I took a few weeks off. I told everyone I needed a break. That I needed to catch my breath. That I've been too busy. Reality is, I am completely and utterly exhausted. I feel drained. No, that's not really true. I don't feel anything anymore and I haven't for a very, very long time. I have only been working. I have been working my ass off ever since I started high school because I always wanted to be the best. I don't know why. To please myself? To please my parents? To make up for the fact that I have always known I was socially awkward and fat? I don't know. Everybody has issues and these are mine.
It could have been much much worse. I know I have been lucky. I come from a loving home. I had four grandparents until well into my thirties. I was born in a great time and in a first world country. It could have been so much worse. But in reality all I have is work. I am alone and while I am perfectly happy about that, I am reaching a point where I really miss talking to someone. My parents are getting older. I cannot keep confiding in them. And I also cannot really tell them everything because some things are just too private. And maybe it's not true that having a significant other person in my life would make things easier. But my hopelessly romantic heart yearns for a soulmate.
I am a scientist. I know I don't deserve anything. That all of this is happening as sheer coincidence and that I am just a little speck of organised matter in the midst of great chaos. But there are times when I wish I had done everything differently. When I wish I would've have had my teenage nose anywhere else than in books and movies. That I had lived a life instead of dreaming about it. That I had taken better care of myself. That somebody had taught me how to do that instead of algebra.
The real problem is that at this point I don't even know how to do that anymore. I don't know how to eat properly. I don't have any fixed schedules because there is just always me and so it has never mattered when I eat, when I sleep and when I don't clean. I have no structure. I pour all of my control into work and it has gotten me to where I am, but I have lost all control over my own life and over my body. I know I have eaten like a slob. I haven't enjoyed a bite of food in forever, no matter what I have been shoving down my throat on those late nights when I come home from work at 10pm.
When I started this job I was already heavy, but in the past two and a half years I have gained 13 kilos. All the statistics tell me I am obese. My mom has told me she is worried. I hate myself but I don't know how to start fixing it. I am scared to get help, but I know I need it. My house is a mess because I don't think it is big enough to hire a cleaner. So how sad is it to go to someone who is going to have to teach me how to eat properly and how to take care of myself? I feel like such a loser, but I know something has to change because I have not been happy in a long time and I cannot keep hiding in books and movies.
I can blame it all on stress, lack of exercise and poor eating habits. And I know that I have nobody to blame but myself, but at some point along the way I have just stopped caring. I stopped caring about my body ever since I was bullied in elementary school. Ever since the family physician said it was just how I was built. Ever since I noticed I was not popular with boys. Ever since strangers called me fat or ugly or just looked at me like I was. Rationally I know it is never too late. And rationally I know it has to stop. But when my parents call me I just tell them I am okay. I always tell everybody I am okay. But I am not. I am stuck in a body that I have loathed for as long as I can remember and that I cannot blame anybody else for not loving either. I have spent the best years of my life hating myself, and I have dealt with that by just completely neglecting myself. I don't know how that is even possible because I am a huge control freak in every other area of my life. I have so many talents that I know other people admire. So I always sort of thought that maybe this was my one weakness. But it is starting to get in my way. And I really want to feel again. I want to fall in love and experience heartbreak and live. But I just don't know how to fix this - if I have never found a way to fix it before, how can I possibly fix it now when even with 120% of my energy focused on work there is not enough time to do everything I need to do?