BETWEEN WHAT IS SAID AND WHAT IS HEARD
On our drive from school today my teenage son told me a classmate had offered him a joint. I'd been preparing for this day, staging it in my head for years, ready with my bag full of allegorical stories of my reckless youth before easing into the 'Why drugs are bad for you,' speech. But as I drove our minivan home searching for how to begin, I remembered back when I was a teen, walking in on my sister's confession, and my warped interpretation of her troubling story.
I was fourteen. It was another sunny day in L.A. and I came in sweating from my twenty minute walk from middle school. I heard my sister talking in our parent's bedroom, which was usually off limits. When I got to the doorway I saw her and mom sitting next to each other at the foot of the big bed, and both were crying. They stared at me standing in the threshold. Even with 23 years between them they looked remarkably alike, with small, freckled faces and thick, red hair cut short.
I migrated into the room looking back and forth between them and asked what was up. They shared a non-verbal exchange as I sat across from them on the little cushioned chair in front of the mirrored vanity. After some time mom unfolded the story of how my sister had been vomiting and starving herself for the last several years to stay thin. In the telling she became overwhelmed with grief, covered her mouth and succumbed to her tears.
My sister took over, sat perched on the edge of the bed and confessed to years of fasting and purging because skinny was in, and she didn't want to be left out. Like most of her high-school girlfriends, my big sister had finally achieved what I thought impossible for our well- endowed family lineage. She was unarguably thin.
And I wanted to be her. To me, she was beautiful. sleek and tight. She was what I too aspired to be.
And she'd just told me how to get there.
What I heard her say that afternoon was vomiting worked. I failed to acknowledge her detailed account of the toll the eating disorder took on her body and mind. I stopped listening right after she told me how she'd gotten skinny. Everything that followed was white noise.
From that day forward, and for the next 10 years to come I threw up frequently after eating to purge my body of the calories. And in the beginning it worked, took weight off and kept if off for a while. I tried to ignore that I was tired all the time, and chronically cranky, and falling into a black kind of depression. The desire to be thin superseded all reason. If my sister could do it, I could, and would, and did, regardless of the health risks.
Several years in therapy with a nutritionist gave my sister the emotional strength to combat social pressures and become more accepting of her body. She learned to eat right and stays active, and now maintains-- a not exactly slender-- but healthy build. I still battle my weight. Racquetball and running eventually replaced retching, but my sister's words still echo in my head and taunt me-- not all of what she said, only what I heard.
As I pulled the minivan into the garage this afternoon I looked at my beautiful son in the rear view mirror awaiting my lecture. My stomach hurt from the burger and fries I'd eaten for lunch earlier. My heart hurt-- lost for words of wisdom for my kid. I wanted to purge my body of the heaviness, and thought about throwing up, then laughed, but not like the idea was funny. Thirty years later I still find myself fighting the voice inside that insists vomiting is acceptable.
I parked the car and lead my son in the house for a snack, and a chat. And I lied. I made up a tale of "a friend's" reckless behavior that lead to disaster. I told story after story of kids I went to high school with who were users and grew up to be losers (though I know none). I assured him popularity did not come with using. I left no space for him to surmise drugs were simple fun, or required to be 'in'. I have no wish to travel the road with him that I began with my sister all those years ago.
Sometimes, between what is said and what is heard is the Grand Canyon.