Trying to Wake Up

I am feeling like I should’ve stayed in bed. Meds, coffee, light…still asleep with my eyes open.

If it weren’t the shot, I’d swear I had chronic fatigue syndrome.

I hate feeling this way. I don’t know what would help. I’d try anything.

I have to get up to get coffee #2, but I’ve got a Shane on my lap. I’ve got my black yoga pants on, and they’re covered in orange cat hair.

I got yoga pants for biking, not to wear out everywhere. They have deep pockets for my phone, which I still use as my pedometer.

I don’t think I’d wear yoga pants out even at my thinnest. Because even at my thinnest, I still have hips, thighs, and a butt. And I would be really self-conscious. Like Katie, the cheerleader I went to high school with. She was thin, but she did have a butt. A butt that all the boys checked out every time she got up, but a butt nonetheless.

She was always whining about how “fat” she was, yet she’d tell you she was a size 4. If you’re a size 4, you have no business complaining about your weight.

What she was doing, really, was fishing for compliments. I hate it when people do that. I mean, I suppose everyone does it now and then. Human nature and whatnot. That doesn’t really bother me. It’s when someone does it chronically, almost pathologically.

I worked with a woman who frequently fished for compliments, and I’d just roll my eyes. She was also a narcissistic egomaniac. Like she needed anymore self-assurance.

I know, deep down they’re all damaged, insecure, fragile trembling flowers who need love and special attention. Okay fine, whatever. Somebody feed their bottomless need for attention or die trying. Just stop annoying us with your fishing and your back door bragging. You’re so transparent I can see your intestines.

I just think if you’re feeling insecure about something, you should be honest and forthright about it. You should have the courage to simply ask for validation when you need it. Even “Do you think I’m heavy?” is better than wailing “I’m faaaaaat.” At least you’re being open and direct about what you’re looking for, instead of just being…ridiculous.

And I know it bothers other people too, because I used to mimick Katie in front of these girls I hung out with. Finally one day, this girl Beth blew up at me and told me to stop having myself a pity party about my weight. “You’re thin!” She yelled.

Evidently she hadn’t realized I was only imitating someone else. And yes, I realize I was being bitter and petty, mocking Katie. I was in high school, whaddayou want?

I guess it bugs me that this personality type is often rewarded for their behavior with tons of compliments from friends and admirers who feed their egos with brown-nosing: “Oh, Katie, you’re not fat, you’re thin and perfect and everyone loves you and wants to be you!”

By senior year of all that baloney, I felt like saying, “If you think you’re overweight, Katie, you could always do something about it.” I never did, though. That would just be messing with her head, and I knew it, and I wasn’t like that.

I did sometimes say to her: “If you’re ‘fat,’ what does that say about the rest of us?” She had no answer for that. Calling her out on her behavior, though, didn’t change it.

I’ve always been interested in behavior. I used to “forget” my flute at band practice freshman year so I could read my friend Sam’s psychology textbook the whole period.

But I transferred from Swampscott High to Saint Mary’s my sophomore year, and St. Mary’s didn’t offer psychology.

Then I took psych 401 freshman year of college, but I took it too early in the morning (I was very much a night person), so I was never awake in that class. Somehow I managed to pull off a C.

I don’t think I would’ve made a good therapist, though. I’d get that secondhand trauma they talk about (the actual term is escaping me right now), and I might not have much compassion for the Katies of the world. And probably none at all for abusers.

Anyway, I’m definitely awake now.