Masks

Thursday nights we do art the last hour that we are there. It is really not about the art but rather about the expressions. The first Thursday night they gave us journals to decorate. It was rather relaxing sitting there cutting out words in a magazine and pasting them onto the journal. I didn't feel guilty that I was sitting there doing something meaningless instead of doing laundry or dishes or something else.

This Thursday they told us we were going to decorate masks. It is a cut out of your face. You are supposed to decorate the outside w/ all of the emotions that you have a hard time expressing and the inside w/ all of the emotions that you are comfortable with.

I had no idea how to start this. I had wanted to do a mask ever since I had seen some that another lady there had done. I wanted to do this so badly but didn't have the courage to start. I am not sure if it was because I didn't know how to portray the images on the mask or if I was afraid to try for fear of someone laughing at my mask. All I know is that I sat there almost the entire hour with tears running silently down my face. One of my friends there tried to talk me thru it. Tried to get me to start. I think it just made it worse. It seemed ridiculous to me that at almost 36 I was having to be talked thru an art project like a 5 year old.

It has been bugging me all day today. I am not a quitter. The only person I ever quit on is myself. I called the center and asked if they would consider letting me take a mask home to work on when I was by myself. I went by this afternoon and picked it up. I am going to try to start on it this evening and see where it takes me.

This whole process has been much more than I bargained for. I went in thinking that I just needed to learn how to diet better. I now have openly admitted that I have an eating disorder. I have finally realized that this has never been about the food. It is about some deep wombs and some very ugly truths I have about myself that have been forming in me since an adolescent. It is about going back, grieving for that girl and moving on. I know that as hard as this is on me and my family it is going to be worth so much more once I am on the other side of this very difficult journey.