I hate myself for what I have become. I celebrate my weakness and starve for happiness. I smile when hungry and get mad at everyone once I eat too much. I count calories all day long. I think of food more than I think of my family. I crave food and at the same time I hate everything around me for even thinking of eating it. I miss out on relationships because of that. Anti social and kind of bipolar. When I'm feeling thin I am the most enjoyable person to be with. My smile can light up a room. But that happens only on a full moon, some might say. People are afraid of me. They fear my reaction, it changes quite a lot. I fear myself sometimes, too.
But on the other side of the world, at a country called Rwanda, I am responsible for a little girl. This girl lives under the same sky as me, and yet she will never understand what fashion means. How skinny jeans match perfectly with oversized T-shirts and long necklaves. How you can get sad because your third trip abroad (in the same year) MAYBE get cancelled. What means to wake up in a four-room house with clean water and paintings from London and NY and once you look at the mirror you hate your whole life. What means to have your whole family loving you and can't be able to feel any of it. How you have two pet fish, decide to become a vegetarian (have the ability to throw and deny food given to you) and get start a 100euro/month pilates class because you got bored.
The only thing she asks for is to survive. And a letter, every now and then. She likes letters. She also likes purple crayons, I guess, she uses this colour the most to her drawings. The money goes to her community, to help clear the water, fix the ruined houses, build a health care centre.
It makes me sad.
I have become proud of myself for ALL THE WRONG REASONS.
wow. this post was so thoughtful and insightful that it brought tears to my eyes.
ReplyDeleteas humans, we do sometimes get so tangled up in ourselves and our problems that we forget about the pulse of life going on around us. we forget there's other people in the world that don't have the freedom, privilege, or ability to be as self-absorbed as we.
you've given us something to think about here... stay beautiful, lovely.
<3,
sparrow
You said it!! I think the same things sometimes--how I spend every waking moment thinking about food and refusing to eat it, and at the same time there are people out there who also spend every minute thinking about food because they have none. It's an effed up world we live in. :/
ReplyDeleteI think it's great you're helping that little girl. I send money to Children of Uganda--I figure it's only right, so I send what I would probably spend every month on food if I wasn't so disordered....
xoxo
i think about this too sometimes. but dont beat yourself up because you have it better than someone else. sadness is relative, as is suffering. not to say we shouldn't help others, just that you shouldn't sell your own problems short. your life is legitimate too.
ReplyDeleteglad you got your perspective.
It's so true. We spend so much time worrying about food, clothes, our friends/family etc and we forget that there is people out there that don't have any of that. Not only in third world countries, but in our own.
ReplyDeleteIt's so messed up. Obviously we cannot help it, but it really makes you think. We shouldn't feel bad because we have things people would love to have, but sometimes we need to remember it a little more and do a wee bit more. I think us as people, sometimes forget that we are not the only person on the planet so it is easy to get a little selfish sometimes.
xx
Woman, you make me want to study philosophy.
ReplyDeleteThe world and the humans in it are supremely messed up.
Because you actually cared enough to go through the paperwork to change the life of that little girl, that makes you one hell of a lot better, morally speaking, than a lot of lazy fucktards out there.
Sorry, all garbled. I hope you understood.
xoxo
AHH this really made me think. wow. im not even sure how to express my emotions through words after reading this. We do take advantage of a lot of things, i guess. I mean, anyone reading this blog is somewhat fortunate, seeing as how they have a computer or phone. People are so selfish and greedy, to be honest. I would consider myself very well off, ill never have to worry about where i'll get my next meal. yet even so, im concerned and caught up about how i look and dress...I totally know how you feel. I think i have bipolar tenancies and it sucks because my family is scared to talk to me. Sometimes ill respond well, sometimes i get enraged, sometimes i cry for no reason. Gosh, this just really made me think. thanks for that. (:
ReplyDeletei know.
ReplyDeleteyou've said a mouthful - wise petite essay.
ReplyDeletesad about the little girl - hope you continue
to write her and send the purple crayons -
maybe up the ante to purple beads.
love
I took a trip to Tanzanian this summer and while doing volunteer work at a school the children would be constantly coming up to us and asking for food you could see all there bones. I just started crying I had lost 20lbs right before my trip because I thought bones were beautiful seeing these kids bones I saw nothing beautiful about it.
ReplyDeleteFood is so powerful.
It's amazing how we loose perspective on what is really important. We take so much for granted and loose perspective on that.
ReplyDeletei really like the post,
ReplyDeletei like the way wen im reading it and feeling the same way..
xx