Undoing my Body: A Triptych
Sometimes I’m convinced that my body does not exist. Maybe I’m a ghost, only perceived by the people around me. That is until I feel my 31-year-old body creak at the joints and needing the relief that can only come from a muscle relaxant. Many nights I squirm in pain, sometimes passing out from sheer exhaustion. I don’t know which came first—my difficult relationship with my body or the pure agony I carry from owning it.
I went to a physical therapist before the latest lockdown. My muscles are stiff, and my back is uneven due to tension. I am told that stress probably caused all the soreness radiating from my shoulder to my lumbar area. The therapist, a towering man with deft hands, asks what I do for a living. I tell him I’m a lawyer. Magically, it all seemed to make sense for him.
But what really makes sense in my head is knowing exactly how I got here. Years of medication did something for me to go from wiry and angular to too heavy to pull myself up. I did care about what was physically happening to me. To this day, it is still a difficult conversation. Back then, I had to make a choice.
I am slowly learning to be more comfortable these days. My body’s continued existence must mean something. What I do with it now is a promise.
The 90-Day Attempt
For 90 days after my birthday earlier this year, I attempted to lose weight—an expensive diet plan, coach, etc. I was asked my motivations going in. I don’t want to die, I said. Not in this pandemic. Not when I had just started to figure out my life.
The first month was a breeze. I was eating well. I enjoyed working out. I beat the hell out of my Apple Watch-wearing friends in fitness challenges. I liked earning virtual badges marking milestones in my workouts. Activewear and home gym equipment topped my expenses that month. I talked to friends who have shed weight dramatically, hoping to be the next goddamn fitspiration (or thirst trap).
I talked about it a lot. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Hidilyn Diaz apparently even liked my weight-loss tweet.
Numbers started to tell me that I was on track. I was losing weight, gaining muscle, getting leaner until I wasn’t. Until crazy, stressful work caught up with me. I lost 15 pounds at the end of the 90 days. I’m scared of hitting the scale again, knowing I quickly gained some of what I’ve lost.
I used the treadmill yesterday, the first time in weeks. My legs cramped up easily. I have not touched my weights rack in more than a month.
I still don’t want to die. That is the most convincing reason I have for myself now, and maybe ever.
Pain as accounting
Ask me what my tattoos mean, and on a good day, I might tell you what significance they (probably) hold. Most of the time, I fumble with my bullshit. I’ll let you in on the joke: half of them have a story, half of them because I had cash and time to burn.
I got four tattoos since the pandemic started to add to my first four. One of them is Picasso’s bull, done by an absolutely fantastic Italian artist in Torino, the other three done locally. As far as designs go, all my ink is in black and in different sizes.
Trust tattooed folk when they say the pain transforms to a feeling you’ll come back to over and over. I was going to get a tattoo much earlier. I once went with my then-girlfriend’s tattoo session, and her artist offered to do my first one for free. I said I’ll “think about it,” mostly because I was scared and also because I didn’t know what to commit to my skin permanently.
The thought of permanence was the only mental barrier that got in the way. Eventually, I’ve learned to recast my body as a canvas for my state of mind. That state of mind, mainly being impulsive, is a tiny detail I haven’t told most people until now.
I don’t mind the raised eyebrows over my design and placement choices. I have done much more damage to my body and made more questionable decisions that have altered the course of my life.
Every time I get a tattoo, I pay close attention to how the needles puncture me in rapid succession. Therein lies its quiet seduction, its baffling hypnotic power. Each prick is an irreversible point in time.
The haircut and the one after
A consequence of growing huge is that my usual haircut couldn’t frame my face properly anymore. Worse, I bore a resemblance to the Benjamin twins, and the jokes got old fast. It’s the same punchline every year since 2017—I will dress up as Ben & Ben this Halloween.
The day I got my second dose of the vaccine, I felt extra high on life. Why not do something bold today? So, I went to a salon and got a short haircut. The place I usually go to wasn’t taking walk-in clients that day. Instead, I went to the smaller salon beside it with only one stylist.
Kind of a bad idea because I ended up looking like a short-haired tita, but at least the foundation was set. I did not have to live with long hair anymore.
I bought several hair products that afternoon and looked for hairstyling tips. In the weeks that followed, I still wasn’t as happy as I expected to be. My hair, as if rebelling and traumatized, would simply fall flat. I bought a hairdryer, hoping it would help achieve the brushed-up look I wanted. Sure, I got compliments mostly for being brave, but I felt I could be braver.
The styling at the end of the haircut made me the most uncomfortable because it was still a step that preserved my femininity.
I am not feminine, far from it. Some days I wish to jettison its traces from my body. Yet, I know I do not identify as a man. Maybe somewhere in between? I don’t know yet. Whoever I choose to become is someone I have yet to learn.
I knew the logical choice. One afternoon, I went to a proper barbershop. Fuck it; I’ll pretend to know how I want to look. Make no mistake, though, because I knew exactly what I wanted to be: happy. The first time I went to the barber caused a mild confusion. Ma’am? Sir?
No silly salon-style hair dying this time. Only a deep massage, like the one I saw my father got through the years from his own barber.
I knew how I came out of that shop. Resistant of what’s expected of me. Smiling.
Free.