Your reflection feels like the villain right now

You’ll avoid looking at any mirror you pass. You'll divert your eyes and quickly as possible.
You’ll brush your teeth with your eyes carefully focused on the sink,
you will not check to see if the dress you threw on flatters your figure, or if it hugs too tightly, if it gaps at curves where you wish his fingers were touching.

Your reflection feels like the villain right now,
like she will mock you for every short-coming tugging at your spine, whispering in your ear,
“You always bend for the wrong people.” You don’t want to see how you look.

Plus, there’s an entire world that could eye you, could decide you are a vision and never let you forget your smile has lit up cathedrals before.

But those people aren’t him.

An entire sea, you’re still lovesick on one fish
who swims in the opposite direction.
You can’t hook-line-and-sink him
if his heart keeps looking for her
in every crowded room.
Her voice has been the only thing
to conduct electricity
throughout his body
even if you keep hoping
he’ll feel the magnetism,
the magic,
the spark you hold in your hands.

You can’t make him love you
like he loved her,
like he still does.

But you don’t want rationality,
to accept the only future you have together
is when you fall asleep
and you’re finally the girl he holds
without remembering the velvet of her skin.
He howls underneath a moon every night,
hoping she will come back.

You stand in the distance watching,
hoping one day....................

There you were ...

I saw you today, it was an odd encounter. You were standing in my favorite ice cream shop and you took me by surprise.

I haven’t let you know that I moved here, I haven’t picked up the phone or sent you a text, I knew Calgary was big enough that I likely wouldn’t ever run into you, and then there you were standing in front of me with those big blue eyes that would make the ocean jealous and smile that once made me weak in the knees.

The last time we saw each other we were standing in my apartment on Thanksgiving weekend, and I was holding your hand as I told you I needed space and time, as I told you I needed to find myself and I needed to find myself without you. The last time I saw you I broke your heart. You were my life raft, you were my sanctuary, you were my refuge from the storm and I needed to learn to tread water on my own I allowed you to become too much in my life. I needed you too much.

We had just started dating when I was raped and you jumped on the first flight to see me when I called you in uncontrollable tears; tears that made me feel like I was drowning in my own grief.

You were more than I could ever ask for, you were more than what I wanted. You took a leave of absence from your job to come make sure I was ok, you drove me to therapy, to doctors appointments. You sat with me as I had a blank stare on my face as I looked into outer darkness. You wiped my tears when I would have nightmares and you held my hand when the emotions got too much for me. You assured me often I was going to be ok, you pulled me back from the brink of losing myself.

That Thanksgiving, three months after my raped happened, three months after you put your life on hold to help me heal, I realized I needed to heal on my own. I needed to tread water on my own, I needed to learn to breath on my own again.

Until that moment I never had anyone give up anything for me. I was always the one making sacrifices for everyone else. In that moment it was too much for me, in that moment I needed to learn to save myself.

As soon as you saw me you sprinted towards me, picked me up, spun me around, and looked at me like I was a rare jewel – in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald “he looked at her in the way all girls want to be looked at by a man”. 

You have so many questions for me and I had so little answers for you.

That Time You Broke Me

It was one of those cold rainy nights we sometimes get in September, the ones that are perfect for cuddling, you know the type of night I’m talking about. M and I were tucked away under the bedsheets. I was in heaven.

What M was about to say wouldn’t only forever change the way I felt about being in bed with him but It would forever change the way I feel about myself.

“Hmmm, interesting” he said, caressing the backs of my calves with his big, strong hands. “What do you mean?” I said, wide-eyed as a little girl on Christmas, bracing myself for his hand to make its way up to my lady parts.

“This.” He slapped my thighs, then gripped them so hard I screamed. “You could definitely tighten these up a bit.”

My body went from generating heat to growing completely cold. I was flushed.

“I think they’re fine,” I said, sinking deeper and deeper into the covers.

“You’re so close,” he continued. The man wouldn’t stop incriminating himself. “You’re nearly there. You just need to spend more time in the gym… let me help you transform your body.”

In an attempt to not succumb to my vulnerability — and instead fight back with wit — I grabbed at the thin layer of flesh on his thigh, hoping to make a look-you-have-fat-too!-point. But the truth was, he hardly had any fat on his leg, so I just looked stupid.

Hearing put-downs from the man who was supposed to love wasn’t exactly how I envisioned that particular night going. Had I missed something? Why did I need to be “transformed?” 

Dating M was great when it was good. But when it was bad, it was awful! As with anything in life, there are pros and cons to dating a guy who spends day and night in the gym. Good sex in the bedroom, beautiful man candy on your arm and having a boyfriend who’s skilled in manual labor are just some of the pros. He’d assemble pieces of furniture for me, so I’d overlook his general douchebaggery.

But the cons were some of the biggest points of contention in our relationship. He had this insatiable affinity for the gym — both for feeling his best, but also for looking his best — while I was never too crazy about it after I quit swimming. He was obsessed with maintaining his “perfect” body.

He’d often send me “inspirational” photos, like ones of fitness model and whom I would never look like because frankly I enjoy pizza and popcorn way too much. 

He once told me I was the laziest, flabbiest, most undetermined human on the planet, and I’d nod in acquiescence, like a bobblehead doll incapable of independent thinking. Except I wasn’t, I’ve run marathons, I’m a former swimmer but he had me so diluted that I thought so low of myself. 

I’ve never been uber confident about my body like any girl who’s ever existed, I have insecurities. One day in the life of Tiara could mean feeling fantabulous in a tight white dress, but another day could mean a refusal to leave my apartment because the pair of jeans I’m wearing make me feel too fat to be seen by the world. I’ve always had body dysmorphia but M made this escalate. I once was able to look at pictures of myself and not tear myself apart but when I look at it now, I see the six-pack I don’t have. I see a nonexistent thigh gap. And I don’t see the sculpted-to-a-T arms I worship on Women’s Health magazine covers. I see tree-trunk thighs.

At the time we were dating, I didn’t take his remarks to be demeaning. I took them as constructive criticism. I wanted them to uplift me, make me want to strive to be better, not just when it came to looks, but also when it came to other facets of life. I figured that maybe, if I had a gym regimen to stick to, I wouldn’t be haphazard in things of great significance, like starting work projects and balancing my friendships.

Bettering myself meant going to the gym. And so I went, creating a sort of obsession of my own out of it. I wasn’t going to feel good or look good for myself; I was going to look good for him. 

In order to build muscle, though, I needed to lose fat. So in conjunction with working out, I started eating less and less, that is never a good rollercoaster for anyone to get on. 

My arms got skinnier, my tree-trunk thighs got smaller, and I lost 40 pounds.

M’s unwillingness to take me as I was — the jiggly butt, thick-thighed, trim-but-not-toned me — broke me.

There’s something about a man telling you you aren’t good enough that sticks with you long after the man is gone (as if there weren’t enough pressure on women, from women, to look a certain way). Being with him roused something in me, something I wish had stayed sound asleep: my insecurities. It confirmed that those trivial imperfections on my body weren’t trivial at all. They were worth changing. He made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, and that I’d never be good enough. I still don’t feel like I’m good enough.

For a long time after M and I broke up I felt different I felt separate from my body and it turned me into sort of a recluse. I struggle with trusting men, and I struggle with accepting I can’t fight the natural development of my figure. I’m still trying to get back on track.

These days, I “take care” of myself (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean) as best I can. I eat healthily. I run on the regular and I’ve move forward from my verbally destructive relationship with each passing day, as much as I still carry around my personal piece of hell.

But I also try to remember that no one is “perfect”: not even my chiseled, Ken doll ex, because what he possessed in body confidence, he severely lacked in character.

The Girl Without a Father

It will not be different at first, or at least you will not realize it is. You will do the things all new couples do, joke, share silly stories. Laugh louder than you ever thought possible. Laugh until your sides hurt. You get high off innocent touches, you get drunk off of her when she lingers on your shoulder for just a second longer. 

She’ll kisses you like you are the first person she has ever kissed. The thought of her will keep you up at night, in the best way possible. Everything is fun and exciting, new! She will do whatever she can to make sure you are having fun. She needs it to be fun because she understands darkness too well.

She will always carefully speak. You may even notice she never says “parents” and she'll look away when someone mentions their father. You get consumed with a strange, irrational guilt when you answer a phone call from your dad. It feels dirty, like a secret that will unravel this ethereal happiness you’ve built together, it won't. Though she envies and will always envy the relationship you have with your father she'll bask in it because she's never had that before. 

She does not even flinch when asked about her family. She has memorized this back and forth. You wonder how many times she has regurgitated the same script. You can picture her standing in front of her mirror, practicing what she will say when someone asks about her dad. You will wonder, was there a time when she couldn’t even spit out the words? Did she choke on her own grief? Are you capable of being with someone so guarded? Someone with so many walls?

As she lets you in she will share small moments with you that do not seem like much of anything to you. She tells you about that one Christmas when her dog drank all the eggnog and didn’t die. She’ll say “My dad was so worried. He let her sleep in the bed just incase anything happened to her.” You will kiss her forehead, and she will direct your hands to hold her. She has never asked to be held. Do not underestimate how monumental this is. This is her slowly lowering the shield she has spent years crafting. This is her trusting you. This is her letting you in. 

As she lets you in she will shy away from discussing problems, any problems. She has learned to walk on eggshells around issues. You don’t understand how someone so feisty, so full of opinions and fire, can go mute when confrontation approaches. She is flight when you would have been sure she’d fight. You get too close, things get too real, and she runs. She has running shoes on stand by at all times.  

A girl without a father does not want to create waves because she has been underwater longer than she cares to admit. She is not a pushover, though you may push and ask why she is so scared of making anyone upset with her. You ask how she can be so brave on paper, but so scared of opening up face-to-face. She will deflect and bite back with sarcasm. She self-deprecates, calls herself messed up like it’s as casual as her first name. You will think maybe this is it. Maybe she will never be honest with you. 

Here is the truth: it should not be surprising that conflict makes her skin crawl. It should not be absurd that she will passively sit by, figure out the best way to avoid saying anything that will put a riff between her and someone she loves, because people fucking leave. And that is terrifying and she learned this lesson at a young age. The only man she ever truly needed left when she was not done needing him, it is fair game for anyone else to decide it’s not worth it.

For anyone else to decide she’s not worth it.  

None of that will spill out very easily. She doesn’t want these labels: The one with abandonment issues. The one who keeps you at a distance. The one looking to fill a void. The fatherless girl. She does not want your pity. 

When you date a girl without a father, you need to understand you will not always understand her, not even close. And if she is worth it, love her anyway. Just love her and let her open up at her own pace, in her own time because she isn’t used to letting people in.