The Caged Bird

First day of the rest of your life.

Monday morning at 10:30, I'll be moving into Monte Nido Vista in Agoura Hills to finally kick the ass of the eating disorder that has held me back for eleven long, difficult years. I don't know when I'll be out, you check yourself in and out based on recommendations from doctors and how YOU feel, when YOU are ready, and that's exactly why I chose this place: they have the lowest relapse rate in the country.

I will have no cell phone.

I will have no computer.

I will have limited phone access (i.e. a phone card and a list of numbers I can call).

I will be in serious therapy sessions multiple times a day.

I will be re-learning how to look at my body, how to look at food, how to take in what the mirror shows me and how to place my value in places besides my looks and the numbers on a scale, which I prefer never to know again.

If you'd like to send something, a letter or a card or hell, a piece of paper with "you can do this" on it, my address will be the following:

 

Bee Butler
Monte Nido Vista

28855 Lake Vista Dr.

Agoura Hills, CA 91301

If you'd like the number to the patient phone line, let me know personally and I can give it to you, although I cannot guarantee that I'll be able (or allowed) to answer it.

I cannot believe that my life is heading this direction, that I'm finally letting go, that I'm moving, that I will be virtually cut off from the outside world, or that when I leave, I'll be healthy.

But most of all, I can't believe that after eleven years, the strong-willed little girl inside me is stepping up an saying, "no more. enough is enough, and I deserve better".

On giving up.

At this point I am reaching up to touch rock bottom emotionally and when it comes to my eating disorder. I have been staying with an ex for a month now, and I can't handle it. 

It is OVER, it's been over, it's gotten volatile and what stupid little chance there ever was of reconciliation has been destroyed by the unfortunate living situation. I can't take it anymore, he is literally sick of me, and I feel like I'm imposing on his family, despite what I've been told, and dear god I am ready to get on a plane and fly back to Texas.

 

I don't care about my music enough to stay here and go through this anymore. I don't care about any of this enough to stay here anymore.

That's not to say I don't want treatment, I am DESPERATE for that, and I'm trying to find somewhere else to stay so that I don't have to get back on a plane, because I know that would plant a seed in my mind that with some therapy I could handle the emotional issues behind the last series of breakups and keep the eating disorder quiet and fool everyone into thinking I'm well just to keep myself skinny.

 

All of this is to say that I am not okay, where I am living is not okay, I feel trapped, I need help, and I am almost out of fight left to hold me here.

I love you, but you're not the one.

I have been engaged exactly once, although I have been "pre-proposed to" with a ring and made plans to marry someone else once I was finished with college. I have also been in a serious, long-term relationship in which I lived with the person and even though we knew it was a long way off, marriage got brought up a lot.

I have also dated two men, one of whom I'm still close to and will always love, who were in the middle of getting divorced (and neither of them was much older than me), and I saw the dark, soul-crushing side of a marriage ending from a perspective I'd only glimpsed at when my own parents split up my freshman year of college. The reason I'm only friends with one of them is because the other is still such a huge mess that he can't even keep his own head on straight. It killed me to see him go, but his heart wasn't in it, because he was still married in his head.

 

Kicker here: both of these men had sons. 
Inextricably tied to their exes.
I dated them anyway because dammit, I refuse to believe that someone's circumstance dictates who they are or what they're capable of. in one instance I was right, but I ended things with him, which was a mistake, and in the other I was very, very wrong, and I should have run the other direction instead of diving headfirst into that.

My ex-fiance and I no longer speak. It's coming up on four years since the proposal and our breakup, and I said my final goodbye to him in February of this year. We laid in his bed and watched episodes of our old favorite TV shows, I cried, he held me and said he hated that it was ending this way, I told him some piece of me would always love him, and after he made me a grilled cheese sandwhich (one of my favorite aspects of our relationship: cooking together), I got in my car and drove away, and I have not heard from him since.

Despite my many failed relationships, I only have one ex I still talk to, not counting the one I'm currently living with because we honestly would not be speaking were it not for this awkward situation, and he's been an incredible help in reminding me that these relationships never defined me. He also still cracks me up because he's a huge asshole and occasionally that kind of humor kicks my ass and makes me smile, because I take life too seriously and he doesn't take it seriously enough.

 

All of this aside, no. I have not found "the one". I'm standing here watching all my childhood friends get married and have kids, kids I graduated with popping out babies and wondering, what is it about me that makes that kind of thing impossible?

 

Then I remembered, fuck all of you, I'm only 22 years old and I have shit to do before I settle down, although someday I think it might be nice, and nobody my age or close has their shit together enough to be a husband. Dear God, I am so lucky to be where I am relationship wise, even if it sucks harder than a dyson. 

Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Zooey Deschanel in every role I've ever seen her play. Drew Barrymore half the time. 

that one girl, she's so fucking special, she's "different", she makes you think things are gonna be okay, she pushes you to be better, she walks on the wild side, cartwheels in the street, can drink with the boys, is talented and cute and you can't believe she exists.

it's because she doesn't.

a more accurate depiction of that archetypal load of shit would be Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, my favorite movie ever, because dammit we aren't really like that.

we aren't that cute and special. we're incredibly fucked up, that's why we seem different. we push you to be better because we can't be. we do our best to be interesting and beautiful and fantastic so that you'll be captivated, but we can only keep it up for so long.

it's not on purpose.

we just don't have it in us to BE us, because we've been told/shown that the "real" girl inside is such a disaster that she needs to disappear. we reinvent ourselves and try again, and once the facade starts to slip, the guy runs away so fast you wonder if he ever gave a shit at all.

 

I do it all the time, I don't mean to. Yes, I can sing and according to what people say I'm cute, I'm quirky and different. I am not your perfect little hippie-flower-child-manic-pixie-dream-girl. My life is a big mess, there's always something going on, I have problems, and if you spend enough time around me, you'll see that there are a whole lot of things about where I am and where I've been that have done some damage. my shit rears its ugly head, you think you got duped, where's the badass chick you met at  the bar last week? In reality, you just found out that I'm an actual fucking person with just as many issues as you, so you shove me out of your life because that's easier than manning the fuck up and seeing what's beneath some of that shit. 

No one ever has. 

by the end of every relationship or fling or god-knows-what you've given up the ideation you had of me when we met, and you loved/liked/wanted her, so now that she's "dead", you're gone, and its my fault, because "I changed" or "its just different now".

Go fuck yourself.

 

I have a hell of a lot to give. If you stuck around, you'd see that. People who know me well, who've been there for awhile and have seen me at my best and worst will tell you that I'd throw myself in front of a bus for anyone I care about. I go out of my way to make other people happy and cater to what they want. I pay for and buy the most ridiculous shit for people just because I know it'll brighten their day or be something memorable or whatever other excuse I can find, I write songs and I dance and sing my heart out ALL THE TIME, I'm a damn good writer, and you will never find someone who cuddles better than I do.

Eating disorders and family stuff and shit with people in my life who probably shouldn't be there does not make me a waste of your time, and it's about time somebody said it.