you were a sign of illness but maybe you were a sign of change + Memoir 2
(lots of points about eating disorders, self harm, and death, read at your own risk, take care of yourself!)
For as overly dramatic and waxing poetic the title is, it refers to my treadmill, what it was years ago, what it became, and what it is now. Still, this blog will be used to catalogue other thoughts which sort of relate to that journey as well.
I have been deciding on finally reestablishing my workout routine. It's been...a while now, but my goal is different now.
When i started it all those years ago, I was sick, horribly so. I did it every single day, forever and ever, with the goal being weight loss, not to be healthy. I didn't eat anything, and yet when I ate anything with "carbs" I absolutely wanted to kill myself, I felt like I just deserved to die completely. It made me consider so many options, like a spiralizer, or how many ways I could make each day's meal less and less and less.
There was never any weight to lose, just my ever increasing sickness back then.
How did I pull myself out of it? From bordering on genuine death with how bad it was, to being alive, again?
All it took was for a single person to point out that what I was doing wasn't normal. Or, at the least, enlighten me to the terms. We all had bad eating habits then, we all hated it when people saw us eat, we all hurt ourselves in various ways after "messing up."
But now...
now?
We all can breath.
Breath....
There's trees above, and grass below, and loads of flowers, brushing up against my skirt.
There's a clarity and a movement, akin to a symphony, or a song written in counterpoint trying to break free from rigidity.
I have a new plan instead.
How about I get back on a workout routine but go in with this new, warm, mindset? One focused on health, one that is less intensive, one that is alive.
Instead of mostly just cardio, I plan to incorporate some yoga and very mild strength training. When I say mild, I mean super mild.....I just want to get a little bit stronger to carry the heavy computers at my job!!! >_<
Anyways, now it can be a symbol of change as oppose to illness.
Another cycle broken, with a new, angelic one formed from its corpse.
Cyclicity is inherent to life.
Life is cyclical.
But, knowing and understanding that is the first step to breaking the cycle, to forming new ones, to letting your breath out after what felt like a century.
I knew these ideas from a young age, but some people don't learn them their whole life, even with it being so simple.
To judge those people is not the right call either though...as opposed to humiliating the end user, education is key. (haha what is this, help desk?)
I don't need to do anything crazy.
Just two, three days a week would be more than enough.
It did feel good after a workout, always. I loved how sweaty and wobbly I felt, and then that feeling of muscle tension whenever I finally was done working out is impossible to surpass. It nay sound a little strange but when you really feel a workout is when it hits.
I made a key movement towards this goal today already.
Here's hoping for the future!
This blog is just beginning though, as I want to mention something incredibly important to me.
I finally finished the game Until Then, after putting it off for an endless timeframe, I grew disquieted by how I repeatedly ignored it, or put it away. I told myself I wouldn't let that happen, there is no point in running from that. After all, it isn't running away if there is a plan to come back, and come back I did.
To that game and a few others...finishing up my backlog while closing the book and reuniting with myself years prior, at a warm nighttime lake. For me, the schema of a nighttime lake is somewhere west coast, with thick, wondrously tall pine trees. It wouldn't be limited to just that, but maybe a campfire too...
Nevertheless, there was a theme which hit me incredibly hard in the game, one which I will try to keep as vague as possible, but still talk about some themes about the game and what it says.
[thematic spoiler warning ahead for anyone who cares about the game Until Then, please play it!]
Well, one key theme about the game would be...the power of friendship!
Of course!
...
...
Okay hehe, it goes way beyond that.
To be more specific...
It's how losing a best friend can be worse than losing a relationship or family member.
That statement on its own is flawed of course.
For example...a best friend can both be someone's partner and be considered family.
But, I want to pull back the scope; rewind time, rewind it so far back to where it's middle school again for anyone.
Did they get to experience it?
A best friend...that can be so much more raw, so emotionally powerful, so violent, so musical, so complete that it can transcend anything; everything.
It's this feeling, this emotion which builds up over time towards people like that, of them just...being there.
I am not talking on specific examples, just illustrating the concept, to be clear.
It's always been something that's resonated with me.
Even if I cannot say I truly started making friends until 2023, I still always felt my previously lost friendships were a million times more cataclysmic than relationships.
In my experience, they may have been because I never wanted to date any of those people, I wasn't living. I was never living.
What is it like now? Well...I'm happier, I'm busy. Staying busy keeps me happy.
I want to ...think about that topic for just a little longer though.
What does it mean to me, truly? To lose something like that?
Cataclysm.
I really don't know, I'm unsure.
But It had me thinking.
I have it all together, very much so in fact, but I do always feel missing.
But why? I don't understand myself in that regard. I mean I do...I very much do...
logically, I guess the next question is "why?" but it never comes. I don't let it come, I stop the tape before it happens.
Is it out of fear? I'm trying to edit my hometown.
But I know what's holding me back in that regard...it really. really. hurts.
I can't pull out the railroad spike even if I wanted to.
I couldn't stop it if I wanted to.
But I can struggle; writhe, puke, I can do all of that.
With enough blood, anything is possible.
With enough rust, anything is possible.
With enough universe, anything is possible.
Maybe it can leave me when it's all said and done...and I can move unimpeded, but that's not how I operate, I can't, it's just not right, it's not ethical.
Even if the rust worsens, anything is possible.
I'm begging myself.
I'm begging myself.
Will I ever reach the sea again?
Will I breath again?
What does it ever mean
what does it mean at all...
I want it to stop.
I'm begging so badly.
Begging.
To understand true suffering.
You must suffer.
To acknowledge it and emphasize, you must understand.
I've never felt my hands shake so bad.
then again..isn't it always worse? or always better?
Why? I don't understand my body, why?
I'm not sure, I don't feel anything.
I can't see anything.
Am I an unwritten manuscript? Am I counterpoint?
breath.
-- > TO BE CONTINUED