, and it is only at that moment, I will be able to see - in the past - what I had. And I will want it then, I will revere it then, I will know its holiness then.
And it will be too late.
I know all of this. And yet I still can't see it.
These days, I do not even try to see my body. I try to avoid it - by any means necessary. Avoiding mirrors, reflections alongside buildings - wishing to take on vampiric qualities, I suppose. The preparation for social event is an arduous one, as it has now come to involve a long negotiation with a hysterical aspect of myself, trying to convince her that misshapen as she may be, it is better for her to be out and interacting than hiding, alone. I win, most of the time. But there is always that unease, that feeling - that I want to hide under my desk, under the table, under the covers, anywhere but being out in the open exposed. For the world to see me in such a corpulent state.
The irony is that what I have always hated about being overweight is not the disparagement or the disdain, but the fact, that generally, you are just ignored, overlooked and all around, de-emphasized. And yet, in my current state, I have issues going out because I don't want to be seen. Really, I should not worry. No one will see me now.
But it's a fine line. Between wanting to hide and wanting to be seen. Between thinking and knowing. Between being paying lipservice and being genuinely grateful.
Between seeing and believing.
All of these things begin and end with me.
If only I could see...
