Always.

Used to be it only happened once in a while: I’d get really cold and then I’d have trouble getting warm again. But now it’s always.

Maybe it’s the Virginia winter. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s a different kind of chill. Louisiana I could handle. London I could handle. Even Chicago was fine. But these mild little winters are bone-aching.

Or maybe it’s that this might be the least I’ve weighed since I was 15 or so. The cold gets closer to me. It hits at night, alongside that odd sensation of my hip bones against the mattress when I sleep. I’m still overweight, halfway to where I want to go, but it is unsettling to feel like you take up less room in the world.

Being bigger protects you from a lot of shit. Fewer panic-attack-inducing cat calls. Fewer eyes on you. Fewer people probing into your life, no matter what their intentions are. It feels somehow safer. Now, with every lost pound, it’s like I’m more exposed. Where can your mind go when it’s not spending all its time telling you how terrible you look? I’m working on all of it, the fucked up inside, the fucked up outside. The possibility of breaking out if this mess for good is terrifying. Exhilarating.

This goes nowhere. I need to sleep. It’s the kind of time when I spend half the day afraid I’ll break out in tears for no reason. I write Krista long, rambling messages about my love life. I never want to get out of bed. Yet despite all that evidence, I’m good. I really am good.