Eat the Damn Cake

We act like we have a couple different bodies. There’s the one you’re in now, and then there’s the one that’s your real body.

It might be from the past or the future. It’s mysterious, but thoroughly detailed. The real body gets obscured by the obnoxious, floppy, hungry, unflattering  current one. The real body is like a place you really, really want to go. Where life makes more sense. Where it’s sunnier and you can wear a bathing suit without even thinking about it.

I caught myself thinking like that when I gained 20 pounds in college. My new body wasn’t really me. It was a costume I was trying on for a while. A slightly scary costume. A slightly daring costume. With an unfamiliar soft little belly and squishy thighs. Sometimes I caught myself staring at my new thighs. They took up so much space! They felt nice. They weren’t my real thighs. But they were OK.

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My body never regressed gracefully into its precollege state. My weight went up and down, and my shape shifted, so that I tucked fat into new, creative spots. My face changed. My hair changed. And eventually I cut my hair off completely.

But sometimes I feel like I am looking through someone else’s eyes at myself. This isn’t me. There is a different, better, streamlined me in there, somewhere, but I can’t quite get to her.

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I did it! I did it! I asked for more money!

Remember when I wrote this post about how women almost never ask for more money? Apparently we don’t. Apparently we often keep quiet instead. And I understand why. I mentioned that the thought of asking for a raise is really scary for me. That usually when someone pays me for work I’ve done, I am thinking, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you so much!” as opposed to “Seriously? I am worth more than that!” Even if I’m worth more than that. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, how much I’m worth in money. I mean, maybe I think I’m worth a million dollars, but I’m a writer. No one is going to give me a million dollars. No one is going to give me very much at all. So it’s more a “every little bit counts” type thing than a “I can’t believe they don’t value me more” type thing.

That is no excuse not to ask for more money.

But even after I wrote that post, I didn’t notice that I had an opportunity to ask for a raise, in my own life, right then. I was thinking more abstractly– like, women, out there in the world– other people– you guys should think about this…I should probably think about it too, later…

And then something funny happened. I found out that someone I know who does work for one of the same companies I do was being paid more than me. She mentioned it casually, and suddenly I was furious. And embarrassed. Here I was, writing about raises instead of asking for them. I felt like I was falling behind. I felt like I’d been sleeping and oblivious and possibly still wearing suspenders that had gone out of style five years ago (what? Are people not wearing suspenders these days? No one?).

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I noticed it when I was pivoting sexily to admire myself in the mirror over my shoulder. Bear had caught me– sometimes he sort of snatches me out of the air as I go by– and we happened to be in front of a mirror, and I turned, to see the perfect snapshot of us. My big, muscular man with the sweet face, his hands on my waist, and me, sensual in my jeans and bra, halfway through a transformation.

And there it was.

A generous roll. Soft and buttery and creamy and smooth. It sat just above Bear’s hand, just above my waist.

Back fat.

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I quickly straightened. “You look amazing, honey,” I said, using diversionary tactics.

“You look amazing.”

Hmm. Do I?

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It’d been a long time since I saw my beautiful blond friend with the very put-together life. My friend who always knows what to wear, and always has the earrings that match it. My friend with the grownup life and the baby.

She looked great, of course. She was sparkling. The collar of her little dress sparkled. Her clean, contemporary diamond ring sparkled. Her eyes sparkled, too. Since I’d last seen her, a lot had changed. They were moving. To Connecticut. They were looking for a house now.

Whoa.

Connecticut? But– we used to think Brooklyn was too far away! I haven’t even been back to the Upper West Side since we moved down here. Wait. A house. That means you’ll have more than two rooms? And a car? And a yard? Impossible. A washer and a dryer? Amazing. More than one bathroom? Ultimate luxury! Unimaginable.

I tried to picture her new life. She was wearing pearl earrings in my imagination. But then, she does that sometimes anyway. She looked so grown up. So complete. She would drive her kid (her KID!) to school in her car. She would drive to the supermarket. She would return to her house. Her entire house. Her husband would commute into the city for work.

“What’s your plan?” she asked. “What are you thinking, for the future?”

I stared at her. I looked down at my plate. I looked up again, and I still hadn’t figured out what to say.

“Bear,” I said, later that night, “Do we know what we’re doing with our lives?”

“Um,” he said, “Maybe?”

“I don’t think we do.”

“Yeah, maybe not. But who cares?”

“We’re kids.”

“That’s what’s so cool about us.”

“I guess.”

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Feeling bad the way I do sometimes– the bad egg kind of bad- it doesn’t go away completely. It just lies dormant under the surface for a while. And then suddenly, it’s back. It can come back ferocious, hungry, clawing, like it just broke out of prison, where it had plenty of time to think about how to destroy me.

And then I feel sorry for Bear.

I feel apologetic. I feel sorry about marriage not solving all of my problems, as though if only I could just calm down and let it, it would. I feel like I’ve let marriage down.

Sometimes I think that marriage actually makes it worse. I mean, being safe and secure and loved and sexed and having my man dream come true makes it clearer that this is not all there is. Before I had Bear, when I was in a relationship with a guy who was being tormented by what seemed like an army of his own personal demons, I could feel bad about that. It was obvious what I was supposed to feel bad about. I also felt like I really needed to get good grades in college or my life might be terrible, but that feeling was secondary to the emotional trauma of my romantic relationship.

In a way, that’s what relationships were for. To distract me from the things I was really worried about. To distract me from the fact that I might feel bad, anyway, even if they were gone or great.

After being tormented by the tormented guy, I was in a relationship with a guy I wasn’t in love with, and I felt conflicted and anxious and stubborn and frustrated and helpless about that.

And later, whenever I felt bad during the time I was single, I felt scared and tiny and hopeless, because there was a chance I would never find someone.

There was always such an easy reason. Such a plain target.

And now, I have checked so many boxes. I have things I never thought I would get a chance at. I stare at my own reality in dumbstruck wonderment. I pinch myself. I stare some more.

But then, when I feel bad, it isn’t as easy to find a place to put it. So the badness rushes to my career. You’re failing! You haven’t accomplished anything in the past year! Everyone in the world is more successful than you! And they have better hair! And your teeth look a little yellow! And you’re not making enough money because you are a failure!

I feel sorry for Bear because I want to be happy for him. I feel like that was part of the arrangement. We were going to make each other happy ALL THE TIME. That was going to be marriage. When I’m unhappy, it makes him unhappy, and sometimes this feels like pressure to be happy.

(we should always look like this. especially the red hat)

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I want to dress like a pirate queen. The urge hit me the other night after watching “Original Sin.” Halfway through the movie, Bear got up and left.

“Honey?” I called after him, my eyes glued to the screen.

“This is too disturbing,” came his voice from the other room. “You can watch it without me.”

Bear can watch horror movies and not be disturbed, but when someone’s wife has been abused (or a rape is implied), he cannot handle it.

It sounds terrible in a way to say that I can handle it, but honestly, I was kinda watching the movie for Angelina’s face and her clothes. And also her jewelry. The last image, of her face, with the red jewel and gold choker— above the floating, pure white dress– GOD. So beautiful. So graceful and mysterious and magical and otherworldly.

“Come on, honey,” I pleaded. “I’m skipping this scene where– oh, yeah, I think this is a brothel– I’m skipping it! We’re going to watch the ending, where they’re happy!”

Bear wasn’t interested. “There can be no happy ending to this story,” he said, refusing to come back to the couch.

I watched the last scene, which is mostly about her face, alone. And then I felt inspired. I wanted to wear gowns. I wanted to wear flowy things. I wanted to be mysterious and graceful and otherworldly. I went to the closet and started pulling dresses off of hangers and combining them with filmy scarves and gold hoops. The short hair didn’t seem to fit (I looked more like a servant girl than royalty) so I put it under a scarf. That didn’t work either. I decided I wasn’t going to be a princess– I was more of a pirate queen.

(that’s my sexy pose. sorry, parents! Being sexy on the internet! But I can’t help it– pirate queens are sexy)

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Every night, I lie in bed and read the New York Times on my phone. First I read some of the big headline pieces. Then I skip  over to the real estate section and read about a girl and a guy who really need a quieter apartment, since their last one was next to a construction site—will they find one? They look at a place in Harlem. They look at a place in Morningside Heights. Time is running out! At the last minute– they find something! Phew. I read about the new building with affordable luxury apartments that’s going up on the west side in midtown. I read about trends involving lamps and the story of a particular street sign.

“Why do you want to read that stuff?” asks Bear.

“Because,” I say, but then realize I’m not sure. I just do. Unimportant article after unimportant article. “Listen!” I say, excited, “Here’s one about big couches! The writer thinks couches have gotten too big.”

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“Really?” says Bear, without looking up from the word game he is playing on his phone.*

Technology. It connects us to the world. It separates us from one another.

Actually, I don’t really care about that very much.

Recently, a lot of the headlines have been about Romney and Newt and Santorum. With some Huntsman and Perry sprinkled in, for reference. Of course, there’s plenty of Obama, but now it’s more about Obama as relates to Romney and Newt and Santorum. Opinion pieces, and full, serious articles.  Piece after piece after piece– they come faster every day– they grow thicker– like salmon spawning. It’s that time of year. It’s that part of our four-year news cycle. And it’s just getting started.

Already, I am tired. There is a dead, metallic taste in my mouth. I am experiencing tiny PTSD-like flashbacks.

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