tuckova

i’m not in my cleverest place. i have a dozen things on my mind and
every single one of them i start to talk gently to, ima lure you in and
figure you out, i say, and i hold it in my hands and then think this is
not the thing, this is not it, examining this will not make me
better or anything different and what is it with me and my need to
hold, to define, to describe. i start sentences that are full of
promise and then i feel like, i don’t know, haven’t i said this
sentence before. i know how i feel, you know how i feel, what possible
interest can there be in this for me. for you. anybody. even the things
themselves skulk away from me in a combination of fear and slithery
boredom that makes me wonder. what am i up to? i can’t say.

here’s one thing that i’m thinking about: why is it hard to do things
for myself physically? i don’t mean the way i look, like "why can’t i figure out the trick to mascara?" or "why does cutting my hair sound like so much bother?" about 10 years ago
i went through a thing where i couldn’t leave the house for a variety
of reasons, one of which was that i had this feeling that i shouldn’t
be in public without a bag over my head and i didn’t have a bag in the
house that would fit. it was a very complex feeling; i was not what you
would call at my most sane at the time. anyway, i’ve come to terms with
the fact that i have never been pretty but nor have i ever needed a
paper bag
over my head. when you get to know me you will say i am "actually kind
of attractive, in an unusual way". i know that now. but i had this
nasty thinking
about my appearance for years, alternating between self-loathing and a
sort of vaguely tolerant acceptance, and although now i like to think
of my attitude towards my appearance as "reasonable affection" the effects of the negativity are still
apparent, and it’s spread to areas
that aren’t about appearance but health. exercising is easy but
remembering to do it is hard. eating vegetables is easy but remembering
to buy them is hard. drinking water instead of coffee is easy but
somehow there’s the coffee in my hand again. why is that. none of these
things are even about long term results, it’s like immediate
gratification for me the minute i get my heart rate up over 120, and
the
next day when my stomach doesn’t feel all clotted and hateful, and the
night when i can fall asleep instead of lying in bed doing inventory of
all the bad things i’ve done in my life. and yet here i am.

i know people who don’t do things for themselves because
there’s this fear of failure, and i suspect it’s the same ridiculous logic. like, if
i don’t study and i get a C, i can say it’s because i didn’t study. but
if i study and get a C, then it’s because i’m stupid. i think at some
point i hitched my health to the idea of my looks, and although i know
that exercise, vegetables, and caffeine free won’t turn me out of a
pumpkin, i somehow have the lingering feeling that striving is somehow
setting myself up. not like setting myself up on a nice date with the
new improved me, but like, setting myself up to drop a bucket on my
head. so i’m fighting with this bitty leftover person in my head who doesn’t want us
to try to be good and fail to look good, and it’s a thumb war of
horrific proportions. today i had spinach and turkey for lunch, and
tvaroh with possibly the last tomato-flavored tomatoes of the year. it
was good.

but you see how this is not the thing, isn’t it; how i almost pinned it
but it got out from under me. it’s not like i can’t get where i’m
going, it’s that i get halfway there and think: hasn’t this been
covered? get a spine and think about something that really takes your
whole brain instead of another mirthless dive at how old habits die
hard. glar.