Here goes, I am a bit rusty… be kind to me, my single reader. I went off on a tangent. We can pretend that this was like one of those “free thought” writing practices? I don’t know what they’re called. Also, please excuse the poor indentation; wordpress decided not to cooperate and it’s now 2am on 11/21 and I am tired.
I guess I didn’t understand the assignment.
The prompt: “I don’t want to do anything this weekend but sleep and eat icecream”

Skinny Legends and Ice Cream

Alexa, Alexa… my dear, sweeet, doe eyed Alexa. She sat absorbed in the single paged diner menu she held about 4 inches from her face, occasionally looking up at me with her big brown eyes. You could tell she was only picking up certain key words and was reacting accordingly. I loved her more than any of the ex boyfriends whose identities I found myself absorbing in order to stay in their good graces. She was my best friend, my soul mate, and being about as attentive as an unconcerned cat.

It wasn’t necessarily her fault that she wasn’t fully listening; I had been rambling on about work, my failing attempt at Youtube fame, and slinging stupid “flat-abdominal area” tea on social media. I always suspected she had the same issues with attention as I had, except she had never gotten the diagnosis. She was left to indulge in a heart vibratingly high amount of caffeine instead while I had been given therapy and pills. The therapy I had largely dumped when they started getting too close to the demons I preferred to keep, seeking only to check in when I needed to refill the little pills that kept me moving.

“Alexa, play classic rock” I said, knowing that would get her full attention. She looked up at me and crinkled her nose, huffing at the same lame remark she hears day in and day out in her customer service job. Suffice to say, she wasn’t pleased to share a name with a certain digital assistant.

“Shut up, google bitch!” She hissed, but that cute half smirk took over her face, creating a small dimple on her cheek. “I am listening! You just said you spent all weekend on the toilet… that’s what you get for trying to sell that crap.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to be an insta baddie. Ugh, speaking of, I have to post about that stuff again, I’m definitely not drinking it before the gym tomorrow. Honestly, all I want to do this weekend is to sleep and eat ice cream, but you know that won’t get me anything.” I paused and briefly thought about pitching myself to Halo Top ice cream to get a sponsorship, before adding “Besides, a little extra income would be nice, now that I’m finally down to just one full time job, and you know we’ve missed the age to catch ourselves a sugar daddy.”

By this time Alexa had decided on a salad and a diet coke. That’s almost always what she orders when she wasn’t restricting. Alexa and I had always struggled with our body image. In all honesty, if we hadn’t collided on that same blue and white ‘secret’ forum and started instant messaging each other, followed by sharing the ‘special’ red bracelets via usps, we likely never would have crossed paths. She had grown up in a suburb adjacent to mine, but attended a different school. Either way, she was more “quiet, semi-goth girl” that the boys were inexplicably attracted to, while I was still trying to be “smart-ass, future trophy wife” before I understood that dark red hair and tattoos were really more my style. I’m not entirely sure we would have been fortunate enough to have one another if it weren’t for that shared dysmorphia. It was one of the only actual benefits of our shared issues.

As we had climbed uncomfortably into adulthood, I had been able to funnel that self hatred into exercise and macro-nutrients, and I was able to tout my “healthy” lifestyle as being why I was able to be so thin and energetic. It hadn’t occurred to anyone perhaps it was actually a careful balance of diet, exercise, and occasional abuse of my ADHD medication. She, meanwhile, repeatedly fell into the cycle of restricting, binging, and self-punishing cardio. She had recently been openly talking about “dieting” around the normies, having hit her highest weight for a few years before safely dropping an amount that wouldn’t be wise to disclose to those who are sensitive to triggers… but I could see she was starting to plummet. She was sinking, spinning. Those around her didn’t notice this, as she was still at the higher end of her healthy weight range, whatever the fuck that is, but they didn’t know my Alexa the way I did.

I stared at the menu myself, my stomach was churning with a combination of hunger and angry stomach acid from the disgusting tea I recorded myself drinking earlier for the ‘gram and TikTok. I could feel her eyes settled on me, and I could feel the question coming.

Letting out a sigh, she finally spoke. “Jazzy, have you been doing ok?” She crossed her arms on the table top and leaned forward. The sun was shining through the window, splintering into little rainbows after filtering through my lemon water that was sweating onto the table.

Before I could speak, the waiter came and cheerfully introduced themselves, and carefully recited the list of today’s specials and soup selections. I copied Alexa’s order and we both got the damn salad.

“yeah,” I said, after the waiter left with our orders. I huffed, “I really would much rather be sleeping and eating ice cream though.”

The truth is, I was feeling trapped and useless. I had hit a point where I finally was able to drop my part time job at a banquet facility and only work at the travel agency, but I was afraid that this job wasn’t going to lead me anywhere. Not anywhere I wanted to be, anyway. I was getting older, I was losing interest in my hobbies, and I was still no closer to finding that sense of purpose or self that I thought I’d have reached by now.

“I think I’m having a midlife crisis.” I smiled as I said this, partially joking, but mostly meaning it. “And I don’t even want a damn sports car.”

“But you don’t look your age, you look great!” She tilted her head like a kitten does at a toy before it bats it away, “Not that our age is awful,” she carefully continued. “I mean, who decided that after 3 decades you’re useless? Of all people, I would think that YOU would know better”.

I rolled my eyes. “Lexiiiiiiii,” I drew out her nickname obnoxiously long, “that’s different. Don’t use my ‘divorced 40-something history teacher’ fetish into this”. She giggled and I smiled. She knew me so well.

The rest of our little get together was energizing, but not life changing. After we finished about half of our boring, leafy meal, and our third diet coke each, we exchanged our usual gratitude to each other for taking the time out to meet. I had missed her dearly, as her job had become a bit of a career, and she had become busy trying to manage her job, a boyfriend, and undiagnosed emotional and mental disorders. I suppose I too had been busy. A full time job, a part time job that I had finally been able to quit, and pouring hours each day into what I was hoping would become an online influencer career was exhausting. By this time, the sun had set, and I watched her slide into her car, the streetlamp above reducing her small frame into just a silhouette.

On my short walk back to my apartment, I thought about much I had worked to be consumable. I thought about how I put so much effort into my skin care, my time at the gym, my obsession with “safe” foods, the money I invested on fixing my teeth after too much time exploring how quickly I can “uneat” junk foods back in college. My desire to be a beloved influencer wasn’t about the money. Not really.

My desire to be adored and desired by strangers on the internet and, hopefully, eventually, companies, came down to a currency I held to be far more valuable than money. I needed validation. I craved validation more than anything else in the world. I had been working so hard on my online persona that it felt like I was living a double life. Boring, hardworking Jasmine on the clock, and thin, sexy Jazzy on the Tok.

“Pff” I scoffed to myself, opening the door to my apartment, “No one fucking says that.”

I entered my apartment, threw my keys on the end table, kicked my shoes halfway across the living room, where they surely will be lost tomorrow when I am running late for work, and plopped onto the couch. My cat Mischa was immediately in my lap.

I pulled out my phone and checked all the usual pits of despair; instagram, facebook, tiktok… Happy, shining faces, perfect bodies, angry posts about Amazon thieves being caught on ring lights in my community page, and ‘diet hacks that really work’. I slumped back into the cushions while I stared at the impossibly beautiful teenagers, wishing I had their confidence when I was their age. Slim legs kicking in dance, not a jiggle in site, sharp jawlines, flat stomachs. I worried for them, but I envied them.

Mischa intruded between my face and my phone, headbutted my nose, and purred. I looked over her fuzzy head at my phone and noticed I had some notifications on my latest video, showcasing an edited version of me in some cheap leggings, spouting the virtues of some weight loss supplement that didn’t work.

“Ur so perfect, I wish I could be skinny like u. Does this work I want 2b skinnyyyyy” one comment said. I balked at this comment. I was neither perfect nor did I feel I was a “Skinny legend”. Was this what I was trying to show the world? Yes, of course. Is this what I felt would get me validation? Sure, I suppose. I try to not click on the usernames of comments like these, but I couldn’t help but see the profile picture next to the username. She looked young. I sighed and decided to click the username.

Scrolling through her photos, I realized I was looking at a girl who was barely through puberty. She was young, healthy, beautiful. She wasn’t skinny, she was perfect. I started to feel like a creep looking through this kid’s photos, but I noticed they all had filters. Not just the cute, dog ear or cat ear filters, but the kinds that made your face thinner. Most of the photos were from the top down, and had what I assume are current day ’emo kid’ lyrics underneath them.

I felt a pang of guilt. I started to reply, deleted the response, started again, and deleted once more. What can I say? I can’t say the tea doesn’t work, or it’s unsafe; I can lose the small sponsorship I have. I can’t tell her that I got this stupid body by restricting, exercising, taking pills that kill my appetite, and facetune either. I stared at her comment and summoned all the “customer service email” skills I could and finally responded.

“You are perfect as you are! The tea is recommended for ages 18 and up, unless approved by a doctor. Since your body is still growing, it is important to eat healthy, nourishing meals, and stay active! Love your body for what it can do for you, and the rest will follow. Be safe, beauty.” I signed off with some heart emojis, careful to not come off too much like a “hunbot”.

“Fucking hypocrite” I sneered at myself. Groaning due to my legs feeling stiff and sore from today’s cardio prior to work, I finally got up, padded into the kitchen, fed Mischa, and stared vacantly into the fridge. Nothing but pickles, lettuce, bland chicken, iced tea, and diet cokes.

I poured myself some non-pants-soiling iced tea, sweetened with sucralose, and turned to look at the laxative tea that sat on my counter top. Laxxies were never my favorite, I experimented with them when I was 19, and I never much cared for them as I never liked being obligated to chill out near a toilet all day. Yet, here I was, pretending this swill was healthy.

As I laid in bed that night, half listening to a youtuber playing a thief simulator game and stealing “stacks”, I pondered if I should change gears. Maybe I should stop accepting whatever unhealthy weight loss gimmick that offered me a couple of free samples to display their product. Maybe I could try to be one of those newer influencers that show what real bodies look like, except I’m not healthy. I’m not ready to be. I’m not sure if I ever will be.

I laid back into my pillow, Mischa now sitting directly on my clavicle, vibrating contently, nearly drooling. Tomorrow was Saturday. I had set up a whole workout routine that would take about two hours, the crockpot meal that I was planning to make that would last me the week for dinner, and Alexa’s face popped into my head, her face tired from what we refer to as dieting. My thoughts turned then to the young girl who commented on my post. As I rolled over, I seriously contemplated sleeping in and having ice cream instead. Maybe it would be worth letting myself relax, be normal, and stop trying to be “perfect”. Maybe it’s time to be a better, honest, true example of how to be healthy.

Taking a deep breath, I told myself: maybe next weekend.