Selfies. Can we talk about selfies for a minute?
I finally caved and created an Instagram account last year, a month or so into my pandemic/unemployment boredom/mental health crisis. I don’t consider myself a very talented photographer, but I like to document my life and what I see, because I know that I tend to notice things that many other people don’t. That having been said, after joining Insta I quickly recognized that many people (who are, by social media standards and metrics, quite popular) mostly populate their feed with selfies.
Now, I see nothing at all wrong with this; everyone has a right to glorify their beautiful bodies. However, I’ve come to realize that there are two main reasons why I personally have rarely posted any photos of myself: 1) I think I really suck at taking good selfies and 2) Nearly a year into total COVID shutdown, I have never felt less attractive or physically fit in my entire adult life.
I’ve struggled with body dysmorphia my entire life. I was a fat kid; I eventually got a growth spurt (thanks, late-blooming puberty) and became gangly and awkward; I was happily a rail-thin raver in the 90s/00s and then eventually, I decided to get on the gym/bodybuilding/steroid train, and at 26 years of age, I finally sort of grew into what I decided my adult form was. It was fun. I got a lot of attention. Some people decided to hate me because to them I was “one of those gym/circuit queens.” And that is fine. I’m used to being hated. If you grew up queer as a three dollar bill in Alabama in the 80s, you either got killed or learned how to survive a whole lot of people hating you. Anyway. Point is, whether I chose to lift weights just to look good or to become more fit in general, I learned to love the way that exercise made me feel. Present, *in* my body. Strong. Focused. Disciplined.
Not having gyms really sucks. Not having a yoga studio to go to–where I can have a practice that’s like going to church–really, really sucks. Not being able to go to Ecstatic Dance at The Church Of 8 Wheels and fling myself around, barefoot, covered in sweat, and stone-cold sober (save for the actual brain-chemistry-induced high of the experience)…FUCKING SUCKS. You get the idea? It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been able to experience any of the physical activity that makes my body feel like anything other than a walking bag of garbage. I do not FEEL good in my skin.
I feel ugly. I feel simultaneously puffy and deflated.
I feel inhuman.
This pandemic has not just robbed me of human connection; it has robbed me of every physical practice that ever made me feel like I actually am a human.
I didn’t start writing this at 5 something AM on a Sunday because I wanted attention or reassurance that I’m still [whatever affirmational adjectives you prefer in regards to physical appearance]. I’m REALLY not asking for “life hacks” about how to create a home practice for physical fitness in any form, and I damn well better not hear a single word from a single person about anything physical-fitness-related that involves spending a single penny, when I’m getting about $142 a week to live on from the government and I haven’t been able to pay rent in full since last March. I want people to understand that presently, in my reality, physical fitness basically looks like a luxury item to me…something for the financially privileged, which is a category I have summarily been excluded from for pretty much my entire life.
I realize that there’s a lot of white whine in these words; I can say that I’m grateful for still having a roof over my head and food every day and at least one human being in my life who is legally contracted to accept some degree of my company and energy on a regular basis, regardless of the inherent risk of death (or worse, crucifixion via social media) that all human contact now apparently carries. But I am also a human being, and I am suffering, and I am entitled to express my displeasure at THIS FUCKING INSANITY THAT IS LIFE RIGHT NOW.
I want my old life back.
I want my body back.
I want to be in public.
With people.
People who aren’t treating one another like they’re fucking radioactive.
I really, really don’t know how much longer I can keep putting on a brave face and pretending like everything is just peachy keen and it’s only gonna be a little while longer before FUCKING ANYTHING NORMAL is allowed or legal or socially acceptable again.
I am losing my mind. I am losing myself.
I’m scared.
I’m lonely.
I know I’m not a perfect person and I know I haven’t always been the best I could be, in relations with other people. But goddammit, I’ve spent over a decade trying really hard to work on myself internally and be a kinder, more compassionate person and frankly, right now it feels like a wasted effort because if I can’t dance in a crowd of 2,000 bodies, or scream my head off in an arena when one of my favorite pop idols takes the stage, or–for that matter–stand in a spotlight onstage myself at a sold-out show and accept the applause from an audience that thinks something I took part in was worth clapping for…
Then why the fuck am I even here?
I don’t even know what the point of this ramble was, any more. I think I wanted to say something that maybe people would empathize with, but mostly I just feel like a hopeless narcissist, boo-hooing about trifles when there’s real suffering out there in the world.
You know what? Fuck you if that’s true. I pay for a (badly designed/maintained and mostly neglected) website; I drank the social media Kool-Aid like everybody else….I have my tiny patch of the internet’s ideosphere to stake a claim on, and I’m damn well gonna use it to say that
I FUCKING HATE REALITY RIGHT NOW AND I WANT THIS ALL TO BE OVER.
So yeah, maybe someone out there can relate. Maybe not. Whatever. Here’s a photo of my 43-year-old meatsack, in case you don’t like to read.
Happy January 17th.