Audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/restart-button-by-tia-keo
Restart Button by Tia Keo
Her pointer-finger slides in an upward motion across the screen. Once. Twice. Two swipes worth and no evidence of herSELF in her feed. She hadn't shared a selfie in a while, hadn't even taken one. The thought of it made her insides bubble over.
Why was it not enough for her work to represent her? The daily artwork that she was sharing was more vulnerable than a selfie! Her mind paused for a moment, because she knew that wasn't the whole truth. Vulnerable was the fact that she hadn't felt good about her body in such a long time, that even with the tricky angles of deception that she'd managed before, the lie felt like it only hurt herself now. The selfies had kept record of looking good - evidence of feeling good, at least about her body - or ... how it looked.
She had a strong body, naturally dense muscles that wouldn't win any speed records but could carry her across pavement for over 26 miles. The feeling of being in that kind of shape made every cell in her body ache. How could she simultaneously long to exist as she had before the burn-out without judging all the meaningful growth she'd experienced in other, deeper ways?
It still felt like being cut-off from her friends, having her body put a stop to her ways. Identities lost, wiped-out in an instant. Her mind flashes back to the close-up texture of her yoga towel as she silently wept, mouth wide open against the floor. If her body hadn't pulled the plug, she'd probably still be there.
But she wasn't there. She is sitting on the floor in her living room, wearing a moo-moo, breasts resting on her pudgy belly, thighs merging into her rump to complete the blob that is her middle-aged body. The summer sun beams in through the window making the part of her arm that was in it hot. She used to run in this weather. She used to look good in summer clothes … "and … cared too much about what others thought of her to even know the sound of her inner voice!" said her inner voice.
The ache in her heart ignited a sting in her eyes as she contemplated her existence between a rock and a hard place. Would she ever be free from this mad cycle of brain-washed PTSD? In the wake of "breaking herself" she'd taken three months off to recover. She made it through that first class without any crying, but the pounding and splitting of her brain for hours afterwards was almost worse. In one day, she'd confirmed that she wouldn't be going back to who she'd been before.
There was no shortage of information on the internet that could speculate what was wrong with her, but doctors didn't take any of it seriously. Amidst the cacophony of speculation that one little piece of wisdom, taken from her hair tissue, still rang true:
"The Four Lows is a condition of extreme burn out. Certain personality types are more likely to find themselves in the Four Lows pattern. While it is possible to pull themselves out in the short term, unless/until they address the personality traits that got them into this situation, they may find themselves here again."
That one shot right through the heart. Truth.
Five years later, she'd made deep, quality changes that had been earned every step of the way. She'd found her way back to art and her purpose, but her body had also changed. She tried to embrace it, but still battled the nagging “success” of her past. When it came down to it, she knew that she could get back in shape again, if that was her goal. But art consumed more and more of her and she didn't want to sacrifice that practice to do all that was required physically. But still it nagged.
Even though she knew all of the ways that women had been bullied into a mold (and that was a good enough reason to reject it) something deep inside of her still wanted to fit in it! Madness! Was it residual mental programming, or was it because she couldn't ... or wouldn't? Could an inferiority-complex really birth a body-image rebellion? That was the real question. Her rebellion had so often been received as anger. Without her acceptable body to confuse people, her anger meant she was dismissed as "that kind" of woman. You know the kind, daring enough to speak her mind to people who aren’t used to hearing it.
The extremes of every aspect of her life rung in her ears like a pendulum swinging inside her empty skull. With each vibration she became disoriented, less certain of everything. As if caught in a trap of assumptions, her own arguments began working against themselves. She spiraled from one extreme to the next, evermore dizzy. She took a nose-dive through the false narratives until the only way to find calm was to eat her way to full.
Still sitting on the floor, she munched on snacks left on the coffee table the night before. They really were soothing her. She tried to ignore the fact that she had started chewing before realizing the food had entered her mouth.
She knew her coping patterns so well that she was living on the road map. The paths were so well worn that sometimes they drove themselves. But, deep down she knew it wasn't enough anymore to simply know them. She needed to catch them before they put her on autopilot. Better yet, maybe try a different map?
If she made herself hyper aware of the details of this road, she could look for an out! The crunching overtook the pendulum-gong in her head, like white noise.
“This is a good plan, keep going down this road.”
Her search for the emergency exit continued until the whole bag was empty. She licked the condensed cheesy-powder off her thumb and then her pointer finger. The same finger that had swiped her into this mess.
Where was the RESTART button?
Surely there had to be an alternative reality.
