Hemingway

You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another I'd just finished a conversation with my cohort about the power of language. We discussed the incestuous nature of academics who create bodies of work for each other, an already elite circle. And we discussed conversational practical writing that serves both academia and the lay man. I thought about having to move outside of myself to become this writer that I needed and wanted to be; and while I have grown in my writing, I still have my way of throwing in a beautiful metaphor or toying with alliteration, or manipulating syntax strictly for aesthetic. I stretched, but I am still myself, and my words are my own. Even when I speak borrowed sentiments...it still explains why my all time favorite quote is, "my words are the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin." Because I believe my words are mine not because of what I said but because it was I who said them. They are pieces of me.

I walked past the bathroom mirror and the medicine cabinet was open just so, and as I passed the cracked mirror door showed me an illusion.

There I was, but half my size and though it was distorted and my eyes could see the fallacy, my heart was slow on the joke. And you know what the first thing I said to myself was? Ooooh...that stomach and those arms. I laughed despite myself because there I was! For all intents and purposes a fraction of the size that I am and yet I went straight for the "flaws". It was then that I really got how weight was not really about weight. And its an inside-->outside problem. Not only that, but I saw how inescapable thoughts are. The thoughts don't change simply because we do. A new body, I told myself, is not going to rescue you. You need to sort through your issues.

Oprah said on one of her 20th anniversary interviews that one day it would be easy. It wouldn't be a struggle to stay healthy and the body would feel like home. Home...back where you started from and back where you end up. You must always come "home" and that, to me, is to the heart.

And so no more outlandish pushes, I want to just learn to love myself more. Appreciate my skin. Eliminate negative self talk and remembering who I am. That's what Hemingway said to me. Or at least that's what I heard.