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| But maybe a little. Because of the patriarchy? |
I mean, I still have it for other people! I still
think every kind of body can be sexy and spankable and lovable. Pagan Boy, at
something like 400 pounds, was one of the sexiest humans ever to grace my life.
And most days, I can still look in the mirror or gaze
into the Zoom screen and see cuteness. I can still ravish myself wholeheartedly
and go to sleep with a cozy smile. Objectively, I still know my body is
fuckable and maybe even loveable when the right one comes along.
But throughout this latest crush, depression brain has
combined with post-quar lonely horniness to say things to myself that I would
never in a million years say (Or think!) to or about a friend:
“I must be delusional to think anyone could be attracted
to me at this size/age.”
“Am I officially too fat for all men? Have I crossed
the point of no return? And same for my age?”
I could have been intuiting that I would be too fat
for Poly Friends’ Partner in particular. “Wow it HAS been a while” he said he
saw me at a gig a few weeks ago. I am quite a bit fatter than I was in my thirties
(Like 320 vs 250) but I’d still felt gorgeous when I’d left the house that day!
I’m a little freaked that maybe the gorgeousness will never translate anymore.
“Why can’t they see me?” Has been the thought-thorn in
my side since Quarantine Crush. I always wonder if he didn’t tell me he had a
partner because he just didn’t see 45-year-old me as sexual at all! I
definitely don’t look like the 26-year old California person he knew when we
were first friends!
I know some of this just-be-my-neutered-confidant
stuff I get from guys just comes from good old fashioned patriarchal fat-phobia.
It’s hard to get people to see a spark of desire when they’re programmed to see…nothing.
No one. Or at least not the person I want to be.
Not looking to guys from the past should help, but
they should be able to see me.
Should statements.
When I started this blog way back when, I dove into
every body adventure I could find. I loved and learned so much, but of course
it couldn’t solve the fundamental problem of feeling unwantable and unlovable.
I remember, toward the end of the naked years, the horror of being naked in a
crowded room and realizing that I could never be naked enough, skilled enough,
game enough, easy enough, brave enough, share-y enough to really be seen. It’s
an awful feeling to be naked in rooms that couldn’t perceive me as a whole
human, and where I couldn’t reach others as whole humans either. Desolate. (I’m
talking about literal nakedness but it occurs to me that it’s how I felt in my
old poet life sometimes as well.)
And now, this more (mostly) private and reserved summer,
life is still just really really hard. I’m remembering how to work full time,
which, yay! But also I feel buried and lost and disoriented a lot of the time.
I want to both run right at every human I’ve ever known and hide from everyone forever.
I want to go to the movies every day but also just stay home with my Animal Crossing
and my Friends rewatch. I’m processing grief and estrangement and
wondering how to save voting rights. I don’t really know what my life is at the
moment, as I sure don’t know if the freedom we have right now is just a respite
from tyranny and new variants. Nobody knows.
So, no leaping, no bravery, no forcing myself to be
vulnerable. I know how to be kind to my body: swim in the pool or ocean. Remember
to put on sunscreen. Eat peaches. Go out for ice cream. Go sit in the air
conditioning with my BFF and see Black Widow. Hug and high-five when it
makes sense and hope to kiss a cute guy someday. Paint, write, sleep. I think I
know how to love myself.
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