This can't be love

And cue the jazz chorus:

This can't be love because I feel so well
No sobs, no sorrows, no sighs.
This can't be love
I get no dizzy spells
My head is not in the skies.
My heart does not stand still
Just hear it beat.
This is too sweet to be love.
This can't be love because I feel so well
But still I love to look in your eyes.

Nice harmony, chorus. But watch those cut offs, would ya?

So, yes, that pretty much says it all. This whole meeting my soul mate is one of the most interesting experiences of my life, because it's not at all what I expected. You'd expect in this situation to be swept off your feet, to be giddy with excitement, to be ranting and raving to your friends non-stop about this incredible person you've met, to feel an obsessive need to be around that person all the time.

But it's not like that at all. Imagine reconnecting with your best friend after being separated for years. You just pick up where you left off. Only in this case, we hadn't met before.

I don't even feel the need to write about it a lot here. To justify it or explain it or gush about it or go into details about how well we fit. It just is. And it's amazing.

However, I can't help but mention that he does come with his very own blog nickname:

Hot damn! When I wore my fishnets, I never would have guessed I'd catch myself a sailor.

An undead dead junkie

In my inbox:

Hey, Savia...

So... I don't know if I mentioned this stuff when we were out for our awesome drink date, but I do a lot of roleplaying gaming, and I'm in the process of running a Live Action Roleplaying Game (LARP) about vampires, and, as geeky as that sounds, it's really a lot of fun.

Here's the deal. I need someone to play a vampire who's been staked, and so is mostly dead, but who may be revived over the course of the evening (at which point, she will most likely go nuts with hunger and be destroyed). I need someone who's hot, and who is willing to let me dress her like a junkie. Um. An undead dead junkie. The part probably involves a lot of lying around on a table with a hunk of wood sticking out of your chest...well, not literally of course...

Are you interested?

Cheers,
Cenobyte

That is, by far, the weirdest email I've ever received from someone I met on the Internet and had drinks with once in real life. But also the most intriguing. It is my Year of Fearlessness, after all.

You totally know I'm going to do it. I'll try anything once. Plus, my sweetheart got quite excited when I told him about it. I believe he said, "Vampire junkie wiggin' out for a fix. Damn you're hot!" He wants pictures for some reason. I have no idea why.

It's all about the puppet burlesque

I finally got to meet Madam Diva (aka Laura), my friend I've never met, this weekend, along with her friend Mika. Of course, I can't just meet people for the first time over coffee or some such thing. Too boring. Instead, I invited them to a puppet burlesque show. You can read Laura's account of it here.

And, yes, Laura, I looooved the Margaret Atwood-esque puppet reading the porn in her monotone voice. But guess what? I talked to one of the puppeteers the next day and she said that Yann Martel actually was in the audience that night. I thought they were just being cute with the references to him, but not so. I believe he was the guy to whom the life-sized puppet was singing "I Touch Myself" and giving a lap dance. He was a good sport, wasn't he?

There was a fair amount of audience participation in the show. At one point, they dragged three guys up to the front and cajoled them into to shake posters of women's body parts - the ass, the tits, the poonani. They were a bit embarrassed, but ended up getting into it after awhile. Our table was right at the front, so I whispered to my co-worker, "They're totally going to drag you up there." She freaked out and made me switch places with her. Sure enough, they made a beeline for me in the second act. "Do you like the [insert some slang word for penis here]?" I gave them the thumbs up and said, "Hell, yeah" and they dragged me to the front. There was a large poster of a drawing of a man with an erection and I expected them to give it to me to shake as they had with the guys. But that wasn't what happened. Instead, they expected me to shake my actual parts.

I imagine the other nights of the performance, they had to convince the gal to shed her inhibitions and timidly shake what the good dude gave her. But they didn't realize they'd grabbed an exhibitionist bellydancer out of the crowd, so they were in for a show.

"Shake the ass," they commanded. So, I did a side-to-side lower shimmy in a circle. The crowd went nuts, because it was completely unexpected. Then, the erection on the poster magically grew in response.

"Shake the tits!" And I did a forward and back shoulder shimmy. The erection grew even larger.

"Thrust the poonani!" Hmmm... What to do about that one? Big figure eights with the hips! And the erection went off the chart.

The crowd loved it. The performers loved it. I couldn't stop laughing. They made me take a bow, which I made into a big overdramatic one. Hey, it's not everyday you get a cameo in a puppet burlesque show.

It felt good. Because the old me would have been too self-conscious about my body to shake any part of it, much less in front of Yann Martel and more than 100 people, including one of my co-workers and my two new Internet friends. But it is my year of fearlessness, after all. Bring it on!

Piss off

I had my annual physical today, which meant going to the lab and having my bodily fluids and waste put into jars and tubes and taken away by strangers, which is always a weird concept.

When I walked up to the counter, the woman sized me up, handed me a sterile plastic jar and said, "Fill it up to this line. If you can't make it up to the line, make sure you tell the person who is taking your blood."

They had never said this to me before. Never raised a question as to my abilities to pee into the jar and achieve the greatness that is the magical line.

And then you know what happened? I couldn't do it. I couldn't pee up to the line. I just didn't have it in me today.

I wondered if the lady at the counter could tell. Did I look dehydrated? Has she been doing this job long enough that she can tell precisely just how much pee a person has in her? Could she smell my inevitable failure? And what exactly does that smell like? Is the very fact that she put the sliver of doubt into my mind the reason that I could only pee a third of the way up to the line?

So, now, I have a specimen jar sitting on my desk at work, just waiting with anticipation for the moment when it will be filled with yellow liquid. As long as it's before 4:30 p.m., that is. Because I have a deadline.

I wonder if chamomile tea would work?

Good fortune

A work luncheon at a Chinese restaurant:

Gal #1: [reading her fortune cookie] You have to say "in bed" after you read it. Or I guess you can say "after you're dead."
Gal #2: That's kind of boring, though.
Savia: I always like to add "while brandishing a whip" to my fortunes.
Gal #1: [laughs] I like it!
Savia: Mine says: "A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon, while brandishing a whip." Yeah, I bet there are lots of surprises when you're brandishing a whip.
Gal #2: How about "while brandishing a whip in bed"?
Savia: Is there any other way?

Things I never thought I'd be writing to a credit card company

In November, I went on the Mighty Girl website and bought a fabulous T-shirt for my gorgeous friend Schmutzie. You can see how great it makes her rack look here. Okay, so actually, I ordered two shirts, because I wanted one for myself. I wasn't sure where on earth I'd wear it, but I still wanted it. However, when the order came, there was only one shirt in the package. So I emailed the address indicated on the receipt, told them what had happened and asked when I'd be receiving the second shirt. No response. Then, I emailed the address indicated on the website for order inquiries and asked the same question. No response. So, I called my credit card company to get the charge reversed. They sent me a letter asking for more information, so I had to write this:

Dear [credit card dude]:

In response to your letter dated January 15, 2007, here are the details surrounding the $49.33 charge from PAYPAL MIGHTYMIGHT.

I ordered two women’s medium “I fuck like a girl” T-shirts from the website Mighty Girl (http://www.mightygirl.com/shop) on November 9, 2006. A picture of the T-shirt is on that website, and the description below it is as follows: “I find these hilarious. They’re $20, plus $2.50 shipping anywhere in the U.S.. I’m wearing a woman’s medium, Bryan is wearing a men’s large. The print is small enough that strangers will have to actually approach you to read it. And boy do they.”

...

Yup. Never thought I'd be telling my credit card company about how I fuck, but there you go.

This sucks, because all I wanted was my damn shirt. But some people don't seem to give a shit about customer service when they're selling crap on their blogs. I will never order from Mighty Girl again. If you're looking for a blog that sells great shirts and actually treats people who purchase items from there with respect and courtesy, check out the shirts at Fussy. Eden goes above and beyond to make sure people get what they ordered and are happy with it. Plus, they make your boobs look big. You won't regret it.

Moving on

I went back to my old office today to say 'hi' to my coworkers. I miss them. I miss them a lot. It wasn't until I left this place that I understood the extent of the impact it had on my life, how this job and these people have helped change who I am forever.

That's a lot of pressure to put on a workplace, isn't it? Well, in this case, it's true. I came here at possibly the lowest moment of my life. The job I had before this one was toxic and abusive - so much so that I almost gave up my profession and was looking into becoming either:

a) massage therapist
b) nurse
c) radiation therapist

The medical community thanks me for not going down that road. I mean seriously, little miss princess armed with radiation? I don't even want to think about it.

I was at such a low point when I started this job that I had lost all faith in my ability to do just about anything. I felt grateful that they would hire me and give me a chance. I wondered if they would figure out that I was a fraud. I couldn't believe I had landed such a great job at such an amazing place with such nice people. I even took an $8,000 pay cut from my going rate.

When I started, I was sensitive to any kind of criticism and I remember crying at work within the first month because someone was mean to me. Oh, and then again in the second month because a different person was mean. Stupid mean people.

But over the course of the two years I was there, a different person emerged. I discovered that they were thrilled that someone like me would apply and take the job, that they valued my perspective, my experience and my abilities, that they genuinely liked me as a person. I began to look at my work and take pride in what I could accomplish. I began to see that the events of the previous workplace had nothing to do with me, my personality, or my skills. It just wasn't a good fit. And this job was. It fit like a really great pair of designer jeans. This job made my ass look good.

Speaking of asses, my ass changed a lot in the time I was here, too. I walked into this place 55 pounds overweight. People who hadn't seen me in awhile wouldn't have recognized me. And then, over the course of two years, it all melted away to reveal someone who wouldn't be recognized by people who hadn't seen me in awhile either. I walked out of that place a completely different person, both emotionally and physically. It's hard to believe that the same gal who walked in here, head down and eyes averted, walked out, head held high, dancing with a cane balanced on her head. (I actually did this in front of the reception desk on my last day of work.)

And part of it has to do with my coworkers. I've never worked with such a group of amazing people. We are really close. I know a lot of people refer to their coworkers as family, but in this case, that's not too far from the truth. We've all had a really rough year. We have lost people we've loved and faced intense stress and heartache. We've cried in front of each other, held each other, done sweet little things to cheer each other up. There is love here, real love. And that was so hard to leave. It was like leaving home. But I needed to go to continue growing in my career and as a human being.

Cleaning out my office was one of the hardest things I've had to do. (Other than telling my boss I was leaving, that is. I sat down in his office and said, "My dream job fell into my lap and I have to leave," and promptly burst into tears.) It was like saying goodbye to a part of me. With every drawer I opened, I expected to find some relic from my past. Fifty-five pounds of fat. A low self-esteem. Insecurities. Doubts. There was so much baggage in that room. But there was also support and love and friendship and respect. My heart ached as I boxed up my framed art prints, photos and books.

My boss helped me out to my car with my stuff. I stood in the parking lot and looked back at the building in disbelief. In my mind, I was flashing back to the scene in the parking lot at the abusive workplace, just a few blocks away. It was dark out as well, winter, just like this night, and the vice-president of HR had helped me gather my things and take them out to my car. As I stood out in the parking lot, I looked back at that other building and said, with relief, "I can't believe I never have to come back here." With sympathy in his eyes, the VP hugged me, because he knew all I had been through and how horribly I had been treated.

This night, I again found myself in a parking lot with my boss, someone for whom I had immense respect and admiration, fighting back tears and saying, "I can't believe I'm not coming back here tomorrow." He hugged me, too, and said, "This isn't goodbye. We're going to keep in touch."

Two similar scenes, but with very different outcomes. I'm glad I had both of those experiences. I wouldn't be the person I am today without them. But it's time to move on. Everyone has to leave home eventually.

Year in review

2007 has an interesting feel to it. It fells like it fits, like a favourite pair of jeans. Once the calendar flipped, everything felt different. If I had to characterize the year, I'd say it's all about new beginnings: new job (haven't mentioned that one yet, have I? In case you were wondering, that was what this entry was about), new body, new wardrobe, new relationship. It's as though everything just fell into place. That's never really happened for me before. And for some reason, it's not scary - it just feels as though this was meant to happen; it's just time. Out with the old, in with the new.

My gal Madam Diva sent me a meme asking for the first line from the first post of each month for the past year. If I had to characterize 2006, I'd say it was all about transitions. About learning who I really am and what I want in life. About standing up for myself and not allowing others to manipulate me. About walking away from toxic people and situations. About letting go of physical and psychological baggage. About discovering just how strong I am. It was a tough year, but I feel such a swell of pride when I look back on it and how I carried myself through it, because 2006 was the year that I really saw myself for the first time the way other people tell me they see me - an intelligent, beautiful, talented, kind, sexy, incredible woman. I like what I see when I look in the mirror, and I have no regrets. And that feels amazing.

So, here is my year in review. I'm not sure the first post of every month does it justice, but that's the meme. (Oh, and I also cheated and put more than one sentence in some cases. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken.)

January:

Excerpt from an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party: Come to my place on New Years Eve. Of course you should bring your own fucking booze. What, do I look like your own personal brew pub? Piss off!

February:

This one’s for Madam Diva. Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Food prep girl at Ruddfuckers
2. “Would you like fries with that?” gal at Micky D’s (I was even employee of the month once. But the sad part is that I was 21 at the time.)
3. Conversation partner for 10 Korean ESL students (one of whom fell in love with me and continued to call and write after he went home to Korea)
4. Meat packer, night shift. My duties included packing wieners and assorted cured meats at a local plant. Good times.(Summer job in university. Actually not as bad as it sounds – the people I worked with were really nice, and it paid very well compared to, say, Micky D’s)

March:

An old friend called me the other day and reminded me how wickedly funny he is. Here are some snippets:
Savia: ...So, I’ve decided I’m just going to live in denial about it.
Friend: Well, you know, ostriches wouldn’t exist if there weren’t a good evolutionary reason for putting your head in the sand.

April

I got a lovely voice message from my snarky friend who likes to harass me about still being in high school because I give reasons such as homework and braces as excuses for not going out on the town with him. Here’s what he had to say, in his best apathetic teen voice...

May:

I’m sorry I’ve gone AWOL on you, my friendternets, but it’s been a brutal couple of weeks and I’m so drained from it all that I can’t even bring myself to write about it.

June:

I know I haven’t been updating much lately. It’s because I’ve been going through a lot. I want to thank you all for the kind comments and notes you’ve been sending. They mean so much to me, and I’m grateful to have people like you in my life.

July:

Ever since I got braces about six months ago, I’ve noticed the multitude of people walking around with those metal things strapped to their teeth.

August:

It’s official. I’ve burnt myself out. Looking back, it was inevitable. I mean, what was I thinking? I was working full time, doing my master’s degree at night, taking singing and dance classes, working on my Grade 9 music exam, and performing in productions on top of that. And that was just the base. Add an unstable job, a friend’s death, the end of a relationship and a friendship, and my mother’s recent breast cancer scare. Stir. Add a pinch of salt and some of those multi-coloured candy sprinkles. Bake at 400 degrees for a few months and wonder why the final product is charred beyond recognition.

September:

At the folk festival this summer, I had the honour of seeing the great Utah Phillips perform. He said something that day so incredibly wise that it hit the ground with an audible thud in front of me. It was: “Following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked.”

October:

Bellydance, my ass. No, seriously – my ass! It hurts. Five hours of bellydance bootcamp will do that. It will also fry your brain. Case in point...

November:

I’m an introvert, which surprises most people when I tell them. I think part of it has to do with the fact that there are all these misperceptions about what introverts are. Like that we’re shy and insecure and don’t talk much. So, when you’re the kind of gal who puts herself on display half-naked on a stage, says shocking things in rooms full of strangers just to see what they will do, flirts incessantly with pretty much anyone, and who doesn’t ever shut the fuck up, then yes, they are surprised when you tell them you’re an introvert.

December:

In my last entry, I promised you I’d tell you about my fourth act of fearlessness. A few weeks ago, the theme for my office Christmas party was announced. It was to be a Night of Mystery party – you know the drill, everyone gets a character in advance and dresses the part; sometime in the night, a “murder” occurs and you have to figure out whodunnit. At first, I was really excited. I mean, hello – drama queen in the office – was I going to work it or what?

I guess this is the part where I tag people. Okay, Schmutzie, Soul Gardening, and Abigail, you're it!

Liar, liar, panties on fire

Him: Tell me something I don't know yet.
Me: I'm a terrible liar.
Him: Really.
Me: If you ask me anything, I'll tell you the truth because it doesn't even occur to me to lie. So, it's devastating for me when I find out someone has lied to me or manipulated me or twisted the truth in some way, because I can't understand why they would do that. I can't get my head around that mindset. And I always believe other people because I assume they're like me. It never crosses my mind that there's even a slight possibility that they could be lying. My friend Schmutzie says that I should try to lie sometimes so that my brain will understand how it all works and I will be more cognoscent of the fact that other people do, in fact, lie. But I keep forgetting to do it.
Him: Well, why don't we try it out right now?
Me: You want me to lie to you?
Him: Yes.
Me: [long pause] I don't know what to lie about. Ask me something.
Him: What's your favourite colour?
Me: [very long pause]
Him: Well?
Me: I was trying to think of a colour that I hate so I could lie and say that it was my favourite, but I don't think I hate any colours and my favourite colour tends to change on a regular basis, so I didn't want to lie and say that something was my favourite colour when it actually might be my favourite colour.
Him: Alright, then. How many times did you listen to country and western music today?
Me: T-t-t-t-twelve ppppft [bursts out giggling]
Him: [laughs] You really are bad at this, aren't you?
Me: No, really, I can do this! Try again!!
Him: Do you like salt and vinegar chips?
Me: [long pause to compose myself and in a very serious voice] No. I think the devil invented th- pppft [a massive bout of the giggles]
Him: [laughing] That's impressive. You can't even lie about salt and vinegar chips?
Me: No. I really like them! Part of the reason I had to pause so long before answering that one is that I had to try and keep myself from exclaiming, "Yes!"
Him: [laughs some more]
Me: You know, it's weird. I'm a really good actor. You get me in a character and I will just make shit up all night. It shocks me what comes out of my mouth and I have no idea where it comes from. It's like the character takes over or something, and everything is true because it's true to the character, you know?
Him: There's your answer.
Me: What?
Him: That's how those people lie. They don't even know that they're doing it. They lie to themselves and live their lives as characters so what they are saying is true for that character, even though it's not the truth.
Me: You're right. I know people like that.
Him: See? So you don't have to lie to understand it after all. But it's pretty cute when you try.

Ghosts of Christmases past

I woke up on Christmas Day crying. Christmas is always a difficult time of year, because of the emphasis on family. And I don't really have one. Usually, the whole not having a functional family thing doesn't bother me, but there's something about the image of a big happy laughing family gathered around the supper table on Christmas Day that gets to me.

When I was a kid, Christmas was a really magical time. My father would come into the house a few weeks before the big day, smelling of a mixture of the cold outdoors, cigarette smoke and leather, and would drag a big pine tree up the stairs, scattering its needles all over the 1970s linoleum in the kitchen, my mother left to sweep them up happily. The whole house would smell fresh, like pine and cold. One year, he even cut down the evergreen tree on our front lawn and plopped it in a stand in our living room. That was just plain cool when you're eight years old. It was like he could do anything.

But after he died, Christmas died with him. We just stopped celebrating it. My mother no longer bought us presents. There was no tree. It just disappeared, like some kind of mirage that never really existed in the first place. It didn't help that he had died in the fall, either. The wounds hadn't healed by the festive season, and lingered at that time each year thereafter. I think Christmas reminded my mother of him too much; she just couldn't bring herself to go through the effort. It was his thing, not hers. Twenty years later, she still refuses to celebrate it. She says it's because of her religious beliefs, but I'm not convinced.

So, Christmas is tough. On Christmas Eve (which was the night our family would gather and open our presents when my brother and I were little), I'm often adopted my one of my friends and her family. It's a fun time - great food and laughs, a few drinks and maybe some competitive Trivial Pursuit (80s Edition!) And on Christmas Day, my aunt usually has us over and we celebrate with her family. But it's not the same. It doesn't feel like a real family - just a place to have a meal. A really good meal, mind you, but that's all it is.

This Christmas, 20 years after my father's death, I really felt the loss of my family, however dysfunctional it was. But on New Year's Day, something incredible happened. Something that made me cry for a very different reason.

I went on a first date with someone really special. And it turned into the longest lunch date ever. More than ten hours in total, if you would believe. Lunch at the restaurant was more than five hours (our waitress hated our guts). At that point, I said, "I'd better get you back home for supper with your family." He looked absolutely crestfallen for a moment, then came up with a solution that would keep the date going: "Want to come over for supper?"

So lunch turned into supper. With his entire family. There were ten of us around that table. His four young nieces and nephews kicked my ass at foosball and thought that was just the best thing ever (I only wish I were patronizing them - I'm really just that bad at it.) We had the most eclectic meal ever - eggs benedict with smoked salmon, hash browns, and a salad made up of romaine lettuce, pomegranates, beets, potatoes, and feta cheese (it was fabulous, by the way). They were all such amazing people. One of those families where everyone has a quirky personality and they're always harassing one another, teasing and making jokes. But underneath all of the silliness is this intense love that radiated off of each and every one of them, enveloping the entire table.

At one point, I put a forkful of the freak salad in my mouth, and my date's dad asked, "So, how do you like us so far?" My mouth full of the strange but wonderful concoction, I could only nod, when his wife chimed in, "Way to put her on the spot!" He responded, "Well, I waited until she had her mouth full!" It was like something out of a movie. In fact, I can tell you the movie. Remember in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days when the Kate Hudson character goes to meet Matthew McConaughey's family and they're all funny and full of love and she absolutely falls in love with them, and, in turn, him? Of course, she was trying to screw him over, blah, blah, blah, and in my case, I already was crazy about the guy prior to meeting his family, but that's beside the point.

There was so much love in that house, around that table. And for one night, I was a part of it. I was one of them. In fact, when I left, they all hugged me and welcomed me to the family. Which was surprisingly not weird at all, even though it was a first date. It just was what it was. I've never felt that way before, never felt so comfortable and accepted in a room full of strangers. Never knew what a real family could be like or that a first date could turn out this way.

After I got home, I couldn't sleep. I just kept replaying the past ten hours in my head again and again as I tossed and turned under the sheets. Sometime at around 4 a.m., I broke down, overwhelmed by the emotions I was feeling. I cried because I was reminded of what I've never had. But it was also because I was so incredibly happy that I had experienced this, that I finally knew what it was like, that it was possible for children to grow up surrounded by love.

I'm going to have that one day. My children are going to have that one day. I don't know how it will come about, but I'm going to find a way to make it so.

Preface to the prequel to the lunch narrative

Savia: So...I met my soul mate over Christmas.
Friend: What did it feel like? Was it like lightning?
Savia: No. It wasn't like that at all. It felt like...home.

Prequel to a lunch narrative

On my voice mail:

Hello Savia. Here I am sitting in the Toronto International Airport watching the people walking by. I'm a bit of a people watcher that way. I've been doing so much travelling by myself that I don't really know what it's like to travel with anyone, truth be told. I'm seeing all these families travelling together, friends just coming back from Europe with their backpacks jammed full and the Canadian flag plastered all over.

I don't know if I'm allowed to be missing you, being that I haven't really known you that long, but here I am, kind of missing you.

This is just me thinking of you. I hope you're well. Talk to you later. Bye.

A lunch narrative

I'm sitting in the Ethiopian restaurant down the block. I'm the only one in the whole place because I came late, after the lunch rush, after the stragglers had left. I'm supposed to be editing this document, but instead, I write on the back of it. I find my mind drifting, wanting to create a narrative of this experience, of every experience, really, in my life. Words, images, feelings - I want to document them all, to create a concrete representation of every transient moment.

The African music playing over the speakers that makes me long to stand up and move my hips in flowing circles and waves to its tribal beats. The spices in the tea that dance on my tongue and leave a sweet aftertaste that lingers long after the warm liquid is gone. The red lights hung up around the bar with delinquent Christmas decorations sparkling beneath them. I wish you were here to see it, to taste the mellow curry in the pureed chickpea dishes, to hear my eloquent defense of how lamb really is a vegetable (I'm still working on that one), to watch me try and eat without dropping blobs of the mushy goodness all over the table.

I've never minded being alone before. In fact, I often prefer it - time to reflect, process, analyze, meditate. But in this moment, I am very aware of my aloneness, (much like you were the day you called from the airport.) Aware of your lack of presence in the seat directly across from me. Aware of the mass of land that separates us.

I miss you, too.

And the body image stuff continues

It's funny - right after I wrote this entry, I thought that the body image issues were all over. For months, I looked back on it and thought, "Wow, I can't believe that I felt that way. I'm so past that now." But that was because the people around me had accepted that this is what I look like now - they were no longer exclaiming about the weight loss on a regular basis. It had been long enough that it was no longer a big deal; this was just me and we had all moved on with our lives.

But I hadn't counted on Christmas. Because at Christmas, you typically see people you haven't seen since last Christmas. When you've lost 35 pounds in that time, it's kind of a big deal, right? I hadn't thought about it, so it surprised me when people reacted. I almost had to remember, "Oh, yeah, I guess I look different now." But I really wasn't expecting the extent of their reactions.

I spent Christmas Eve at a friend of mine's with her family. I go most years and I know everyone there. When I walked into the kitchen, my friend's mother (whom I hadn't seen in six months) stopped and stared at me with her mouth open. She stood there, absolutely speechless, for quite awhile. Finally, she said, "I wouldn't have recognized you if I saw you on the street." I laughed and said, "Yeah, it's pretty crazy, hey?" She stared some more, and then realized that she should probably say something, "You look really good, though. You look healthy. You don't look sickly at all, like some people do. Good for you!" I laughed again and thanked her.

Later on, I was sitting in the living room and my friend's sister came in. I know her quite well, but haven't seen her in about a year. She looked at me somewhat quizzically and then said, "I'm not sure we've met before, but you look familiar for some reason. I'm Cindy, by the way." I looked back at her, shocked, and said, "Yes, I know. I'm Savia." She just stared back at me, as though I were some fucked-in-the-head freakjob playing some twisted practical joke on her. "Oh my God. I didn't recognize you. You look like a totally different person." I couldn't believe it. That was, by far, the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. I didn't know what to make of it. I still don't. "You look amazing," she said, once she had regained her composure.

Later on, the night got even weirder. I was in the kitchen and a woman was talking to me like she knew me. But I didn't recognize her at all. I was too embarrassed to say anything, so I played along and made small talk, hoping that I'd be able to figure it out by listening to others interact with her. After awhile, someone said her name and I realized it was my friend's other sister, whom I also hadn't seen in a year or two. The difference was that she had gained about the same amount of weight that I had lost and, as a result, looked like a totally different person. This discovery hit me really hard. It hurt, actually. I'm still turning it around in my head, weeks later. Because I know what that side of the spectrum feels like, too. I was there just two years ago, and who knows, maybe I'll be there again one day. It's still fresh, that feeling of not belonging in this body, that uncomfortable overstuffed feeling in your clothes, the knowledge that people are looking at you and noticing that you look like a totally different person, and not in the way you'd like to. And I wonder what has been happening in her life to bring this about. I wonder if she's unhappy or stressed or sick, and it hurts. It hurts a lot.

This food thing, this weight thing, is so hard for so many people. It hurts to see others struggle with it. And it reminds me that I'm still struggling, probably will always struggle for the rest of my life.

People's reaction to me is interesting. There are the people who are genuinely happy for me. Then there are the ones who, you can tell, kind of want me to fail. You know the ones - they'll jokingly call you a "Skinny Bitch" but underneath, you know they mean it. And then there are the ones who hold you up as some sort of symbol. They really want to see you succeed, because that means that maybe they have a chance at success in their struggles. I understand where they're coming from, but I find that they often are projecting their baggage onto me.

I went to my aunt's house for Christmas supper. I hadn't seen her for about six months and she was really surprised at how different I looked. She kept approaching me throughout the night and making comments or asking questions, in absolute awe of the transformation that had taken place.

At one point, she came up to me and said in a hushed tone, "How much do you weigh?" I told her and watched her face immediately fall. "Oh...You're so thin that I thought it would be lower." My reaction surprised me. I didn't get angry or insulted or defensive. Because I knew what she was doing. She, herself, was fixated on a number on a scale and was projecting that number onto me. If only she could hear me say her magic number, she would know that she, too, could achieve it. I responded: "I'm 5'8" and have a womanly body. If I weighed anything less than this, I'd look sickly and you'd want to force feed me. This is a healthy weight for me to be."

After I got home, her comment kept playing through my head. I began to worry that her words might begin to eat at me, to make me less satisfied with my body, to make me want to do something really unhealthy. Because the truth is that you get addicted to watching the scale go down. Once you hit that round number - say 150, you think, yes, but if I lose just a pound or two, I'll be in the 140s. And then, you think, if I just lose a few more, I'll be in the low 140s. And then, it's just a few more 'til you're in the 130s. And then...

The thought scared me. It's so easy to go down that path. So I did something I never in my life thought that I'd do - I set a bottom weight. I made a solemn promise to myself that I would never let my weight drop below 145 pounds. I told my best friends about it and swore that if it ever got lower than that, I would stuff my face or get them to hold me down and force feed me until it went up again. Because you know what? I don't want to be a stick. I like having breasts and hips and thighs (which shocks me, because those things have always been the bane of my existence.) I like my curves. I like my body. And I'm not going to let someone else's fixation on a number change who I am meant to be.

Plus, I have all those new clothes. It would totally suck if they were too big.