Stranger
I don't recognize this body.
I mean, it's fine. A little chubblier than I'd like, this time of year, but I'm behind on the running and the training and all of that for many good reasons. It wears suits well, and pretty dresses with coordinating jackets, these lovely clothes that are also unfamiliar but necessary in my fancy new life. It looks fine, and it more or less works, but the weight on my thighs and legs and bum is unfamiliar, and uncomfortable. I don't know how this body moves, it's not strong in the places I'm used to bearing weight. I'm slower than I used to be, lack of training and lack of motivation (and, oh, the exhaustion) but also just an inability to move in this.
Marco will fix the hair soon, which is too long for good reasons (Shavuot followed by half-marathon) and that is fine. But Marco will also need to fix the strange-colored roots that I've never noticed before. Maybe it's just the scourge of fluorescent lighting. Maybe it's the need of a good shampoo. Or maybe it is, in fact, the last six months caught up to me.
I say the thing I cannot reconcile myself to is the ear that is blocked and will never stop ringing, and at some level it is okay to be shaken off-balance by such a change. I'm left-eared now, lucky to have scored a desk with my bad ear toward the noise and my good ear toward the phone. Listening to recorded music is not the pleasure it once was; summer concert season is about to begin and I don't know if I'll have to adjust or how I will adjust. The hearing loss is minor, as is the pain, but at some level I've seized on this change as the one I'm allowed to rail against, focusing all this anger at this body that is not mine.
It's fine, this body, even lovely and certainly capable of doing the things it needs to do. It's just not one I recognize at mine, in a life I'm not sure I recognize as my own, and I don't know how to learn to live in it.
I mean, it's fine. A little chubblier than I'd like, this time of year, but I'm behind on the running and the training and all of that for many good reasons. It wears suits well, and pretty dresses with coordinating jackets, these lovely clothes that are also unfamiliar but necessary in my fancy new life. It looks fine, and it more or less works, but the weight on my thighs and legs and bum is unfamiliar, and uncomfortable. I don't know how this body moves, it's not strong in the places I'm used to bearing weight. I'm slower than I used to be, lack of training and lack of motivation (and, oh, the exhaustion) but also just an inability to move in this.
Marco will fix the hair soon, which is too long for good reasons (Shavuot followed by half-marathon) and that is fine. But Marco will also need to fix the strange-colored roots that I've never noticed before. Maybe it's just the scourge of fluorescent lighting. Maybe it's the need of a good shampoo. Or maybe it is, in fact, the last six months caught up to me.
I say the thing I cannot reconcile myself to is the ear that is blocked and will never stop ringing, and at some level it is okay to be shaken off-balance by such a change. I'm left-eared now, lucky to have scored a desk with my bad ear toward the noise and my good ear toward the phone. Listening to recorded music is not the pleasure it once was; summer concert season is about to begin and I don't know if I'll have to adjust or how I will adjust. The hearing loss is minor, as is the pain, but at some level I've seized on this change as the one I'm allowed to rail against, focusing all this anger at this body that is not mine.
It's fine, this body, even lovely and certainly capable of doing the things it needs to do. It's just not one I recognize at mine, in a life I'm not sure I recognize as my own, and I don't know how to learn to live in it.