By Amanda Long

Thursday, May 28

Up at 4 a.m. to workout before my 7:36 a.m flight to Louisville. I love National Airport in the early morning, the way the sun comes through the long-enough-for-a-moving-sidewalk hallway to gates E. I don’t love the gift shops full of Trump shit, but I was pleased to see stacks of it marked down. Decided to test my ability to read an actual book after mainlining audiobooks for the last six months. Bought The Seven Deaths of Eve Hardcastle, on the recommendation of a client and because it has a pretty cover. Paid $2.79 for Mentos and a Diet Dr. Pepper, because I allow myself soda on trips and because why not create a gastric bubble factory before I get on a plane.

When I scanned my boarding pass, the gate guy told me I’d been switched to 21C. I blurted out — “Oh, just like the Jack Harlow song — and we’re going to his hometown, Louisville. Blank stare from young guy, big laugh from his older coworker. It felt like a good sign for the trip, and was followed by an even better one: I fell asleep on the plane. I haven’t fallen asleep airborne since perimenopause — not back and forth from France in April and never on these short jaunts to see Mom. What I did on the way home from Italy in September was more like happy, groggy hallucinating than sleep. I landed in Kentucky, well rested and ready to rumble with the final details of selling Mom’s house.

“Justice has arrived,” my phone announced as my Uber pulled up in the bright sunshine outside Muhammad Ali International airport. About time, Justice!

His gold Buick was spotless and he quizzed me about living in Chicago and the D.C. suburbs. When I told him I moved to D.C in 1999, we learned he was half my age. “I moved to Chicago when I was exactly your age, and it remains one of the best moves of my life. Go for it!” Here’s hoping Justice makes it to Chicago.

Got to Mom’s house before 10 a.m, eliciting squeals of joy at my early arrival. She greeted me in a cute new dress and her gait was much less wobbly as we walked around her fancy still-new retirement villa. Her front porch plants had died and at age 83, my green thumb of a creator, announced she’s done trying to make outdoor plants happen. She’d bought some fake ones and was just fine with it. Inside, a Mother’s Day gift plant was thriving in the windowsill. Her sun-filled cottage is a 180 from her former, cozy but dark little place and she’s thriving too.

Got right down to business calling all the utilities at Mom’s old place to finally shut them off. Made some more financial-related calls and explained the concept of Auto-Pay to Mom, the first of many such explanations of the weekend.

Mom wanted to show me off to her friends, so we met them at the main building of RiverCrest as lunch was about to be served. We were greeted heartedly by Jacklyn, the social coordinator, and her daughter who was working there to earn volunteer points for school. “Did your Mom tell you how she got that dress,” Jacklyn asked. At her favorite consignment store, The Mustard Seed, I answered.

“Well, it was on a mannequin, so your Mom had me ask to get it off and we left that mannequin naked in the middle of the store.” “It looks better on me, right!” Mom chimes in to laughter from all of us.

Before we even got to the table, a young cute server was bringing two (!) glasses of milk to Mom, the resident lactose lover. I was introduced to the gang, asked about my stay while Mom chugged one glass. We didn’t stay for lunch (ham, it’s so very often ham).

Picked up three bunches of roses at the grocery store. Drove to the cemetery where Mom’s mom, Mary Francis, her sister, Barbara, and brother in law Donald, are buried Found Grandma easily, but hadn’t a clue as to the location of Barbara’s gravesite. Aunt Barbara was Mom’s fiercest protector and closest friend, and her death was too early from Alzheimer’s is a wound not yet closed in our family. All of us were too wrecked and the weather was wicked for any graveside ceremony after Aunt Barbara’s funeral more than 10 years ago. I wanted to make sure I was with Mom when she made her first visit. Mom assured me there was a map at the office.

The office doors were locked due to ongoing construction and renovations, so I followed the handmade signs to what I thought was the right door. Wrong. Cleaners greeted me and told me to go around another corner, immediately enter the elevator and go to the second floor. Fluorescent lighting and low ceilings greeted me in the office, but no receptionist. I saw two very bored “salespeople” in a room waiting for someone to die. The fun fact a day calendar was stuck on Wednesday and I pulled it off, hoping to move us all into the future a bit more quickly. Just as I was about to give up, three officious older women ended their funeral-home renovation meeting and saw me standing there, holding the past, Wednesday, in my hand. The receptionist wasn’t in that day, one lady explained and she’s in charge of the calendar. She took my aunt’s name, I guessed at the year she died and she disappeared into another room in the warren of them behind the desk.

The place was quiet and had “Six Feet Under’s” absurd blend of mortality, mind-numbing office work and cemetery-map treasure hunting. During the long wait to find Barbara in the files, I read Thursday’s fun facts. I simply had to read this one aloud to the salespeople: Did ya’ll know that the patron saint of funeral homes, funeral directors, and embalmers is Saint Joseph of Arimathea?”

They did not.

Back out in the sunlight, we followed a confusing map in the soggy grass to the third row down and second column to the left of the St. Mark statue (after we’d done the same thing at the wrong statue, St. Matthew). Neither of us could find her; neither of us would give up, passing the map back and forth, reading aloud names and trying to not trip over graves. After about 10 minutes, a young landscaper came to our rescue. Again, the absurdity saved us — walking in circles, with Mom occasionally asking aloud, “Barbara, where are you?” we couldn’t cry for laughing. “We should do an escape room next,” I said. “We just did,” Mom retorted.

Next stop: Roses for the estate lawyer’s office manager who helped me clear every Power of Attorney obstacle during the sale of Mom’s old place.

Our visiting and paperwork chores done, we headed for lunch and sat in the sun, drinking Prosecco (me) and sipping Maker’s Mark (her), laughing and celebrating all of it: the sale of the house, finding the grave, me eating lunch and not throwing it up, being home.

I took a nap at 5:30 and woke up the next morning in Mom’s bed to her sweet snore/sighs that sound just like those of our older dog, Laser.

Tune in for the next installment: Friday, when we drive 45 miles into the country to do a cheer in my high school’s parking lot and trespass on the wooded driveway of the house I grew up in.

For the first seven years of my massage career, I gave advice I never followed: Rest, listen to your body, swim, know that you can’t just keep doing the same thing and expecting something different, like doing cardio daily and wondering why your ankle throbbed.

I was in my third decade of an eating disorder, one marked by overexercise, which helped me mask and present as a fit, healthy person, a massage therapist who understood the many running injuries and obsessiveness that pushes us past our limits. In running communities, that kind of mind set is celebrated. In my treatment room, I would offer a safe space that allowed the client to hold onto that identity and rest. Witnessing my clients heal when they rested, somehow, I could never allow myself the same grace. I saw my every injury as proof I was already broken, so why give up my coping mechanism?

I came to the massage through an injury. When I was 27, I broke my femur in a bicycling accident, hitting steel plates on the way to work, flying over the handlebars and thwacking my right leg into the trunk of a maroon Nissan. I was taking a rest day by biking to work instead of going to the gym twice, because. my R hip flexor was injured. No more than two minutes after I hit the ground, I was immediately in b series of good hands: the cops who stopped to call an ambulance (one took my bike back to my apartment), the EMT who told Me to yell my favorite cuss word when she straightened my leg, the ER nurse who called my mom and editor (now husband) and the orthopedist who expertly placed a rod in my leg. But the hands that helped me come back into my body were those of a PT and one helluva if a massage therapist at Athletico in Chicago. I didn’t stop over exercising then, but I did start seriously thinking about becoming a massage therapist.

In 2017, I checked myself into a residential treatment center for eating disorders, and my recovery has been like all healing: the opposite of linear. What it has done, however, has allowed me to connect with clients who have also long relied on their bodies as their only arena of control. They are afraid of aging (dying), of giving up their identities as a runner, or athlete, or person who always walks 12,000 steps a day. I mirror to them the cost of that obsession. I’ve lost teeth, a femur, hours of time with now-dead friends and family so I could be with my eating disorder and make it happy. I have never kept that cost a secret.

I gave up my smart watch two months ago, and the liberation is real. So was the fear at first that I “wasn’t doing enough,” that I didn’t walk enough steps to stop for food, or enjoy a seat in the sun with a friend. All of those revelations have informed how I talk to clients -- it’s softened me and opened them up to the spectrum many of us are on when it comes to exercise -- especially in this data-driven culture.

Massage is a door, a speaker, a way into being present with your pain and the message your body is always sending to you. Being nonjudgmental is always the goal, but being candid and super human about my own struggles with loving my body and being kind it has been a game changer. I see clients let themselves off the hook; I see the shame lessen, and that’s when we can work together more effectively.

I recently went to Paris for the first time in my life, a trip my eating disorder would have hated. I got a massage there from a therapist in her second year. She asked me for advice. I told her to protect her thumbs, get lots of massages herself, and always be real with clients because no healing can happen if lies and a fixer mentality are in the room.

Every body is aging, changing and coming up to the limits of what the mind demands of it. Massage reminds us we are one with our bodies, not at war with it. Being a massage therapist reminds me I’m not fixing anyone because no one is broken, just deserving of rest, care and presence.

Articles are what I used to to write for more than 20 years for The Washington Post Magazine, its Home and Living section and the Washington Business Journal. Substack has been my off ramp as those assignments ended.

Essay seems the more appropriate term for the 57 pieces I’ve published since May 18, 2025 My first real one, “Split (Almost) in Two” was about the undeniable closeness of my mom and me. About our shared pain and our inability at times to keep our emotional and physical realities separate. Talk about a tone setter!

Mary June has starred in about a 20 percent ?? (as she says: I don’t do numbers) of my essays, and continues to fuel the creative flow. In the past year, we’ve moved her out her house and into a retirement villa. I’ve mostly taken over finances after a few scam attempts. We are finally closing on the sale of her home this week, nine LONG months after it went on the market. I’ve written about her pain and abuse at the hands of men who were supposed to love her. I’ve written about the hilarious stories she tells, about letting Muhammad Ali and James Taylor. She’s fallen on her head and bounced back with no concussion. I’ve called her stupid when she accidentally posted financial information on Facebook. I’ve written about the need for tech desks at every single retirement community and already come up with a name for it: A Place for Mom’s Phone. I’m sure Joan Lunden would approve. I’ve written about her strength and her fragility, about her blind spots to my pain and eating disorder and her refusal to condemn my asshole of a grandfather for touching her in ways no father should. I’ve likely caused her shame in my efforts to cauterize wounds with exposure. She remains my biggest fan. She’s welcomed my help at every stage — only recoiling when I mention how much the fancy ass Ford Escape that she bought from my sixth grade boyfriend who owns the big dealership is costing her.

I’ve rediscovered and relied on Hoosier hospitality as I’ve called her bank, her financial advisor, doctor, realtor, lawyer, HOA and resident assistant wonderwoman at the retirement community. I’ve celebrated and memorialized her brother, Bert, who died last summer, having taught us all how to keep on living loving, cussing, inhaling and playing after being paralyzed from the waist down in his late 40s and getting cancer in his last decade. I’ve become the family memoirist, without asking permission.

The woman who created me is in my every creation. It seems fitting to celebrate and acknowledge that on the birthday of A Long Story.

Yesterday, I stuffed two paper towels in my bra, despite the fact that my boobs were the biggest they’ve been in my 54 years. The paper towels were there to soothe my chaffed, sore nipples, made raw and tender by a surge of hormones I’m paying for. The day before, I’d cut my workday in half, felled by cramps that made me hate the smallness of the word “cramp.” Both pains felt inescapable, which is why I was distracting my nervous system with Bounty and a uterus-shaped heated pad.

I started hormone replacement therapy 11 weeks ago, after hemming and hawing about another endocrine intervention. I’ve been on thyroid medication since childhood, and I pretty much fucked up the whole feedback loop with a three-decade eating disorder that shut down my period and allowed bra-free living since 1990. In recovery since late 2017, my period has come back with a vengeance, introducing headaches, cramps, and a gushing flow I’d only heard friends and clients (I’m a massage therapist) describe. I told myself that I deserved all this — to feel like a woman, since I’d avoided menstruation for most of my adult life. And sometimes, I just wanted an excuse to lie in bed all day with my heating pad while my husband delivered Gatorade and cleared the nightstand of saltine crumbs. I followed all the menopause gurus on social media until they offered diets or tried to sell me weighted vests. In recovery, I am overly sensitive to anything marketed as a belly-fat buster and worried HRT would be another muffler keeping me from listening to my body and accepting its changes.

But in the past two years, the hot flashes became almost comical. I dripped sweat on clients more than once. I left parties when I felt like someone put a microwave on my head. I awoke at least twice a night for a wardrobe change. I began sleeping with a towel close by, to put under my soaked body when the 3 a.m. puddle beneath me had me shivering. Sometimes, I welcomed the mood swings as they allowed me to be a little bitchy, to not always worry about making everyone around me happy. I liked the excuse menopause gave me to be irritable in a world that increasingly unleashed its hostility on women shamelessly.

Then I’d read something about women who wished they’d done HRT, only to find out it was too late. Friends and clients started taking it and reported they “felt like themselves again,” that “the bloat” was gone and their “skin didn’t look so damn crepey.” I recognized all those symptoms — and my own anxiety about “missing out.” And even more importantly, I was just learning what feeling like myself actually felt like. I was allowing my body to fill out and change, the inverse of what I did in puberty, the last time I boarded the hormone rollercoaster, only to shut it down with extreme dieting, purging, and over-exercise.

My primary care physician, who’s seen me at every weight and every injury, recently began winding down her practice as she’s become the head of Virginia Hospital Center’s menopause clinic. The serendipity seemed too good to ignore, so I finally made the appointment to discuss HRT. Like always, Dr. Remy got right to the point: “Look, here’s what HRT is FDA-approved for: hot flashes and bone-loss prevention — both of which you could benefit from.” She, my therapist, and I are still surprised that my DEXA scan didn’t reveal osteoporosis, but I know I’ve been bouncing around like a Crystal Light commercial and not eating enough long enough to want all the bone help I can get.

That was March 3. I got the Estradiol gel — because someone at the factory didn’t make enough patches and they were backordered — and 200 mg of progesterone, both of which I “take” daily. Slathering the gel into my lady hips nightly makes me giggle a little, like “here, lady parts, this is for you.” The progesterone makes me sleepy, and as Dr. Remy said, “no one complains about that.”

So all was going well, and then the breakthrough bleeding started on schedule, two months in while I was in Paris. Then it stopped. Travel messes with all your systems, and like my GI tract, my uterine lining was going nowhere until I got back home.

I also noticed I was horny as hell, another sign the estrogen was kicking in. Every man and gal in black-panty hose in Paris was worth a double take; I couldn’t keep my hands off myself or my husband. That and the fact it was 90 degrees when I got home from Paris and summer always brings out my sexy beast. My skin started looking fuller and I started wearing sexier clothes and reading more smut written by women on here. Hello, ladies!

But all good things come to an end, or at least a bloody mess in your drawers.

Since the beginning of May, I’ve bled daily and heavily. Last week, my breasts seemed to grow a cup size overnight and became so tender and sore I began cupping them as I walked around. I’d take my bra off for some chaffing relief only to feel the weight of them slam with every step. I used to be able to do a warm-up without putting on my sports bra, stretching and jumping in place to wake up my lymphatic system. LOL. No going now. I complained to my closest friends and husband, but felt like I had no right. Other women, my large-breasted mom, sister and close friends included, have dealt with unwieldy, un-ignorable large breasts since puberty.

My time in the itty-bitty committee had come to a painful, startling end. Sure, I took some sexy pictures, of my new chest shelf, nipples erect and looking like a 70s truck stop waitress. I tried on old bathing suits, and separated a few that were not fit for the family community pool. But most of what I did was put heating pads, Aquaphor, Tiger Balm (bad idea) and paper towels on my chest.

When I sent a message to the doctor about my sore boobs, she said we could cut my progesterone in half, but that would likely make periods heavier. Pick your pain, basically. I got a facial yesterday from a shaman (it was perfect) and she questioned whether all this intervention was worth it. I don’t know. My friends who’ve been through this say it will pass, that it gets easier and the periods go away and you get used to larger breasts. My body has changed more in the last five years than it has since puberty so I’ve decided to hang on for another month, to see if I find some homeostasis and don’t go through 10 tampons in two days.

The universe has a sense of humor I can’t match. I recently wrote an article for Another Jane Pratt Thing, entitled “My Eating Disorder Made Me Look, Act and Feel Like a Teenage Boy.” My recovery has definitely erased all signs and symptoms of that. I no longer treat 7-11 as my lunch spot, nor do I shop in the Old Navy boys section. Since I am touching my boobs lots, I guess I do “feel” like a teenaged boy, still. My recovery has made me feel like a woman — and I’m both grateful and gobsmacked at the range of pain and pleasure our bodies endure and enjoy.

I write this not to complain or even crowd-source sore-titty remedies, although I welcome them. I write to keep the menopause record as complete and multi-voiced as possible.

In an attempt to text me a photo of her annuities dispersement document, my 83-year-old mom had posted a document with account numbers onto the internet’s bulletin board for scammers. My gut knotted, and I thanked my cousin. Then I did a series of stupid things. I called my mom from the car.

“Is it down, yet?” I asked, with no hello or preamble.

“I’m trying,” she said.

“Do you know how to do it, or are you just clicking around?” I said, hot sun in my face, foot on the brake, cursing Derby-partiers2 double-parked in front of the wine store.

“It won’t go away,” she said.

“Mom, can you for once admit you don’t know how to use your phone?”, I asked, like a little bitch, as if such an admittance would help anyone in the moment.

“I didn’t even realize it was on there,” she said, a defense that proved my point, but again left us nowhere closer to safety.

“How can you be so stupid as to not know when you’re posting to Facebook? We had just got all this money stuff situated. We both finally felt OK, and you just put your bank info on Facebook!”

Silence.

I told her I’d figure it out and hung up. I don’t have a Facebook account anymore, so I couldn’t log on to see it or even log in as her. I voice texted my other cousin who lives nearby, begging him for help and promising to Venmo him money for the inconvenience. A long string of helpless words that took Siri a full 30 seconds to read back to me. I sounded insane. “Do you want to send?” SEND.

I called my husband. He didn’t pick up.

I called the front desk of the small retirement community at which Mom has an independent villa, explained the situation and asked them to send someone over, acknowledging it was not in their job descriptions and explaining I’d never ask except for the financial risk. They sent over the gal Mom calls RoadRunner, for her speed and efficiency in weaving between the tables at lunch and dinner. I’m sure this has been logged in some book that we’ll all use to convince her to go into assisted living at some point.

I pulled into a 7-11 and called Mom to tell her help was on the way. “I already took it down,” she told me, defiantly. “Before they even got over here.”

I treated myself to some Twizzler and gnawed through them nervously as I texted one cousin to see if she could double check it was down and the other to tell him to stand down. “Parenting our parents is a full-time job,” cousin one texted back. “What’s going on? I was taking a nap like an old person. How can I help?” her brother chimed in, waking to my two-inch text.

I tried to tune back into Bosch, for an escape, only to hear him describe his strained relationship with his daughter. All of us stupid with people the closest to us.

“You didn’t have be so harsh to me,” Mom texted, her communication skills in fine form. “You’re the one who asked me to send you these important documents on my phone. I remember every harsh word.”

The Twizzlers roiled. I exhaled. She was right. Of course, she remembers every harsh word. The harsh words from her father, when he snuck into her room; the cruel ones from her boyfriend as he punched a hole in the wall as I stood outside of the room, mad at them both for staying together. The snarky ones from old friends who didn’t talk to her at the high school reunion.

She was right about my forcing her to use her phone in ways I know she’s decreasingly comfortable with. Whenever I try to explain the phone to Mom while on the phone with Mom, I realize how goddamn infuriating it is. This woman didn’t have a color TV inside her home until she was eight. Now, she has one in her purse (or likely plugged in the wall and off). Am I gonna understand how to hologram my crypto card to the robot that delivers soft food to our retirement condo? Likely not. Am I gonna have anyone who loves me around to call me stupid? Nope. No kids to nag or help me out. That’s when Karma is gonna show up in a pair of scrubs and take my hologram machine away from me, and likely mutter “stupid,” as she walks away.

I have to admit that whenever Mom can’t do something, I feel as if I must. I take every misstep as a welfare check, and that’s not fair. We all misstep. She’s got her wits about her. She’s social. She goes on outings and calls me with hilarious stories. This week alone, as we’ve navigated trying to sell her house and cash in some annuities until then. She’s thanked Robert and me countless times for our help: “I just don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Yeah, Mom. I know. I know the cord between us grows stronger. I know Dad’s death put us in a codependent relationship out of necessity and loneliness before the word was in either of our vocabulary’s. When calamity strikes, that cord can feel like a constraint. When I get those calls that start: Um, Mandy, your mom ….

And really, whatever comes after that is some form of: Mandy, your mom is human and needs help.

I reacted yesterday, as if she purposefully ruined my Saturday. I reacted like a frightened only child who wishes someone else would help out, even though I was surrounded by evidence of family members and a food-staff member on her break going out of their way to offer assistance. I was the stupid one, stupid with a fear that blinded me to all her intelligence, independence, her humanity. If I was afraid, imagine her fear.

I apologized. I explained I was tired, that the exhaustion of worrying about her finances had shortened my already short fuse. She kept going, claiming her ground.

“We are not sending each other financial information via the phone anymore. Don’t ask me to do that.”

OK, that’s sound smart. ]

“I don’t deserve to be yelled at.”

I was still sitting at 7-11. If you wonder why people sit in their cars in the hot sun in 7-11 parking lots, here’s one answer for you. Overwhelmed at the thought of dumping this on Robert when I walked in the door and worried I needed to do more, I called him. He told me to email our contact at the bank, to monitor her online account and then reminded me that she doesn’t have that much money in there anyway, so don’t worry about it. And then he said what he’d said a thousand times, overhearing us.

“Don’t yell at your mother. And don’t ask her to do what she doesn’t want to do.”

Later, on a walk with my other old gal, Laser, I called Mom’s landline after calls to her phone went unanswered. She was napping and wanted to hear about our plans for our anniversary dinner, excited that we were going to the Greek place we take her when she visits. “Oh, I can picture you two by the window, in your new skirt from Paris.”

I apologized again, admitting my helplessness and decades-old fear about money. I owned up to reverting to 17-year-old Mandy’s approach: saying things to your mother you say to no one else, sharpening proximity as a weapon. I blamed menopause. I blamed the distance between us and the guilt. She said something worth more than anything in that bank account.

“Well, once I started defending myself — not for what I did, I know that was a mistake — but for not letting you talk to me like that — I couldn’t stop.”

Don’t ever stop defending yourself, Mom. And don’t talk to your mother like a scared bratty beast, Mandy.

Epilogue: This morning, I checked the status of an anniversary gift I’d got Robert: a magnifying glass (romance in your 50s). Turns out I’d sent it to an address of a condo I stayed at two years ago, a stupid mistake.

In Paris, last week, I did something I haven’t done since I was 15. I ate three meals a day. Since my first diet and the decades of an eating disorder that grew out of it like the spawn of deep trauma and a whisper of control, I have skipped meals with Olympic-level ease and velocity - if skipping were an Olympic sport. Some lunches were protein bars and fruit, but every day, I ate three times a day. I felt freaking fantastic.

I ate on the plane. I ate in airports. I consumed food that was not Twizzlers, or Mentos. I ate those too, but I also ate the protein bars and dried fruit I packed, the salad with asparagus and shrimp while watching “Sentimental Value,” over the Atlantic, and the garlic pretzels that gave the entire Air Canada flight a certain stench.

I’ve been in recovery for eight years, and ventured into breakfast this past September on vacation in Italy, alive with the pleasure of the juicer in the hotel and the taste of yogurt without fake ingredients. Sure, sure, the many steps we took helped, but mostly I felt freaking better. It is truly amazing how the obvious eludes you when you’re sick. Waiting until 1 or 2 p.m. to eat is not a victory. It is not.

I’ve written about my husband’s own complicated relationship with food, born of a birth defect with his gastrointestinal tract and multiple food allergies and sensitivities that presents as colitis and IBS. This can keep him in the bathroom for hours, and to avoid that, he often avoids eating until he just has to. On vacation, our schedules would merge and I’d not stop until he did to eat, and often not as much. The first time we had lunch together on vacation was in 2018, one year out of recovery when I had a smoothie in Hawaii. I could feel us both exhale.

I went to Paris, solo, to visit my friend Kristen who has seen me at my worst. She visited me in treatment, she drove me home tipsy from too much wine, she pulled the car over when it caught up with me, she watched me skip meals and promise everyone I’d eat when I got home. When I arrived Wednesday morning, my jet lag had my stomach in a mess, but the first errand we ran was to the grocery store around the corner. After that, the rhythm of Kristen’s day helped set my own, removing the shame of being the only one eating.

That day, in St. Germain, she patiently helped me read menus at at least five cafes before we found one that didn’t scare me. My salad, with dressing and yummy goat cheese and honey, was delicious and overwhelming. I didn’t finish it, but I ate more than half and when I got up to go to the bathroom, it was only to pee and marvel at the tiny winding stairs inside the cafe. That night, I had breakfast for dinner because I was falling asleep at happy hour and my stomach was doing its own Olympic routine.

I’d given up Diet Coke in mid-February when a bout of gastritis forced me to face my one lasting crutch, the most powerful high jacker of hunger cues. I tried a glass that first night at Cafe Boheme, and it did nada for me. I did find some excellent gummies from Haribo and others I had to buy at CarreFour whose packaging enticed me with “For Your Pleasure” promises. So, candy, I still love you; aspartame, not so much.

The next morning, after jumping rope in front of the Eiffel Tower, I stopped at a boulangerie for a baguette and coffee. We shared the baguette and yogurt (I want that yougurt in America maintenant!) and berries on the train to Epernay, to drink in the gorgeous scenery and its output. There, I had my first omelette with a green salad at cafe called — you can’t make this up — Le Progress! Eating disorders make no sense. I know omelettes are healthy. I just had no facility with ordering beyond the salad menu until the last two years. That evening, worn out from walking all over Epernay in 77 degree weather and up and down the steps at the train and Metro stations, we stopped at Monoprix, where I bought a chicken and green bean salad, and ate it on the floor in front of the TV with the baguette from the morning. C’est parfait. I fell asleep as Sean served Kristen the hamburger and fries he made her. Still, I ate dinner. That’s three meals and a victory pour moi!

The best meal of the trip was at Liza, named for its chef, described in the Michelin guide: “Originally from Beirut, Liza Asseily gives pride of place to the food of her homeland. In a bright interior strewn with Middle Eastern touches, you can expect mezze to share, grilled meats or fattet batinjan (aubergine, minced lamb and yoghurt).” Emily, Kristen’s friend in Paris, suggested it when she spotted the decision fatigue on Kristen’s face and the overwhelm on mine. It was perfect. In flickering candlelight, I ate fatoosh inside a pita-like ballooon (I got cracking honors), hummus, chicken, roasted potatoes, bread and the salty tears streaming down my face at all that I’d missed and all I was finally taking in.

I asked for dressing on the side only once, in the safe confines of a hotel bar, Frame. But you better believe I dipped my shrimp in that dressing several times. I ate the rosemary-crusted cashews, too. So there. I had a carafe of Diet Coke and Champagne there, eating dinner solo in the shadow (had it been sunny) of the Eiffel Tower.

I missed my eating disorder when I was feeling frumpy about my style and unmoored the first 48 hours, but I shook that off after writing about it. As its hold loosened, I felt more confident and less anxiety-ridden, more likely to seek comfort in a good meal than in a mirror. Finally, I am learning to trust myself to know what to consume.

Premier Jour

Arrived at 8 a.m, April 8, wearing a thick layer of plane sweat and sporting a navy blue Marine Layer ringer tee under a Sweaty Betty oversized running hoodie, paired with 2015 maroon track pants by Mossimo via Target. They looked cute, but after 10 hours the ‘80s football-coach fabric felt like forced exfoliation. Varsity Blues, indeed. Comrade tie dye compression socks for health and my reliable Saysh sneakers that proved their worth on Sperlonga’s stone steps in September. A Mountain Hardwear (!) cargo green jacket completed the look and refined the silhouette, IMO.

Kristen, my Annie Sullivan of Everything Europe, and her made-for-Paris pooch, Ranger, greeted me outside her flat on Avenue du Suffren just as my Uber arrived. We dropped the bags, walked the two blocks to the Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower for some neighborhood reconnaissance. Hit the market around the corner for yogurt that will forever change how I consume it, produce, legumes and protein bars (Bonjour, Barebells, good to see you here.)

Back to the flat for a mini stretch and workout then a shower. Changed into what can best be described as a “goes to Paris once ensemble:” super soft bell-bottomed denim from my local consignment boutique, with zippered pockets, and a middle seam that delivers a faintly Jane Birkin vibe, paired with a white boatneck Madewell top with cornflower-blue stripes and 3/4 length sleeves. Changed into my bright yellow Sauconys and orthotics. It was hot, hot and hot, and my first-day-on-vacay sense of overwhelm and bloat had me way inside my head, feeling gauche and fixating on every fille in a crop-top and mini skort or fancy pair of pleated shorts. Parisians and their layers, however, shall not be parted, and oversized leather jackets, black pantyhose and lug-soled boots paraded by us as we sat, sardine-style, at a cafe in St. Germain, drinking rose and eating a gigantic salad with goat-cheese toast. When we first sat down outside, I was next to a glass partition, and could feel my legs cooking. With my knee compression sleeve under denim, I feared a sous-vide situation, so we moved, much to the entertainment of our equally hot, and likely perpetually aggrieved with tourists, waiter.

Zero complaints about the weather, but I’m wishing I would’ve packed a little-bitty bottom layer that wasn’t a 2007 Lululemon skort. Reminded myself to get out of my head about 30 times and succeeded to about 20. I mean, look around, lady. Notre Dame! My friend, the Seine! Beauty, history, Gallic noses and kids with more style than Vogue. As we enjoyed the sidewalk runway, Kristen told me she felt a similar sense of playing catch up when she first moved to Paris almost two years ago, but has since been reminded with every consigned gaucho and Gucci getup that “anything goes.”

Kristen is not only my intercontinental guide, she’s also my personal shopper. She led me to a street full of quilted and hand-sewn jackets I’d never seen, nor would have ever purchased without her encouragement and the impassioned “serving suggestions” of the vendor: “It’s made to be oversized! You can wear it with a belt, right here,” gesturing to my under-boob region. (I will never wear it with a belt). I don’t even know how to describe this jacket, other than I love it because I bought it on a whim on my first day in Paris.

Deuxième jour à Épernay

Up at dawn and in my forever fashion equalizer: workout gear. Ran, skipped and danced in front of the Eiffel Tower, downright giddy. On the 10:30 train to Epernay with Kristen, eating a baguette and yogurt. Wore a shirt dress from EverEve that I bought on a date night in February, shouting out of the dressing room to Robert, “Oh, this sucker is going to Paris avec moi!” It was the one item that didn’t fit the Sodoku puzzle method of packing in which every layer matches another, top to bottom). But who cares, Champagne demanded I dress up a little.

Here’s a fun fact that will make Robert’s toes curl when he reads this: I went braless, the weight of the sweater, the heat of the day, and the site of so many nipples encouraging me to do so. On the train, I felt bound in by my panties. I’d packed period underwear, as this trip was timed for the breakthrough bleeding of HRT about which I’d been warned. They had to go. I took them off in the tiny bathroom and shoved them in my Wilco tote. Undergarment-free, I drank in the gorgeous quaint town and the charming, made-for-TV-Champagne at Perrier-Jouet, with Kristen at my side sporting a saucy little culotte-jumpsuit meet-cute. I may have flashed my fellow Metro riders, when facing a stuck turnstile, and I had to canard under it. C’est la vie!

By Friday, temperatures and confidence were rising. My use of fashion as armor, born of a country girl’s fear of getting it wrong (what’s street style on Rural Route 1) can be like many overuses: crippling, rendering me dependent on “what everyone else is wearing” and feeling left behind, affordably and culturally. I’ve long had this fear that I’m wearing the wrong thing. It was surreal to read an essay I wrote, titled "J’Adore My Anorak of Armor” about a J. Crew piece that helped me through a vulnerable college time, published on this Friday, while I was in France!

Open Secrets Magazine

Object-ives #30: J’Adore My Anorak of Armor

It’s August, 1990, Indiana University. College classes start in one week. I’ve already noticed that my clothes are not quite right. They’re cute, but it’s as if I missed some internal memo about Rugbys, Doc Martens, and rainbow belts. I was able to secure the belt at the co…

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2 months ago · 19 likes · 5 comments · A Long Story

I knew I couldn’t adopt my own style if I was always wearing what the girls in Seventeen wore and we couldn’t even afford the ugly brown oxfords all the private school girls wore in Louisville! I had to make it up as a I went. I had a mall-rat via aspirational Espirit ads kind of look. I inhaled everything sporty (Adidas crops, Umbro shorts) striped and beachy, as I always looked my best on Spring Break. I love complimentary colors and silhouettes and comfort. I often err on the side of things that make me feel thin, but I’m outgrowing and out aging that. This is all to say that by Friday, I had picked up on the local vibe, spotted all the white jeans and sweaters, and knew just what my suitcase had to offer.

and now, back to the clothes

A Shift to the Right Bank

The day ahead offered the marble floors of the massive, but doable, Musee D’Orsay admiring art, made by the former residents of the day’s second location: Montmartre and its many steps and consignment stores.

For all of this and more, I wore off-white, straight-legged, mid-rise J. Crew jeans from Goodwill, a navy thrifted school uniform button-down and a navy white and green rollneck sweater, a nod to the sweater’s periwinkle ancestor I wore to French class in college. All the layers served me well, and the only thing missing was a scarf, sported by Emily, an American in Paris along with her husband Andrew, I met at Kristen’s wedding in Italy. I equally coveted and complimented her black pants by Madewell. Like his bride, Sean knows coats, and apparently, also shackets.

Day 5

Day 5 shows up on brand as a drizzly, cold Saturday, perfect for a massage, shopping and an early dinner in terrarium-like hotel-lobby bar, all glass windows, giant plants, jewel tones and people who looked like celebrities.

My base layer comprised very wide-legged Madewell jeans and a ribbed navy Buck Mason top, a brand I found via one of ’s excellent essentials list. On top: a Zara zip-up I got at a mall in Assisi on the day of Kristen and Sean’s rehearsal dinner in Spello. It kept me dry and toasty in Paris too.

Au Revoir

Full-day of travel ahead of me, so I’m up early to move my body and inhale all the fresh air I can. I dance on a neighborhood sidewalk early Sunday morning, wearing Figs leggings and the 80s-forward bubble gum pink and black wind breaker Kristen nabbed for me at a T.J. Maxx in Arlington.

I made it the whole trip without joggers, but today is made for soft clothes. Up top, a Buck Mason crop top under a Marine Layer crew sweatshirt. Saysh on my lavender Sauconys, fortified with orthotics in in my backpack, lest my steps catch up with me on that layover in Montreal.

On Monday, buzzed on six hours of sleep and the slumber-party energy of being awake for 24 straight hours the day before, I caught the Spring Cleaning Bug easily, made more potent by unpacking into a disorganized closet. I culled five bags of clothes, including items made immovable by nostalgia: my first pair of Chuck Taylors, Moving Comfort running tights in bright teal. I’m no longer hanging onto jeans that don’t fit, but I was still able to cull some back-benchers. The edit left me grateful for for what I’ve kept, and what I’ve let go.

I decided the summer before middle school that the mixing of elementary schools would give me the chance to re-launch Mandy Temple into the North Harrison school system’s greater collective. By the end of the first day of sixth grade, I’d signed up to run for student council (got it), cheerleading (made it) and started “going with” one of the two most popular boys from the other elementary.

I’d also met Maria, who sat next to me in a few classes because our last names were at the end of the alphabet. Tiny, but fierce, Maria was the youngest — by 15 years or so — of three girls and way too much for her aging parents. She was sharp-edged and a trouble maker, but she “liked” me and there’s nothing I like more than befriending a wild animal, proving that a little love can make the most feral of cats stop scratching my eyes out. One week into sixth grade and I was teaching Maria moves for Take It to the Limit, the try-out cheer. Half-way through the year, and we were writing our boyfriends’ names on one other’s backs with our fingers, jostling her waterbed and earning shouts from her dad to KEEP IT DOWN. To this day, I don’t have an inside voice.

Maria was mercurial, telling me her deepest fears one minute, then hip-bumping me onto the basketball court mid-chant to the giggles of the other girls on the squad. Her parents loved me, considered me a good influence (I was smart and a rule follower, a get-along gal who tried and failed to keep the peace at my own house). Even Rudy, my mom’s boyfriend whose anger was physically directed at my Mom and verbally directed at me (“yes, your ass is still there, stop looking in the mirror)”, noted that Maria had a hold over me like no other. “What’s the little rat fink got on you? She treats you like shit.” Game recognizing game and all that. What she had was a first right of refusal in many ways. I’d bounced around like a satellite on the edges of slumber parties and Girl Scout meetings from third to fifth grade. I had a few good friends, Sheri, Chris, Marla and Krista, but not my own person. Maria pulled me into her orbit and I couldn’t figure out how to exit without making her mad. I spent most of my youth trying not to make anyone mad.

And then Jennifer came into my world like the tap-dancing force of good and family rituals that I could not resist. Like Maria, Jennifer, Julie, Julie, and Nichole were from the other elementary and I spied their easy way and laughs early on. They even joked with Ms. Walton, the sixth grade teacher everyone knew was the coolest. She wore jeans and had horses, or a guitar, something cool. They were so nice to me and soon we were sitting near each other in English class, doing our homework together and complimenting one another’s Nikes and pleated jeans. Maria was not pleased, but I walked the line between cliques like Philippe Petit crossing between the Twin Towers, careful not to look down or be lost to no friends at all.

Maria was a wild child, and wanted to do increasingly wild things. Her parents had the harshest rules and she broke almost all of them, just not as many when I was around. I was her good-girl friend, until I didn’t want to be anymore. The summer between sixth and seventh grade, she started hanging with a rougher crew, drinking in barns and getting into cars with boys I knew would at best, get me labeled a slut. I made my move, writing a long, carefully worded note, basically breaking up with her. I remember being impressed by her response: “Your (sic) so low you have to look up to see down. I’ll throw away your toothbrush.”

By the time seventh grade began and were cheering on the sidelines together again, we were cordial. She had an older boyfriend and I was just a boring nerd, a stuck-up prep — not worth her time.

I was at Jennifer’s house almost every weekend, often from Friday to Sunday. I loved going into Louisville to her dance classes, playing tennis and sprawling games of hide and seek with her older brother and his best friends. My first date was a double date with her big brother, Steve, and his best friend, Troy. Every thing about that house was safe and bright and flat, meaning the light was everywhere and we could go on walks in her subdivision. I lived in the woods, surrounded by trees and hills. I got a mo-ped when I was 13, so Mom, a teacher, wouldn’t have to drive me to driver’s ed during her summer off. Mostly though, I was at Jennifer’s house. I got ready for eighth-grade graduation in her ballet-pink bedroom, shellacking a chin zit in Cover Girl Foundation, so you couldn’t miss it. In 10th grade, Jennifer and I helped get our chemistry teacher fired because, well, he wasn’t teaching us chemistry. He’d tell us to open the book and read, and then oversee a few labs. Our chemistry two teacher, for whom I was a teacher’s assistant, had to dedicate the first eight weeks of the semester to the basics. I was posing for Spring Break photos in Jennifer’s yard the night my boyfriend took his ex to prom. I’d start Christmas or Easter morning at my house, and end the day at Jennifer’s. I watched her dance to “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey” at recitals and slink around in a boa like a woman born of another time. She was the Fritzi to my Mitzi, two of the three USO dancers in our junior year production of MASH. Things were so PG at Jenn’s that when her brother had over friends, we’d all sleep like sardines on the living room floor, watching re-runs of “The Andy Griffith Show.” No hanky panky except all the fantasies playing out in my head for her brother’s friend who’d dumped me.

Jennifer knew I was a bit wilder than her, and loved and accepted me for it. She also called me on my shit. She knew my house was the fun house, and her was the one where dinner was served every night. I knew where the crackers were in her Lazy Susan (truth be told, I knew where the crackers were in all the cabinets of all my friends. Crackers couldn’t survive in our mildew-prone woodsy home). I got closer to other girls in our crew during high school, but Jennifer occupied a special place, that represented home, routine and goodness.

When I left for college at IU-Bloomington, Jennifer stayed home and attended IU-Southeast. She called one day with what I could tell was important news. “I’m going to quit college and marry Aaron (her older boyfriend of at least three years at this point). I’ll work at the bank. I want babies!”

She must have known she had little time to waste. When she died at age 36 of cancer, she had three sons, all of whom I’ve watched grow up, thanks to social media. I’d moved away, first to Chicago and then the suburbs of D.C. I remember walking to the Metro as she shared her cancer diagnosis. I distinctly remember feeling guilty. I had an eating disorder and lived the opposite of the healthy life she did. I never went home enough and will forever be grateful for all the hands-on care our friends provided for her, her boys and her husband. When I went home once, a local elementary class had raised pennies to help pay for her trip to Atlanta for treatment.

Her oldest, Cameron, a middle schooler when she died, stood next to her coffin at St. Michael’s for the entire packed Mass. He’s so much like her. An elementary teacher, with a gift for turning the mundane into an event - JUST LIKE HIS MOM— he’d decorate his classroom like a ‘50s diner and host sock hops.

Jennifer shared a birthday, August 6, with her mom, Jean. I can’t imagine the ache of that day. I text Jean, but don’t interact as much as I should now that I’m off social media. Maria’s birthday was August 7. She died when she was 41. The last time we were together was Father’s Day of our freshman year. Her dad told her she could bring a friend to the lake if the friend was me. We slathered on Panama Jack, listened to Motley Crue and then got back to our wildly different lives. Jennifer and Maria shaped me in ways I am still learning. Tiny, fierce and fighting the world Maria softly scratching my back. Graceful, giggle-prone but never gullible Jennifer hoisting me on her back in her front yard, talking me down from every heartbreak, us dancing at every chance.

Last night, the high school friend group text lit up with news that Cameron is a dad. This morning, Easter morning, we put heart emojis on the picture of the baby, all agreeing that the kid would have had the best grandma, and reiterated our protective, 40-year love to one another. Saint Jennifer, I know you were in that room, because you’re in every room when I feel myself fill with a love that’s holy and forgiving.

I hear confusion and ‘not another app” ennui from friends and readers who get on the Substack app only because an email prompted them to read my essay.

I don’t have a good answer, and that gave me the idea to do it myself: to be a curator/aggregator of the most personal type. Please note: THESE ARE NOT THE BEST ESSAYS ON SUBSTACK. These are the ones I couldn’t stop talking about, the ones that made me think, laugh, cry and re-stack.

File Under: Mothering

My first interaction with : I told her in the comments that every time I see her name, I break out into song, “Dia Lupo, Dia Lupo, I’m trying to do more with you than just a duo” — : or some mangling of Jack Harlow’s Dua Lipa’s lyric. Her response made me cackle, like everything she writes. She lives in/near Philly, so that already means I love her because that was the favorite city of my dead best friend. Dia, you’d have loved John. Anyhoo, this is not about me.

Today, she announced she’s having a son! And like all her stories, it delivers (!) all the feels.

Read it here

Broke But Moisturized

Surprise: I am having a SON!!!!

Usually my weekly journals have a paywall. This week is totally free. **NOTE: This journal touches fertility, so please do not read if that’s a sensitive topic for you…

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2 months ago · 60 likes · 11 comments · Dia Lupo

Speaking of a Lupo, delivered this fever dream of an essay about the world of difference between what being a dad and a being a mom does to a body and a body of work.

File under: Bodies, Memoir, Thin Privilege

Readers and friends know I’ve avoided writing about GLP-1s because they remind me too much of making myself sick to lose weight and have a fucked up relationship with hunger and therefore I am as BIASED as they come. But I can and will write about the takedown culture that expects every memoir to be a Ted Talk. Are we no longer interested in subtext? Lindy West’s book isn’t an autobiography; it’s a diary entry. She details what is happening in her life now. That interests me and the way she tells a story entertains me. I feel with and for her as I’m reading — not all good things, that’s not the point of art. I am so glad I read it before all the backlash-to-the- backlash whiplash set in and I started scrunched-up-face scrolling by any new article about Adult Braces or polyamory. And then, turned my head (Brady Bunch courtroom-style) with this essay:

Unshaming

Where are the assholes who consider themselves Lindy West’s friends?

I was once in an open relationship that I didn’t want to be in. Like Lindy West, I agreed to it in order to “keep the man”—but mostly because I preferred something that would evoke less pity than being cheated on did. There’s a painting by Frida Kahlo called “A Few Small Nips,” based on a real case where a man who murdered his partner claimed he had onl…

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2 months ago · 70 likes · 23 comments · Jowita Bydlowska

I re-stacked this quote (or should have):

“I don’t think it’s our place, as strangers, to dictate someone else’s emotional reality. Even when something looks painful and when it doesn’t align with our own sense of dignity or love. There is a line between witnessing and interpreting someone else’s interior life, and we cross it easily, especially when the story is public, especially when it is offered to us in the form of a memoir and especially when it’s written by a woman. I will repeat ad nauseum what I’ve said before: we claim a right to women’s stories as if they are communal property. (Plus, it’s pointless to warn Frida Kahlo about Diego Rivera at this point, the painting is finished.)

The comments were just as interesting, like this one from April Lin:

Another thing that has been bothering me is that it seems true that people feel entitled to scold Lindy because her body is not “ideal,” even tho she’s barely above average and very lovely, and there’s this massive double standard about how we, culturally, receive stories from people who do not meet the “beauty standard.”

Like, would there be so much scolding and hand-wringing if one of the karadashians wrote Adult Braces? Or would fucked up fake polyamory become a fad? Would the editor have intervened if a slender person had written it?

Also--how do we know the editor did not attempt to intervene in West’s case? I have proofread professionally, and sometimes the style sheet comes with alllll kinds of ungrammatical (at worst) or quirky (at best) nonsense bc the author is a diva, and the editors are like not paid well enough to fight, or the publisher is worried about authors jumping ship.

I’m saying West seems like a willful person who faces challenges thin people do not on the path to Being Taken Seriously (i know because i am fat and also was not fat when i was younger), and so is accustomed to fighting to have space in a fully fat phobic culture.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote that memoir about Raya’s death and ya have to go on Reddit to see people calling that horrible mess what it was. Maybe i’m wrong bc i was less on substack then, but i do not recall seeing anything on NYT books or Slate on that actually illegal, violent, abusive story.

File Under: Health News

Not only did I do the shoulder exercises shared by to great effect, I also shared her videos to a massage client looking for a “series of workouts.” Anna is a “health journalist and personal trainer, the founder of Pilates for Abortion Funds, and the author of How to Move, a body-neutral newsletter about exercise,” according to her succinct, enviable bio.

I especially liked this video showing what functional fitness looks like. Points for wearing jeans while doing exercise activities of daily living and excellent use of the Notes feature.

has been like a rope tow, keeping me steady through eating disorder recovery. I fell in love on Instagram, and am so thrilled she’s here dispensing wisdom. I sent the following to several loved ones, including my app-averse husband:

The Nutrition Tea Substack

Stop hating on processed foods

Hi there! Today’s newsletter is a freebie, but most are available in their entirety only for paid subscribers. So if you can afford to do so, please consider upgrading your subscription…

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2 months ago · 78 likes · 3 comments · Shana Minei Spence

File Under: Effective Marketing (I bought a book by the author)

wrote about falling back in love with her first love in her seventh decade in , (by who just got a NY Times feature) a constant source of good shit. I bought her book “The Price Of Illusion.”

Oldster Magazine

What I Did For Love #2: Say it Out Loud

This is the second installment of a series called “What I Did For Love.” It takes its title from a song featured in the Broadway musical A Chorus Line. It’s also been the theme of the first two Oldster Variety Hours. Joan Juliet Buck performed a version of this story at the first event, in Kingston, N.Y., on October 1st, …

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2 months ago · 275 likes · 127 comments · Oldster Magazine and Joan Juliet Buck

During the pandemic, interviewed me for her podcast about eating disorder recovery. I’ve been a fan ever since. Her book, The Blue Dress, arrived this week because I had pre-ordered it like all good people who love authors, especially first-timers, do.

File Under: The 90s/Gen X

Substack is full of surprises, hallelu. Stumbling across this from gave me that “stumble across a gem in an alt-magazine” fizz.

Another pleasant surprise: Seeing my months-old essay for get new love! If you loved Sassy and Jane, and really like first-person narratives like mine below, Another Jane Pratt Thing is the place for you.

Another Jane Pratt Thing

My Eating Disorder Made Me Look, Act and Feel Like A Teenaged Boy

Hello and happy day, equally incredible people…

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7 months ago · 31 likes · 49 comments

Speaking of reckless self-sabotage, Tiger Woods is in the news for all the wrong reasons again and I’m having all sorts of feelings about it. Luckily, I have .

Oh wait, we need more visuals! Count on to deliver:

And a video! We can count on Lena Dunham very keeping it real with “under duress from a publisher” notes like this:

I worked today and saw two 90-minute clients for massage and told them not only about and , but many more essays that had nothing to do with tight hip flexors or limited range of shoulder motion. In fact, it was a client who suggested I do a roundup, so blame her! Here’s what I’m reading right now, because I will read every piece of Epstein news because it confirms that none of us is more than six degrees of separation from the men and women who look the other way.

Kittenesque

My Husband Is Named In The Epstein Files

2002. Downtown Manhattan. Late night at Lotus…

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4 months ago · 404 likes · 43 comments · Petra Khashoggi

Tell me what’s moving you on this app, and I’ll be back next with more.

Snow one day; suntans the next. Tornado warnings. Floods. Fires. March is like the mercurial child of winter and summer, back and forth, with winter always getting the weekends. We seem to forget how topsy turvy this month is, suddenly surprised and overwhelmed by layering. It’s also a tease, and that messes with your internal barometers. You don’t know when to trust that you can finally feel good outside. It’s been an especially icy winter. We crave warmth, hoping it will be sufficient balm.

I’m a massage therapist, and around this time of year, I have to remind myself and my clients that we live in weather. Joints ache on rainy days. You walk differently in the cold. Changes in pressure, coupled with gazillion particles of pollen, mess with your sinuses (Should I record an easy self-massage for sinuses? LMK in the comments).

This March, for reasons I’m still processing, has definitely been one of extreme internal weather patterns, physically and mentally. There have been plenty of contributing variables, a tornado of them, and the sheer amount of them may be what I’m noticing most. In March alone (lol to that High Touch paragraph about all the things that woman did to stay young in January), but back to me: I’ve started HRT, got a colonoscopy at the same age my dad was when he died of colon cancer, lowered the price on my mom’s house because we need it to sell like right friggin now, flirted with my old friends “restriction” (per doctor’s orders) and bingeing, and come to terms that I’ve been working too much and/or my aging body can’t work as much it used to.

Oh, and I’m grieving the end of a career of writing regularly for The Washington Post Magazine and its Home sections. I began contributing to The Magazine in 2001, via its First-Person Singular columns. This was a dream assignment with a dream editor. Interview someone local, who through their vocation or avocation, was bound to have a story to tell. And then, edit it down to just their words, like an “as told to” feature. It was a hoot, it confirmed my bias that people without PR people are the most interesting. That led to columns, essays and cover features. I learned a ton about owning my story, slowing down and never “just letting the editor write it” from David Rowell. I still send him 70 percent of these Substack essays, even though he’s not been my editor since a few years back when The Post chopped off its most beloved-by-readers baby, the magazine, and fired David and all the other staff with no warning. I continued to write until last year, working with a series of awesome editors and photographers in the Home section. I don’t think many of them are still employed. This is sad. It’s sad that I don’t write for this paper anymore and it’s super fucking sad this paper doesn’t exist anymore. So that’s been going on because I’ve been struggling to find a voice on here.

Gaining an audience on Substack is awkward. I always feel like I’m trying too hard. I’m a better writer with an editor, especially given the quality of those I’ve had. And love or hate it, The Washington Post is a brand that packs more of a whollop than A Long Story. My ego is like, what’s in it for me? Why are you restacking your own posts. Cringe. It’s humbling to realize that part of what you LOVED about writing is that lots of people read what you wrote. Wait, no. Am I being too hard on myself? Of course, I want people to read and be moved by what I write. This is why I need an editor. Everyone deserves an editor.

So to recap: career grief: hormonal intake; anxiety about my mom’s finances (est. 1982); anger at rich men; the Lindy West Rorschach Test for bodies and women; the wars; and last but not the least dramatic in my little world: the dreaded colonoscopy, which occurred a week ago today. Dedicated readers may recall me singing the Shasta theme song in the recovery room when I was given a magical mini-can, the size of a Barbie keg, of Shasta Zero and two packets of those magical graham crackers. Or you may have watched my day-after video in which I talked about how it’s weird to be reminded of how I sick I was, how normalized not eating was, how I got off on being a little light-headed and frail, of feeling I needed to be cared for.

This was my third colonoscopy, the first in this “eating frequently” stage of recovery and the first about which I was genuinely scared of the results. Were my bad, destructive habits finally coming to claim my colon like they had my teeth, hips and feet? I told myself I was catastrophisising ; then I told myself I was only calling it that to avoid facing the consequences of three decades of making myself throw up, gulping artificial sweeteners and binging on the poopy-pants Pringles.

Something about being in the hospital really makes me feel like a little kid, the most important patient. Is that what this whole eating disorder was? A cry for help that got rewarded by a skinny-obsessed culture? Yikes.

Speaking of Dad, he died of colon cancer at the age of 54 — a fact I had to repeat to every person I talked at the hospital (read the charts!) Honestly, I’m glad they had to ask. He was already in the room with me, his mortality, his death. Of all the lies, half truths and glossiest versions of my Dad I’ve had to reckon, the fact of his death at age 54 when I six is a certainty. I didn’t really know the guy, I just know he died. What kind of man would he be? What kind of daughter would I have been?

I can’t answer those questions, but I can take care of myself and ask for what I need. Today, I woke up not feeling great. My head was pounding, my tummy doing flips. I jogged to the grocery and the fresh air helped, but I still felt worn down. Desiree texted to see how I was doing, and I got real honest and next thing you know it I was crying in front of the ginger shots and emailing Sapna, my therapist. We stopped monthly visits six months ago, but I knew I needed her. She got right back to me. I’ll see her Monday, a day I’d already taken off, when my feet, and hips and lower back told me I had too. That gave me the courage to ask my friend, Neat, who I was scheduled to see today for a hair cut and color, if we could just do a cut, because sitting for that long in front of mirrors in a bright space is my anxiety’s cue, and I was worried I was going to stink up the bathroom, right across from all the sinks. I asked for a small change. It made a big difference. Then I met up with Des and took her home from the garage where she’d dropped her car.

Being with my friend, in physical proximity felt good. We’re excellent meme sharers and top-tier audio text senders, but sitting across a table, breaking bread and gawking at all the quarter-zipped dudes delivers a much better return. By the time I got home, Sapna has sent me referrals to two psychiatrists. I called them both, while I sat on a log next to a creek in the woods under dappled sunlight. Nature therapy always comes through. Anyway, back inside the house, from where Robert works remotely daily, and I often find it difficult to find a place to be without being in the way. Told Robert exactly how I was feeling and what I doing about it, and what I needed. Asked that he listen and not provide solutions — yet. Good talk. Now, he’s out with his two friends he’s known since Syracuse to watch the games and have dinner (update: the bar was too loud (lol) so they went to to speakeasy that’s actually inside the big sports bar for good wine and burgers). Then Desiree and I tackled Pyschology Today dot com, her from her deck, me from mine, looking for doctors that take my insurance and have experience with menopause, eating disorders, trauma and anxiety. Mom gave me a pep talk while I walked Laser in the sunshine, then I listened to Sarah Paulson read Amanda Peet’s recent essay in The New Yorker about the death of her parents and her breast cancer diagnosis. I cried the tears that had been building all day month.

The sun is shining now on my shoulder as I write from Robert’s recliner. The breeze is coming through the windows. My feet are up and I don’t have to work tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain all day. Better get used to the rain, as I’m going to Paris in April. Groundbreaking.

I walked around said district, guessing which gaggles of gals and their moms were headed to Lulu, Madewell and/or Anthro. Squirted way too many perfumes on myself at Sephora while double daters put blush on their boyfriends. (Massage therapists don’t typically wear perfume so I go overboard on days off.) Got a glass of Lambrusco and sipped and strolled and fell in the love with a baby bulldog. Took a call from a nurse at the hospital to schedule another call with another nurse for Friday to go over colonoscopy prep. Rescheduled a canceled massage appointment (from yesterday) to Friday before the colo call, with a client of 15 years, whose patience and support has stayed steady though running injuries, depressed days spent in bed, six weeks off for treatment and the rollercoaster fueled by hormones that lay dormant for decades thanks to anorexia.

Got compliments from the receptionist at the massage place and my neighbor on my kelly green and hot-pink outfit of a thrifted Lululemon skort ($5), a green tank from the Old Navy I walk to, a hot pink Nike sweatshirt my best friend Nichole from high school sent me when I was in eating disorder treatment — before the night sweats set in. Topped it with a colorful hat my friend Kristen got for me at the Fifa Women’s World Cup and some of those cool kid space-agey looking sunnies from Knockaround (in pink and green!)

Came home to more compliments from Robert, who was looking super hot with product in his hair after a cut earlier this afternoon. Wanted to make out with him like a good spring breaker, but he was working and … just as I was starting to unpack my backpack full of wet pool stuff, I remembered I left my swimsuit hanging on the hook in the locker room. Turned around and hit green on all the lights and avoided all the school busses, as I fell further in love with Rose Thorn, Donkey, Molly and Rose Moon (and even math) and all the characters in “The Waters” blaring from my car speakers. Lili Taylor may be my favorite audiobook reader, but maybe I’m just missing “Six Feet Under.”Grabbed my bathing suit from the hook I hung it on six hours ago at the rec center next to the high school. Watched a teenage boy carefully and tenderly cut and buzz his friend’s hair in the parking lot of the rec center, that sits next to a high school. Slammed by brakes when a teacher, itching to get out of that building and into the sunlight, pulled out without looking my direction. Got the best text from Mom, who called yesterday with ankle pain, eporting that it no longer hurt. I told her that during my massage I thought of all the questions I wished I could ask Dad now that I’m turning 54 (in May) the age he died and prepping for a colonoscopy (next week), my third since 40, since it was colon cancer that killed him — and guilt and shame for an accident that took another young woman’s life before I was even born. Her response immediately made me cry behind my big-ass sunglasses.

Thinking about turning those 54 (at least) questions into an essay.

Question One: How did you feel walking back into your dental office after prison, knowing that your patients knew the details of what they assumed was your worst night — but nothing of the days and nights in the state prison?

Two: Did Grandma’s shame about getting pregnant before the wedding show up in every interaction with you the way her shame about you going to prison, then getting a divorce and marrying your dental assistant showed up in her every interaction with me?

Three: What was your favorite song to dance to with Mom?

Four: Did you worry about getting fat too? You were short and stocky in some photos and short and rib-sticking-out thin in others. Did you, like me, worry you were too wide a square?

Five: Why were on the golf course the day I was born?

Six: Did you really tell Mom the cancer was the guilt eating you up?

Seven: Did ya’ll get married at the Marriott because you didn’t want to go back to the church with the minister who married your ex-wife?

Eight: What does your voice sound like?

I know this little snippit above isn’t exactly the stuff of award-winning essays and I can hear my editor saying “but what is this essay about?” Well, David, it’s about how I feel closest to my dead Dad as I near the age he left us. Not an original conceit but one of two on which I’m hanging this essay, next to that of how spring break brings me close to 17-year-old Mandy, who knew how to entertain and care for herself just fine when Mom went to Florida for spring break with her teacher friends. That Mandy drove to the mall in Louisville, with Jamie, her seventh-grade boyfriend and future prom date, and bought her first bikini, and aqua and peach bandeau number, after going on her first diet. Jamie took a photo of me in the bikini, standing in front of the big mirror in Mom’s empty bedroom when we got back, pretending it was as hot outside as in was in that bedroom, both of us turned on and doing nothing about it, but loving the tension. Then he went home and called his girlfriend, of whom both us were terrified. He also went over to her house after taking me to prom a few weeks later.

That Mandy was on the edge of womanhood, but not yet in the grips of an eating disorder. I feel closer to her now more than ever — and proud of what she did to stand up and launch herself into the world, without Daddy’s money (or his mother’s who didn’t even count me as one her grandchildren in her will), none of his answers and all of his will to bounce back.

The “Am I Hungry, Am I Bored?” game is reaching March Madness levels of hysteria. All those 7-11 stops for Twizzlers short-circuited the brain-gut feedback loop. The little treat mentality is a humbling one — why did I live so much of my life in cycles of deprivation and endurance, punctuated by little “rewards” and binges?

One minute, I wanna frolic in the sunshine. The next, my head pounding from caffeine withdrawal, insists that my body be horizontal and still.

The weather is gorgeous and America is at its ugliest. It’s not easy to know how to feel, or when I do feel good, I feel a lingering creep of worry, that sings to the tune of a fiddler in Rome.

I’ve been working more than ever, straight through two weekends in a row, trying to make up for appointments lost to snow, my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Miami for IU nostalgia and warmth, and a flare up of gastritis. And guess what, time is never “made up.” My feet, my spine, and my energy are tanking. I’m worried clients can feel the repetition that my body feels in ways that tell me — yo, you need a few days off.

I took today off because my gut, my head and my spine told me to. No one likes it when the massage therapist cancels, but everyone agrees I have to care for myself first. I’m not a machine, gratefully — and sometimes, regrettably. Both of my clients today were understanding, but I still feel like shit on top of feeling like crap. But, as I tell my clients, rest doesn’t work when you feel guilty about it (thanks Nap Ministry to all those articles and memes).

This year feels different, maybe because I’m on Substack, maybe because America’s Next Top Model and GLP-1s are on assignment desks both real and self-imposed.

What good is awareness if so many still struggle with food and nourishment, if every pursuit of “wellness” seems a hack, an expensive workaround to live forever (not me, no thanks) or athleisure-sponsored brand effort? What good is awareness if the first insult out of the president’s mouth (and many, many males) is Piggy? What good is awareness if thin is chronically in? If I’m still afraid to gain weight — or a certain amount of it — how recovered am I?

What good are all these articles detailing our descent if the path to safe ground, neutral ground, is surrounded by briar patches of essay-branding that get us stuck telling the same old stories of our pain? (maybe that’s just me. ) Should we be detailing our starvation diets and painful exercise routines to expose them to the light and let go of the shame, or are we providing instruction manuals and “at least I’m not that bad” excuses?

I know awareness matters. I have to assume it’s why after 30 years I was able to get insurance to cover my inpatient treatment and some of my therapy. Or maybe that’s more to do the lobbying of those who own national chains of treatment centers.

In 2017, I announced via Facebook that I was headed to treatment. I’ve written about my recovery in national newspapers, local magazines and even my profession’s association magazine. I’ve done my part in the whole raising awareness. But to be a spokesperson for a condition I don’t understand is frustrating and embarrassing. Why can’t I just eat lunch? Why am I so afraid of watching TV alone? Does my thyroid have anything to do it with it? Do I just want the attention of a parent long dead? Was I making myself sick to be seen? Am I invisible now that I’m recovered?

The Eating Disorder Beat has marched into all our feeds, just as my writing career was forced to the curb. (The Washington Post Magazine shuttered; its Home section decimated the freelance budget.) So maybe that’s what’s got me in my feelings. I used to interview others and write about topics as diverse as the right to same-sex sex and interior-design for colorblind clients. Doing so got me out of my body — what a lovely way to connect with other humans, to ask them about what matters and what makes them happy and what they come home to.

Here on Substack, I’ve written about caring for my mom, my dog and my anecdote-heavy teen and college years. The eating disorder shows up in almost every tale because it showed up daily in my life. I’m a walking (dancing, jumping rope) contradiction. On my high horse of recovery in comments about looksmaxxing one minute, posting videos of me dancing at the recreation center the next. I’m aware; you’re aware. Recovery doesn’t make sense all the time.

As I try to live beyond its confines, I struggle to write about it in a way that moves me and the conversation forward. Do I write to hold myself accountable? Well, sure, but I can always tell a good tale, just ask my therapist who’s interrupted many a good one to get me back to the real question(s): How can I take care of myself? Why do I think I ‘m not able to do so when I care for others? Why do I think I’m somehow exempt from the nutritional math that adds up to body that wants to live?

I’m grateful to writers such as , , and others for writing about bodies and food in a way that opens my mind and heart . Perhaps, it’s time for me to put down the megaphone, and live in my recovery — honestly.

Friday, 2 a.m. I awake after seven hours of sleep, having gone to bed at 7 for the third time this week. Exhausted from gastritis and a heavy perimenopausal period, I’d clocked several shifts in the fetal position, my fists clinched in rage at my own pain and the patriarchy, which seems to own every headline with its insatiable hunger.

Without my daily drip of at least five Diet Cokes and the caffeine therein, my homeostasis is way off kilter. Being sick with a history of eating disorder is a funhouse, in which once-unhealthy habits, like restriction are prescribed. Advised to eat small meals often — a challenge for someone who historically went long stretches without food — and avoid all my little sugar and caffeine treats had me exhausted by the humbling work of recovery and losing lots blood. Robert has just come to bed. I start apologizing. We can’t even spoon our normal way, which as any couple over the age of 40 knows, takes much practice and accounting for bad hips, twitchy legs, varying temperature zones of comfort. No can do because his arm hits the spot near my diaphragm that’s lit up by the gastritis. Sexy. I worry aloud that mood and my physical retreat are “a strain on our marriage.” No, he assures me. It’s me and him forever. We are in this for whatever happens. He sees the pain I’m in and doesn’t ask me to explain the why behind it. I cry. The dog lets out a big middle-of-the-night sigh and we all fall asleep, un-spooned, but less clinched.

Friday morning: I awake at 6:30, clocking Rumpelstiskin-lite levels of ZZZs. I can already feel a shift, a lightening. My body feels good. As it should. I’m celebrating a week off Diet Coke and all fizzy drinks. I’ve chosen protein and vegetables over apres-wine Wheat Thins and cheese. The 7-11 clerks are wondering where I am.

Thanks to Laser’s poor hearing (she’s 12), I can sneak in a workout on the bike without waking her. Usually when I’m flexed forward and breathing hard, I have to burp a few thousands times. This ride is comfortable, burp-free and fun because I’m watching videos on my phone, choreographing dances and pretending I’m an over-spunky, over-50 Peleton instructor with a kickass bio and playlist.

I’m working today, still trying to make up for all the time lost to that trip to Miami to tailgate and revisit all my young loves (IU, middle school and college boyfriends, beaches, motel pools). I often feel more grounded when I arrive to work, especially when that bending over a massage table doesn’t hurt as much, thanks to the meds. After my first client, an immigration lawyer who’s volunteering to file habeas briefs for immigrants and selling Thin Mints on the weekend (WOMEN RULE), I’m feeling good enough to treat the personal trainer, Stephanie, with whom I work. She’s been feeling the out of whack in her upper torso, wanting to jam a thumb into her armpit (I’ve been there, with that rascal-y subscapularis). She’s read my Substack about about stomach pain, noted by lack of chit chat and dancing to the gym’s playlist and — most importantly, as another women who understands the physical, mental and emotional toll of on-one-one work, has encouraged me to go home and rest. Anyhoo, I’m feeling good enough to treat her and that in of itself feels like a treat.

Jazzed by the morning, I decide to pitch an article: Can I Survive Watching ‘Survivor’1with Mom? It’s a good idea: timely, pop-culture friendly, and very much at the heart of Baby Boomer parents who hate therapy and their kids who’ve had to do a shit ton of it. Mom is survivor, no doubt, sexual assault by her father, the death of my father eight years into their marriage, domestic abuse by a boyfriend. While I’m proud of her, I’m also part of that story too. While she was fighting and clawing her way back, I was desperately trying to make it all better, put up a good front to my friends, clean up the messes and keep drama at bay. Also, my eating disorder history ain’t sure about watching contestants get skinnier and skinnier on TV. I pitch to several outlets. I’m feeling saucy, the sun is out and temps are rising. I remember that Robert asked me on a date last night during our BIG TALK. I text him and we try to make reservations where we have a gift card. We book for Saturday and promise to have a date night at home with wine (low acidic), weed, good music and Scrabble.

Friday night: I hit a personal record with both Scrabble (402!) and a late bedtime, after having an excellent dinner procured from a fancy-ass grocery store, involving very good spinach, beets, tofu and chicken. I got it the day before, when instead of pit-stopping at 7-11 for treats, I took myself to the grocery store. We watch a bit of the OKC game and Google image the quarter zip worn by Coach Mark Daigneault, because Robert wants one. It’s the perfect Friday, truly.

Saturday, 7:30 a.m. SUN’S OUT, dog and husband are snoozing and twitching (cutely), while I sneak out the house with my jump rope and “Get Up” Apple playlist. I do a P.E./volleyball practice-inspired sprint, calisthenics and jump rope workout on the tennis court finally free of snow, while my neighbors walk and run by with their dogs. I wave and play with Nellie, once nervous as her name, but slowly warming to me. Midway-through, I film a Substack PSA, adrenaline making me self righteous, as I implore writers with lots of subscribers to subscribe and pay other writers. This campaign needs a saucy name, or something that keeps this from being a Polymarket/Twitter/off ramp for legacy media.

I notice my neighbor 83-year-old Sybil has parked her car in the wrong spot. Sybil is a former NICU nurse, a legendary chit chatter, and the host of at least 20 assorted cousins, nieces and nephews annually, including international guests from her former homes in Jamaica, England, France and Canada. I text her and ask if she needs any help with luggage or tech before leaving tomorrow for a trip to the Caribbean. The trip is off, she tells me through a slurred, slow speech that reveals the emergency dental surgery the day before that messed with her parking, rendered her sandal-ready pedicure useless and placed her in a funk. I offer a Trader Joe’s run for comfort food. When I deliver the yoghurt (her spelling) and alstroemeria, she’s on the phone with Kimberly from Copa Airlines. Kimberly sounds like Sybil, I learn later she’s Jamaican too, and doesn’t rush her instructions as Sybil furiously scribbles down order IDs, reservation numbers. I offer to help her upload the oral surgeon’s note when I return from Laser’s routine vet visit.

Noon, Saturday. Enter vet to sounds of two young boys loudly and continuously wailing as they say goodbye to their pet. We’re placed in the room next to them. “Honestly, it’s what we’d all do if we could when they die,” I say to Dr. Novar, as he scoots around and talks sweetly to Laser, poking her bumps with a needle to ensure they’re lipomas. “See, greasy and clear,” he says, triumphantly, after squirting her bump’s juices onto a microscopic slide. Never have the words “greasy and clear” made me happier. She gets vaccinated and all her supplements and prescriptions filled. We’re basically taking the same meds for joint strength, muscle recovery, inflammation and heartburn, except she has better hormone replacement therapy. (She started leaking when her pelvic floor lost its oomph — sounds familiar!). We leave, walking past the young boy on the floor, next to a vet employee speaking softly to him, an older woman whose job is basically cooing over your pets in the waiting room and comforting you when they die.

Back to Sybil’s place, where all attempts to upload the dentist’s note onto the travel website have failed. Armed with my laptop, confirmation numbers and the The Helper’s High, I take charge and get customer service back on line. After not recognizing my phone number or voice at first, Kimberly realizes it’s Sybil, as the details of the story — dental emergency, split ticket, must cancel today — emerge. Kimberly finds a workaround the crashing web page, stays on the line until the note is uploaded and next steps explained. We all shout “Girl Power!” and I break out into a full-throated rendition of Cococabana (At the Copa), sending both of them into fits of laughter, until Sybil says it hurts too much. While we’re bonding with Kimberly, two former neighbors and would-be cruise buddies show up, and they want to hear all about the day date I’m rushing off to. “Have a meltdown about menopause, your body and the fucking patriarchy at 2 in the morning, quit your happy juice (Diet Coke) and you’ll get a day date too!” I leave them laughing.

3 p.m. We head to the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, made infamous by a viral video of all the boys wearing brown flip flops as they go back and forth between Whole Foods and Gold’s Gym. Too cold for flip flops, but the kiddos are out and about, the sidewalk a mix of the early happy-hour crew (studded barrel jeans, coos of compliments in vestibules, quarter zips) and the post-gym/post-grocery run crowd (leggings, white mid-calf socks, Trader Joes bags). We loop around the shopping “common,” playing the “What used to be there” game. We stop at the former Joseph A. Bank and current Evereve, positioned conveniently across the common from South Moon Under, where customers of Evereve once shopped and now take their daughters to buy bright florals and bold loud crop tops that announce “My daughter is going to an SEC school.” I beeline to a chocolate brown-and sky blue striped polo shirt dress that’s been asking me to take it France (en Printemps) since I spotted it in a catalog in early January, days after vowing to not buy anything new that month. It’s a perfect fit, and even goes perfectly with the tights and boots I’m wearing. I’d wear it dinner if I weren’t a slob while eating. Robert loves it and says: “You’ve always had a dress like that since I’ve met you!”

They’re still setting up at Circa. It’s 4 p.m., for crying out loud, but we find a window spot secluded enough so Robert can talk retirement plans while I scan the Clarendon catwalk, noting suede skirts and tall boots like those I spotted in the mall in Assisi this fall.

I’m one week out from diagnosis of gastritis (history of bulimia), so I aim for simple and comforting. The pretzel loaf is BRAT — as in “bread rice applesauce toast” diet, although I bet Charlie xcx would approve. I’m one year into ordering and eating appetizers, and I really want the ceviche, but resist on behalf of my stomach lining. I have a spinach salad with chicken, mango, and spinach. Lots of water, one glass of wine, a few sips of Robert’s. I am full, but not bursting with the bubbles of soda. Everything tastes better.

Snow’s coming, so we stop at our old Harris Teeter, the one with the massive ice cream poster in stairwell, whose unfortunate cropping reads “Harvest Pea.”

I live within my limits today, and don’t feel deprived of special treats or special exemptions like I usually do when I remember I can’t live without consequences. There’s no healthy way to run for miles undernourished; there’s no scale where your 7-11 diet is made OK by all your very unique trauma.

Sunday a.m. I awake to rain and a throbbing gum, in the exact place where Sybil’s bridge collapsed. Empathy pain, I hope. Another abscess and months of dental surgery, I fear. Gums coated in Ambesol, I dance along to movie videos in the living room as my workout. High on the adrenaline of nailing several thrusts and hops in “Can't Touch This,” and “Grown Woman,” I wake the dog and snap a photo of an towering ugly mound of dirty snow and post it with the caption: “A visual representation of my last few weeks. But we’re on the other side. BOING” Boing is my go-to word (and my first tattoo) when I need to be reminded of my resilience — and not to take life’s highs and lows personally.

The next three hours test that bounce: The dryer stops working (I do at least five loads for my massage practice weekly). When I call Mom to help with her Instacart order, she reveal she’s been tricked into buying a home warranty (she rents). I start to spin out, Robert takes the phone and talks my mom through it as I bolt to work.

Two clients show up for my first appointment of the day. The rain and snow are unrelenting and I double down on making my treatment room a cozy escape for all. It works.

Monday a.m. UP EARLY, rehearsing my lines to the home-warranty scammers and Mom’s bank while I stretch, elliptical, lift weights and do those monster walks and one-legged everything for balance. Robert takes the morning off to deal with the dryer repairman. We don’t need a new dryer, praise be, just a new belt. You can bet I take it as a good sign. Mom calls from the credit union, there to get a new card so the scammers can’t willy nilly charge her. She’s already buddy buddy with Alyssa at Everwise, telling her that it’s her birthday and that I got her an in-home massage last week (Flowers will arrive later that day). Robert offers to handle the warranty scammers and his patience and calm reveal how close I am to Mom’s vulnerability. I clench fists and shout “she’s on a fixed income!!” while he untangles the mess.

It’s snowed overnight but just enough to make it pretty for a nice walk before my work day starts. I wear my “Who’s With Me” black hoodie for W. Kamau Bell because I love his interviews and need to be reminded that I’m not alone. I have only one at-home client today, whose home always immediately relaxes me. We do the massage in her teenage daughter’s room, an oasis of organization, soft blankets, lavender, team photos and the roses she got from her boyfriend. At a post office I've never been to — I am bad at all things mailing — I stumble around the rhombus meets trapezoid space looking for priority mail envelopes in which to mail power of attorney paperwork to Mom’s banks. A woman my mom’s age breezes in, chit chatting with the nicest postal worker I’ve ever met. Two people compliment him in line before I even approach. I buy Muhammad Ali stamps and tell the guy about growing up near Louisville and the story Mom loves to tell about sharing a plane ride with Ali in the 60s from the airport now named after him to Miami. He loves it. I call the dentist on my way home, schedule an appointment for Wednesday and take a clindamycin left over from my THREE IMPLANTS last year.

I do not stop for a Diet Coke, but do buy some fancy water at the local grocery store/beer garden next door I once wrote about for The Washington Post Magazine. It was dying in the shadow of the nearby chain stores, until the son of the owners turned it into a beer mecca, with heaters and TVS outside. It took off during the pandemic. I pay with my phone because my wallet alludes me in my backpack. I search frantically, thinking Oh this is rich, here I am lecturing my mom about her finances, only to lose my wallet. I hightail it back to the Post Office, but I’m barely out the door and the cashier is chasing me, shouting, “Miss, miss, is this yours?”

I almost cry thanking him. I head home to reduce variables.

I have never watched a full episode. I’ve caught glimpses of the sweaty, torch-lit scheming and Laff-A Lympics-lite challenges at her house, or heard her complain about my too-complicated remote when she tries to watch at mine. My not-so-quick psychoanalysis, aided by hundreds of hours in therapy and treatment, is after growing up with a parent forever pitting herself against the world, after years of begging her to “leave him,” or “tell him to get out of our house,” of always being the one to clean up after the mess and make it all better, I became a peacemaker, a get along gal. Mary June, that’s mom, has a bit of the Calamity Jane in her. When I was a teen, she caught her ankle between the door of the car and a small tree while trying to roll the car down the hill, running next to it and the jumping in at least minute only to have her ankle trapped. She’s been on her own for 50 years, and I’m the only child. I’m the brother who handles the finances; the sister who emails the doctor through the portal, the daughter who orders the groceries and helps her move into her retirement villa. Life throws us challenges enough. I don’t need to see them on prime time.

In college, failing to find a comfort zone or get in the Greek system, I discovered my own tribe in endless aerobics classes and my own immunity idol: my body. Whatever went wrong, I had my safe zone of skinny to scurry into. I spent my adult life controlling and battling my body, through anorexia, bulimia and over exercise. I went to inpatient treatment eight years ago, and am still clawing my way out of that pit. Watching people get skinnier each week, fight over resources, reward themselves with gluttony and scheme against another has always seemed like self sabotage.

And yet, I want this connection. I want to engage her 83-year-old mind. I want to close the distance of 580 miles between us. I want to stay up late, perimenopause be damned, and watch TV with my husband and laugh at this cultural phenomenon. What if, by watching others survive micro challenges, Mom and I can start to finally talk about the ways in which our own survival shaped us?

I can’t rewrite her script, but can I flip my own? Can I take a Mike White meets Margaret Mead path to forgiveness and connection? It’s worth a watch -- I think.

Stay tuned.

I had given up on giving up my vice, arguing that I can’t keep putting rules around what I consume, as rules are what an eating disorder likes. “No, “ I told myself, gulping down a cold, 20 ounce before I even paid for it in line at 7-11. “I deserve this little treat.” It’s cute. We’re all Diet Coke girlies, raising our middle finger at the patriarchy for selling us on diet culture, while inhaling its poison happily.

And then the call came from inside the house. Starting last week, I couldn’t sit, lie down or move without a painful stitch in my gut, just under my left rib cage, where the diaphragm lives. It’s a familiar spot for my hands to find when I’m in discomfort. It’s where I used to press when I wanted to make myself sick. It’s my old “fix-it” button. It’s where my hand had found itself again last week, after so many months, almost a year, of not forcing myself to throw up.

I had gone to a fancy party with former work friends in downtown D.C., at the end of January, at the end of a week cooped up inside the house, watching ICE terrorizing and killing people on my phone, while ice made every step outside the house unstable, and every drive on too-narrow streets a white-knuckled game of Frogger, dodging sidewalk-less pedestrians. I was wound up. But, I had fashioned together a very cute outfit that was not a typical Amanda get-up. It involved a bubble skirt, gold belt and a bodysuit, the latter two wardrobe staples for some, but outliers for this low-rise everything, soft clothes and coveralls gal. I exist in the “please don’t make me aware of my middle” world inhabited by my mother who rolls down every pair of pants she wears, the other short-waisted women in my family and other highly sensitive people who consider wool base layers to be hair shirts. All this is to say, physically, I was not very comfortable at this soiree. And because it was a gathering of former colleagues who worked with my best friend who died suddenly in 2007, I was playing my own kind of emotional Russian Roulette. Will I show up and be so grateful for friends who held me close during the worst and share my newsroom sense of humor, or will I look for John around every corner, without realizing until one glass of wine too many that he’s never showing up? It wasn’t my lucky night.

My friend, Des, who helped me put together the outfit over FaceTime (and whose mother’s Moschimo belt I was wearing) encourages me to try new pass-around hors d’oeuvres. And I do! I grab two big-ass coconut shrimp and walk around awkwardly with tails in my napkins, avoiding hugs as not to grease their shoulders and failing to find a trash can. I leave the tails wrapped on the table with the disposable Kodaks. When a cup of risotto and salmon come my way, I grab it, only to hear the pregnant woman next to me declare it "too fishy.” It was exactly that, and even worse for me, way too soft and mushy. I give up and have another glass of Sancerre, and a water. You know where this is headed, so let’s get there, tout de suite. In the Uber home, talking trash about Trump with the driver, I interrupt him and ask him to pull over so I can throw up out the door. He does. I apologize. I keep apologizing to my husband as I rip of the tights, the skirt, the stupid fucking bodysuit with the tiny buttons at my crotch. I stand in the bathroom, in a familiar defeated position, no longer wanting to throw up, but unable to stop.

The following week, my stomach stays twisted as I get into it with another Substack writer about a newsletter, High Touch, she’s launching at the intersection of longevity and aesthetics. As a massage therapist, the High Touch-iness of the title had me instantly intrigued, while the two fishes in the logo had me confused. After reading what she considers touch — via needles and laser — those two fish seemed like a bait and switch via line drawing. The writer details, in a four-inch long paragraph, all the maintenance she’s done in one month: dermatologist, personal trainer, 20 supplement pills on Mondays! Emface?! Botox! SubQ Peptides? Lasers and lip fillers and all the little treats the MedSpa offers. She hypes Ozempic and med-tourism. It makes me sick because it’s so damn familiar. If I were to list out all the hours my eating disorder consumed, it would rival her month of mutation. I comment early and often. My first comment comes almost as soon as she posts. I try not to let every one of my buttons pushed pop off as I inquire, nicely, like a fellow journalist and current person in recovery who finally, this year, stopped relying on a smart watch to tell her she could rest. My comment below currently has 241 likes, way more than any A Long Story essay I’ve written.

Feb 2

Amanda Long

I can’t imagine the income it takes to do all that. I’m not slagging you; I seriously just can’t afford the time or the expense of all that maintenance. Do you ever feel roped to it? Like it’s more a “have to” than a “want to”? I mean this sincerely. This is the inflection point for me -- are we nourishing ourselves or chasing something beyond our reach -- agelessness.

Her response isn’t worth the effort of a copy and paste. You can follow the link above to read it if you want. The outrage was no longer mine alone. It went quickly viral with other women questioning this dedication to constant self-improvement, and specifically her positioning it as “preventative.” That’s the part that stuck in my craw, to use the gastrointestinal metaphor this essay demands. What exactly is Botox and EmFace preventing? Aging and the signs there in, on the face of it. But also, like my hours in the gym, all those appointments are preventing the act of just being present in your life with your friends and community, of just being satisfied and grateful for your young healthy, privileged life, of just being still. It galled me and ashamed me because it felt like a mirror to my eating-disordered life. And I told her so six days after my initial post, when my own body was crying out for some actual medical intervention with each stomach cramp and caught breathe that marked my week of pain around the “fix-it” button.

A Long Story

Feb 8

As a survivor of a three-decades eating disorder, I read this with so much sadness. That’s probably why I have commented so much because it struck such a cord. I’m in my 50s now, acutely aware of how much time I lost chasing an unattainable goal. Now, I’m not equating Botox and bulimia, however, they both offer a twisted time travel. Botox erases your face; bulimia attempts to erase your last shame and mistake. Both take you away from the people in your life. Life is so fucking short. In my 30s, I lost my adult best friend and my best friend from high school. last year alone, five family members passed in six months. I have thought about all the meals I didn’t share with them , all the happy hours I skipped to go to the gym or because I didn’t want the calories of a cocktail or because I didn’t wanna sit there face-to-face with people who knew that I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for skittles and Swedish fish. Reading your account of all that you’ve done in January to just maintain was terrifying to me because it sounded like what I would have I have written if I enumerated all the hours I spent in the gym, all the meals, all the bathrooms, all the miles and calories counted, all the 711 trips to get some caffeine and candy to keep me going. All the massages, PT, chiro and dentist appts. My god, the money I’ve spent on my teeth. Again, I know that on the face of it, the things that you do are so called healthy pursuits, but that pursuit is one that takes you away from the living of life. I am so incredibly sad to see another generation of women fall for this if you’re up to it, perhaps we could do a Substack live because you clearly struck a cord here, and I would like to be as transparent about my biases when it comes to this, but I really think that should be a part of the conversation, the time lost, and you argue that this will extend your longevity, but I’m not about to be the beta test of whether endless Botox keeps me on the planet for a couple more years. I’ve been on this chase for so long. I’m just finally letting go of some false comforts.

That one got 120 likes, and it got me thinking I was protesting a bit too much. Here I am, gripping the steering wheel driving to work late because my workout went too long, gulping down a Diet Coke and reaching for a stray Sweetheart in the little pocket of the car door. No fucking wonder my stomach hurts. Just how good am I at this whole self care thing? Just how much do I still want to, if not look young, act like the 30-year-old who could dance and jump and run without consequence. How many hours did I stand in the front of the mirror trying on that sexy outfit, admiring the curves I finally have? And maybe there is community at the medspa, like there was at all the gyms I went to. Maybe every generation of young women has to find their way through this “look good, feel good” fun house that never fully delivers on its promise.

Those questions were top of mind, when the stomach pain intersected with period cramps and laid me low at the end of last week. I couldn’t keep food down and had to have another “Yes, I threw up but not because I wanted to” conversation with my husband. I was thinking about all the elective procedures detailed in the debut essay when I called my doctor Friday, hoping insurance will cover this ‘my tummy hurts because I’ve treated it like a punching bag and sugar dumping ground for 30 years” appointment. I had to cancel clients Friday because I was able to get in with the doctor who prescribed Pepcid for gastritis. I worked Sunday, but was grateful for a last-minute cancellation that sent me home early. I went to bed at 5:30. On Monday, I was bed-bound again with period cramps intersecting with gut pain. There I was again, missing out on my life from a self-inflicted ouchie that reminded me off all my bad decisions with every breath. I didn’t need to be questioning someone else’s choices; I needed to face my own with forgiveness, tenderness and a resolve to once again discover what actually feels good, inside and out.

Debating another woman about her own self maintenance rituals forced me to see my own hypocrisy, my own inability to find not just comfort in, but immense gratitude for a body that refuses to be silent when I punish it and call it a “little treat.” I am not the sum of my coping mechanisms or my addictions, just as she is more than a woman with 10 doctors appointments in one month. I don’t deserve a tummy ache. She doesn’t deserve my attention anymore. We all deserve an easier way through this puzzle of feeling pretty, being girly, loving ourselves, but not to the point of excluding the actual living of life beyond mirror selfies (guilty too! sooo guilty see above) and looksmaxxing. I have to care for myself, sure, but I can’t hyper-fixate on the inevitable wear and tear of life. Skip the peptides, but pass me a Pepcid and a tall glass of water — still.

I wasn’t so sure. I loved playing at the country-club pool. I loved playing Barbies with Christine, my next-door best friend, even if she also took my favorite Barbies because she was older and, as she reminded me constantly, “It’s a free country!” I loved playing Lemonade, Red Rover and Kissing Catchers with the dozen kids in our suburban subdivision who just seemed to appear when I walked out the door. I loved playing “Let’s walk to the convenient store and buy Boston Baked Beans." On that 30-minute drive out of the suburbs and deep into the country of Southern Indiana, I hadn’t spotted a single kid in a single yard.

My mom kept her eyes forward, set on finding that perfect A-frame in the country -- just as she and my dad had envisioned as they dreamed of life after cancer, outside of the hospital. As he battled cancer, they planned our future: a big house on some land, with a swimming pool and a yard big enough for a trampoline. He’d step back from his dental practice, work less and spend more time with his young daughter and young wife. He wasn’t in the car that day. He’d been dead a year and Mom was trying to make good on at least some of those promises. Plus, we couldn’t afford to live in our big suburban house anymore.

So, there we were, on a hilly, sharp-turn flavored country road, 30 miles from a mall, 10 miles from a grocery store, three miles from a school. Reality started to sink again, pinning me to the back of the plush seat. This was not the country house Mom and Dad had dreamed about. This was the best we could afford. The closest neighbor was a quarter-mile away. The closest neighbor with kids was a mile away, up a hill and past four barking dogs and a goat. There were no sidewalks.

But the house itself was almost fairy tale-like. A modified A-frame with a balcony spanning the front room, and another one off the top of my room, with its cool slanting walls, perfect for painting a rainbow. It was nestled in 16 acres of woods, on top of a hill, overlooking a popcorn field. I had the whole top floor to myself and Mom and her new boyfriend, Rudy, got busy wallpapering and fixing up the place.

The distance was the problem. The new boyfriend drank and I never knew which Rudy I was coming home to. Happy Drunk Rudy who wanted to teach me funny songs and dig a pond for me to swim in or Mad Drunk Rudy would at best, sulk, staring at the A-Team on TV, or at worst, throw plates and hit Mom. Nobody could hear the plates breaking or the yelling. I’d stay upstairs, willing him to pass out so Mom and I could leave for a hotel or a friend’s house in the house, back to the safety of the suburbs.

The distance was also the protection -- from the shame. It was hard enough to fit in at a new school, where it seemed like everyone had known one another since birth and/or were cousins. I didn’t want people to know that the loud drunk was my mom’s boyfriend.

Even when it was just Mom and me out there in that house, I longed to be a part of something, to be where people were, to fit in. I used to write her notes from the other end of the couch, asking to go to the mall in town, promising “not to ask for any new clothes” and do the dishes for the next four weeks if we could just see people. As soon as I got my license, I’d drive that 30 minutes to the mall, right after cheer practice during the week and almost every Saturday. I loved being in my car, making up that distance, checking in to see how teenagers dressed. My first job was delivering pizzas -- giving me nights out on the country roads, blaring Motley Crue and Bon Jovi and feeling connected in some odd way, pulling up to other family’s homes, peeking in to see how others lived. I was always the driver, cramming six teenage girls into a Plymouth Champ to drive to the big city: Louisville. Expressways and bridges didn’t scare me. Dark nights in the woods did.

When I got to college, I felt the distance keenly. Everyone seemed straight out of a J. Crew catalog. I couldn’t find the country kids; I didn’t fit into the sorority scene or the Doc Martens and flannel crowd either. I made up the distance the only way I could. I went the extra mile in every class and every workout. I exercised more than everyone else, stepping over so many Reebok steps and grape-vining my way across three campus gyms. When I wasn’t exercising twice daily, I was studying, putting myself ahead of the pack the only way I knew how. At the end of four years, I had a 3.8 GPA and an eating disorder.

Thirty years and thousands of miles ran later, I’ve finally found my way back home. I no longer look at my watch to see if I’ve run far enough. I no longer avoid coming home, where my husband, my dog and my life are. I live in the suburbs, just a few blocks from a Target, T.J. Maxx and Trader’s Joe. For five years, I wrote for the Washington Post’s Home section, applying the tips and love of nesting to our own place. I can bike to Washington, D.C. But we’re surrounded by woods.

This morning on a dog walk, I saw three deer. Last night, a neighbor stopped me (from six feet away) to point me toward Venus in the clear sky. I’ve found my safe place -- and it’s home.

(Ed note: This was written partly in the fall, as no deer are risking the icy tundra. This actual morning, I ran-walked my errands to the nearby Trader Joe’s, stepping over concrete-like barriers of ice with a backpack full of granola, yogurt and Miss Fits bars on the slow walk back. I was grateful for the short distance to home.)