Before and After

I'm going to show you the real me. As awful and ugly as it is.

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There isn't a more perfect, more attractive me under all the flesh and fat and muscle I have painstakingly evicted from my being. Underneath is just a hollow, weaker, maybe even faker person than I was before.

Most of my life has been a performance, tweaking my act to suit whatever audience I encounter. Perhaps, I wanted everyone, every group, every fractured part of me, to know and physically understand how little I've been consuming emotionally for 23 years.

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I was 20 years old. 156 pounds, and going without make-up for the first time since the seventh grade. I've never weighed this much in my entire life, and I feel fat, but at this point I don't have time to care much about it. That summer, I was on my first big adventure away from home, doing glorified physical labor 8-5 every day. Was I happy? Probably not. I was off meds at the time, but I would go back on them soon afterwards. Maybe I was happy though... as this is one moment where I actually let my arm rest against my side for a picture, even though it made everything spread apart into the worst and most unattractive kind of mush.

I am standing a bit askew. Props for that cowgirl.






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Yes I know, you've seen this one before, but I shy away from the camera and haven't found a more recent one. For those of you who missed it. 113(ish?) lbs. 3 weeks ago. I was rather excited to see a legendary Japanese sweetheart who I cut out of this photo because it upstages me. Compare to above photograph.














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I mentioned I'd been away from the scale, and moving stuff out of storage. I refused to let anyone help me. Not that there was really anyone to do it. Here's the end result of my legs. I think they're quite bruised (sorry for the shitty iChat photos, my Nikon USB is lost!) but if you've got better ones, I sympathize as these are a bit painful to the touch. But I'm proud of my bruises as they are physical calories burned. Here are also some shots of my tattoos. Judge or don't. I've never shown you my body. Of course, I've still gotten away with not giving you a standing pose. That will have to wait until the puffiness goes down. Weighed again (I know, I can't stay away)... back to 110. Ah, well, not everything is magical. I ate fast food and chain restaurants so what can I expect.

Happy picture viewing, they won't be up for long. Remind me to tell you sordid details about terrible things and drug and alcohol related events. Loving you with all my fractured pieces!