You felt lost, remember? I want you to remember, because you don't feel that way now. I don't want you to go back there. You felt like you were gone and your body was all that was left. Your body sat at your messy desk and drank Mike’s Hard Lemonade and kept the blinds shut—in the middle of summer. When your body was hungry, it walked to the kitchen and ate, but you were lost, so it ate nothing but frozen pizza, hot dogs, sandwiches, swiss rolls, string cheese, toast, hot pockets, pop tarts; it ate the things that it didn’t need you for.
Your eyes squinted as the door opened every couple days when you finally convinced your body to at least go get the mail. They lay wide open while your body was in bed, staring at the ceiling. You were in there somewhere. While your body waited for you to come back, it gained twenty pounds. Your hair grew long and a little ratty. Your laundry kept your carpet clean.
You tried to reach out of your body to talk to your fiancé when he got home at seven in the morning from his graveyard shift. He was just as lost, and exhausted, so your bodies would finally kick into sleep mode. For around four months you lived this way. Your mother came to visit you and your fiancé a few times. You could hear her talking, and you were able to talk back to her. She came and helped you clean, put up some curtains, and find your body. She cooked for you, and you remembered food.
You were accepted at Western and you forced your body out of your apartment and started your classes and you started to feel a little better but you were still a little mixed up. Your body still weighed too much, you didn’t sleep, and then you struggled not to drown in your homework. Your first quarter flew by, and as the year went on, you continued to get better. When your fiancé got a better job, you slept at night again. You had sex. You went on dates. As your friends came to visit from time to time, and you could feel yourself again, you remembered really smiling. You moved into a house and you had more space and you remembered really breathing. You controlled the body that cased you.
That summer, you knew you couldn’t do it over again, so you took classes. You knew by then that doing nothing was bad for your body, so you made yourself do things. You made yourself talk to people. Your fiancé got a really good job, and his friend moved up and got a job, and money was less tight. You went to movies. You drank. You ate real food and frozen pizza. You put on more weight. Looking in the mirror still upset you, but life itself had really improved by the next fall.
You needed new clothes. You bought sizes that should be too big, way too big, but they clung to your stomach. Your body smiled, and you noticed the smile looked less real in the fitting room mirror than it felt when you had drinks with your fiancé and roommate the night before.
Your mom sent you a link to a video she saw on evening magazine or some other show on TV. A fitness trainer in Bellingham talked about his bootcamps while they showed clips, and you at first rolled your eyes. Then you willed your body into sending him an e-mail. The trainer e-mailed you back, and your fiancé went with you to meet him.
He met you at Starbucks, and you discussed goals and issues and prices. You talked about your body, and what you wanted to be able to do with it. You realized that your body is yours. You met with him for private training shortly after. He made your body run up Taylor Rd. He made your body do push-ups. Crunches. Squats. Jumping jacks. He made you nauseous and then made you keep going. You wanted it to be easy, easier at least, but you did it anyway.
After several private training lessons, he convinced you to go to a boot camp. The group pushed you, encouraged you, and you did things that you couldn’t even do as a teenager. You shocked yourself, you shocked your body. While your body ached, you grew stronger. While your body grew stronger, you grew happier. While the pounds came off, you smiled in the mirror. You smiled in the fitting room mirror. You even smiled looking into the window of stores, and you touched your waist.
You are still going. After over a year. You have lost tons of weight, you eat better, though not always. You are happy whenever you are training. Your running shoes make you smile, even though you thought you hated to run—you aren’t sure now. You still have goals, and the goals make you happy. Your relationship is better, you are broke, your job is only six hours a week, you train at least six hours a week, you aren’t sure if you can pay rent, but your trainer is willing to make trades for you. He is willing to move mountains for you… but at this point you are ready to move them yourself, with your own body.
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