She Will Find Out Later.

Working out is exhausting in general. You have to get up, get out, and keep moving until your workout is over. Especially in the winter, it’s super hard to get up at 3:35 AM to do it. It’s so dang easy to hit the snooze button, to roll over in bed, and to make more excuses. It’s easier to say “I’ll just do it tonight” than it is to actually do it tonight. My brain says, “take another rest day.” The lazy cycle repeats until it becomes a habit, then a routine. I want to work out, but I feel like giving up. I am in an endless rut–

Amaiya pulls her gaze away from her journal and looks up slightly to the broccoli getting overcooked in the scalding hot water that had been boiling while she got so invested in her ideas. It happens often; she will start a task and get distracted by her thoughts. Writing assists her in finding answers without asking others for them. It’s empowering.

She mindlessly stirs the water with the wooden spoon her grandmother gifted her at Christmas two years ago. Amaiya stares at nothing as she develops more ideas to spew in her journal. Keeping one hand on the spoon, she suddenly picks up her generic ball-point pen in excitement with the other.

Sooo… why workout?

You know that thing called fat? Yeah, like the kind hanging on my legs, arms, back, neck, and butt. That’s just one reason straight off the bat. MY BODY. HOW I APPEAR IN THE MIRROR. Uh, gurl, this body is not hot. It’s embarrassing that my thighs touch together when I sit in chairs. I hate it how my legs and arms jiggle when I jump or run. The extra fat on my chin, nose, cheeks, and neck is plain disgusting. I look in the mirror and I feel ashamed of my body, even in my clothes. Let’s not even start on how I feel when I look at myself in a bra and underwear. I just feel gross in my own skin.

I want to be able to fit into small sizes and not have to worry about finding cute clothes. I want to fit into a size 4-6 pair of jeans without question. Also, there’s a prominent reason why I’m still single, and it’s obvious. I weigh too much. Nobody can pick me up. I can’t sit on anyone’s lap without suffocating them, probably. I look like a fattened-up pig when I walk through the hallways at school. I try to make myself look beautiful, but I really look like a whale that stuffed itself into jeans and a t-shirt and waddled out the door. I have an RBF, which makes everything worse. I look like a fat, depressed, person who acts like she’s skinnier than she actually is. It sucks to ALWAYS feel like the only one in the room who doesn’t drive, who doesn’t have a job, who doesn’t have a life, who is overprotected like a toddler, who isn’t trusted, who is not financially stable, who is not happy, who is lonely, who is fat, and who is ugly.

I want to be able to dance around in my underwear and feel fabulous. I want people to look at me and say things like, “You look good!” “You’re so pretty,” “Dang, how did you get so hot?” “How are you still single?” “You look buffed.” “I’m so proud of you.” “I love your smile.” I want to live life carefree, and not having to stress about how I look each day, since my body is already fit, skinny, healthy, and cute. I want to go with no makeup for a week without feeling self-conscious about my nose, my skin, my cheeks. I want to stop laughing like a disgusting, fat girl when people make jokes. I want to be envied, and… I JUST WANT TO LOOK GOOD.

Amaiya sets the pen down, realizing that she only vented her feelings on paper and that she didn’t write anything in the least bit constructive under her standards. Her writing is everywhere today. Frustrated, she shuts the journal, moves the pot to the side counter, snaps the oven off. She turns on her heel, and briskly makes her way to the couch, plops down, and shakes three green tea pills (one more than the recommended dosage) out of the plastic bottle that had been sitting on the coffee table. She downs them with her water sitting nearby.

Amaiya is in her junior year of high school, and she feels as if she is behind many of her peers. Many of them have gained experience in jobs, have a vehicle either gifted to them or bought themselves, and she feels alone. Protective parents, in her case, do not make it any easier for her to love herself. They fear letting her make any decisions, but it is breaking her slowly. She reverts to over-analyzing herself. Why is she unable to do things her peers can do? Is she just not good enough? Does she have to change who she is in this stage of her life to please her parents enough to give her the basic freedoms a teenager needs to flourish?

Recently, she has become obsessed with the progress she sees in the mirror. Her friends compliment her on her looks, but she is not satisfied. Her parents do not appreciate her, or the responsibility and initiative she has shown in school. Nothing is good enough.

Amaiya scribbled in her journal:

To Do!!

1. work out for 3 hours

2. stretch to get skinny for 1 hour

3. 15 minute ice-cold shower

4. calculus homework

4. anatomy and phys. homework

5. short work out in between assignments

6. don’t eat any more today

She is setting herself up for failure as she usually does. She’s tired of it, but she does it anyway. She disappoints herself when she doesn’t complete a ridiculous to-do list like this. When will it stop? When will she realize that she has to be nice to herself? It’s something so simple, but she must confront her parents about her privileges instead of hurting herself. She chooses here, even on this seemingly unimportant weekend, whether she will continue this cycle of breaking herself to pieces, or if she will save herself… from herself.

Amaiya is crying again… she does this a lot. She has so many habits she’s gotten herself into that are torturing her mind. She hardly eats anymore, and if she does, it’s something quick. She cut herself on her thighs with an eyebrow-shaping razor yesterday. The day before that, she was using 5-pound weights during her workout and hit her under-arms with them until she developed blue bruises.

She constantly destroys her body. How does she expect to bloom into the fierce, confident woman she wants to become if she continues this? She will find out later, of course. As many girls do.