I have waxed on and on about how great life has been since I woke up a year ago, and it is. However. In the RKG Discord last night, we were talking about romantic problems and one person said that barring a big life event, people didn’t change. I amended it to that people can change, but it is very incremental. I mentioned that after my life-threatening medical crisis (which I talked about in length further up the thread), some of my negative traits had vanished and some had been greatly mitigated. As I’ve mentioned, my body issues have completely disappeared. That’s probably the most amazing thing, and I’m grateful for it. Decades of hating my body–gone.
This is something I marvel at almost on the daily. I went from loathing my body to absolutely loving it. I am arrogant about it now. My body is, indeed, all that and a bag of chips. That’s what the kids say these days, right? That hasn’t been said in decades. Oh, well. I’ve never been hep or happening.
I love my curves, especially my booty. I am Asian, which means I was born with no ass. Not literally, obviously, but it was flat. I liked to joke that about my flat yellow ass, but it wasn’t really a joke. It was yellow and it was, indeed, flat. Taiji, specifically, Golden Roosters, lifted and boosted my ass. I actually had a bit of a curvature to it!
I was enamored with it, I’ll be frank. I kept looking at it with delight and I told Ian excitedly that I had an ass. He said diffidently that he had noticed, which made me chuckle. I kept staring at it in the mirror because I most definitely had an ass. I had to take ‘flat’ out of my vocab, which was fine by me.
I worked hard to get to studiedly neutral. Rather, I said I was neutral about my body, but I wasn’t. I didn’t hate it, technically, but I still wouldn’t look at it in the mirror. Which meant that I was more negative about it than positive.
Then, I ended up in the hospital. I had to have people wipe the shit from my ass, which is an embarrassing position to be in. But they treated me with such warmth, they made me feel safe, secure, and they allowed me to keep my dignity. It’s so vulnerable to not be able to wipe my own ass. Having to go through all of that wiped out my body dysmporphia completely. I love my body to distraction. It got me through death twice, and it is better than ever.
I love my body. So much. It’s the best, and fuck you if you don’t think so. My depression is almost completely gone as well. As for my anxiety, well, it’s still here, but it’s much better than before. I’m able to cut the anxiety loop short more often than not.
I think I’m cute AF, too. That’s a drastic change from the person who would not let anyone take my picture when I was in college. It was a game with my friends to see if they could catch me. This was in the days before the ubiquity of the cellphone, thankfully, so it was not as easy as it would have been now. I love my new glasses (well, not so new now. Almost a year old!) I love putting my hair in different styles, ranging from Chun Li buns to Laura Ingalls braids to a high pony that is then braided.
Most things are much better, but there are a few things that still bother me. Such as my power to procrastinate. This has been an issue all my life, and I struggle to deal with it even now. I knew Ian was coming last Saturday. I knew it a month before he came. I should have cleaned up before he came. I told myself to clean up before he came. I did not clean up before he came.
A few weeks before he flew in, I got a fruit fly problem, which greatly stressed me out. They weren’t biting me, obviously, but I hated that they were buzzing around the kitchen. My fridge is old and probably failing, which means they were getting in there and flying around near the bottom. Not the shelves, but where the door closes. (Though there were a few on the shelves).
I tried apple cider vinegar. I tried mashed fruit in a cup. I tried soapy dish. It cut down on the flies, but did not eradicate the problem. I got a couple fruit fly traps from Cubs. They’re shaped like apples. My brother set them up (two of them), and they helped, but they also did not get rid of the fruit flies completely.
I bought a spray. That also massively helped, but did not end the problem. I knew part of the issue was that the kitchen was a mess. Well, not a mess, but not clean, either. The flies were congregating by the window, so my brother’s theory was that there was a piece of fruit stuck in the window sill. See, I had no fruit out. No food at all. And the flies weren’t flying over the counters, anyway. Just mostly between the window screen and the window on both sides.
Ian told me he would help me with it when he got here, so I let it go until then instead of doubling down and taking care of it. When Ian got here, we bought a trap from Target. That helped, but it wasn’t enough, either. Yesterday, we and bought another trap (plus replacement paper for the first one) and did a deep clean on the kitchen. I mean, we went hard. And it’s vastly helped with the problem. I mean, leaps and bounds. We’re going to clean the windows and screens today or tomorrow, which hopefully will help as well.
This has been weighing me down for weeks. This is one of my biggest flaws. If something is unpleasant, I will put it off as long as humanly possible until I can’t ignore it any longer. I hate this about myself. I have tried my whole life to change it with limited success. I mean, I am better than I was before about it, but I still have a long way to go.
Another thing is my prickly nature. I have thought about dating, but that’s not really a good idea as long as I’m still so damn touchy. I’m not sure I can play nicely with others. In addition, I do have a rash of issues that makes it difficult for me to be in the real world. Tons of allergies (food, plants, flowers, scents, soaps, essential oils, materials, metals, and more) which makes me a delight. Sensory issues don’t help, and just a bunch of weird ideas in general.
I’m not saying I’m not datable. I’m just saying I’m not sure I want to be datable at the moment. We’ll see what my second year of re-birth contains on that front.