diabetics. My doctor says I am more likely to die from a hypoglycemic episode (car wrecks, falls, black-outs) than long-term hyperglycemic destruction. I saw the skin peel from my father’s feet, the vision stripped from his eyes, his useless legs and death from heart failure at 46. I have already outlived him. I am in the lowest 16th percentile in math according to my GPAs, but my life is ruled by numbers. It’s ironic, dull and relentless.
Purging
What is less ironic and dull, though still relentless, is the extent to which control flips on its head to show its ugly twin sister. Bulimia is an eating disorder realizing an unhealthy relationship with food. One way to have an unhealthy relationship with food is to monitor everything you put in your mouth, calculate the carbs and make sure, in the end, you get a good number. If you mess up, someone pays. Usually you. Another way is to say fuck it, and once you’ve eaten too much pasta, don’t stop. Eat the rest of the pasta, find your daughter’s Pop Tarts or Halloween candy, visit at the donut shop for a dozen or buy a frozen Sara Lee coconut cake and eat the whole thing. Always hide the wrappers.
Then, when you feel full and bloated and sick, take your shirt off, pull your hair back, lock the bathroom door and stick a finger down your throat. After years, you won’t need your finger anymore. You will wretch voluntarily. Then you flush, clean the toilet, and flush again, test your blood sugar and maybe drink a glass of milk hoping your blood sugar won’t plummet. Most times you will still wake to a reading around 200. You can’t ever get everything out. Maybe you take a laxative.
THIS is control, and you don’t need anybody else. You’ve got it all under. You set your alarm to wake at 2 a.m., making sure your sugar doesn’t dive. It is 175. You hate high sugars. Do you take more insulin to bring it down or trust is will still decline? There is always timing, bad decisions. There is guilt and pain. My stomach hurts. There are empty wrappers, the cleaning up, the secret. I press my palm to my abdomen — pressing in, pressing hard, silently mouthing the word “flat,” willing myself to slightness. There are all those starving children — I’ve eaten more than they can imagine.
Trust
I don’t trust my memory. My ex says that even without memory recall,