The impostor’s clothes
I wear the suit of an impostor.
If you were to call my name, the impostor would turn and answer with a smile not as brilliant as mine. She would have you convinced that it was me you were talking to. But it isn’t. It’s her.
I employed her so many years ago, a cold night in December becoming her date of hire. She has done her job with a seamless and distressing perfection. She makes people expect less of me. The sheer girth of her keeps people from getting too close. She is not me, but she covers my every square inch. As I try to shed her, to relieve her of her duties, she holds fast and tight to me. Suffocating, demanding, controlling.
She knows this world. She knows how it has been to protect the delicate skin of a broken spirit. She has heard the rage, the anger, the cold indifference and the outright hostility of a world unfavorable to people like her. She rebuffs cruelty with a flick of her wrist, expands out further from me and builds her wall, straight up. Everything about her exaggerated curves says “don’t touch me” “don’t look at me” “don’t hurt me”.
Don’t hurt me.
She hurts me, daily, in her attempt to keep others from doing the same. Her weight crushes me. The extreme nature of her protection has brought disease to her vessel. She is killing me. She is killing me and I am afraid to shed her.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
i was at my thinnest when i got pregnant. i gained 70 lbs by the time i gave birth. i kind of hoped a 65 lb baby would come out of me and wondered a bit at why she was not even 8 lbs. almost a year later and i’m still heavier than i’ve ever been.
i finally started doing yoga again this week and my baby weight is PISSED.
it fights and strains and holds on and beckons me to nap and eat and leave it be.
and part of me is afraid to let it go. it kind of feels safe here…in my self-imposed prison of not loving my body, not taking control, not taking care of me.
i often wonder why pain feels so safe.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Beautiful. Achingly so…
Loved what Krista said:”I often wonder why pain feels so safe.”
January 9th, 2009 at 2:15 am
http://thailandgal.blogspot.com/2009/01/laying-down-arms.html
January 9th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Oi, this is what happens when one does just post links cutting and pasting while blogging at the same time.
What I wanted to say was:
“As I try to shed her, to relieve her of her duties, she holds fast and tight to me. Suffocating, demanding, controlling.”
I know her and I am so scared that I will relinquish control to her once again when my year gets busy.
January 9th, 2009 at 4:13 am
so beautiful. how do you do this? find the perfect words.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:53 am
flutter, you have a way with words that speaks straight to my heart and soul. this is so, so good. and you my friend, are pure money love. xo
January 9th, 2009 at 6:57 am
pain and safety…so intricately tangled up together. i get it. and you said it perfectly.
January 9th, 2009 at 7:00 am
This was beautifully heart wrenching.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:06 am
After my third miscarriage, when I believed that my body was a wasteland that men had dumped on and in, a broken house that could never produce anything of beauty, I decided to run. I ran as a way to block out my pain, to forget, to quiet my mind. But, when my mind got still enough, and all that existed were my legs, so powerful, so strong, propelling me forward, faster than even the jock trying to race on the treadmill next to me, I realized something. My body is a thing of wonder. I was in control of it, and it was a amazing. I tell you this because, although I see you using your writing to reclaim your mind, and your soul, you need to find a way to reclaim your body. You need to know that it is powerful, and that power belongs to you. That beauty still exists. Find your own way to run.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Right on target analogy, girl. I think your imposter and my imposter should hang out sometime.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:28 am
They are jealous protectors, our imposter selves, planting a face of humor and “nice” on a spirit that feel neither. They are none too happy to give up that protective role. I have one of those “body guards” too. Sometimes I think I can’t let mine go because deep down I’m not ready, but most times I know that’s a lie. Most times I know I’ve been ready since I left my parent’s house, but after having her make all my big choices in life for me, I think I’m afraid to take that chance, make my own choices and possibly fail by my own hands. I will have nothing and no one else to blame but the real me.
January 9th, 2009 at 8:39 am
I still want the big sunglasses picture.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:17 am
You have articulated this so well (as always). I particularly liked the phrase about her smile being “less brilliant than mine.” That acknowledges that the best, the brightest, is clearly still within, underneath.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:24 am
She is you, she is me, she is every woman who wanted to be loved and accepted for who she was. In order to understand her and free you both, you must love her just as fiercely as you want to be free. (Hugs)Indigo
January 9th, 2009 at 9:32 am
perfection
January 9th, 2009 at 11:15 am
We all have this person to some degree, you know right? I’m struggling right now to eliminate her from my relationship with my husband, so she no longer stands between us as a buffer/neutral zone.
Your voice as a writer doesn’t seem to employ her at all. Does the writing feel safe? How can you plan to dismember her and live as you write?
Because we all love you. You, not her. We don’t know her, flutter.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I read this and thought that if I ever met you I would want to give you the biggest hug ever. Just squeeze you ’till you understood that you are amazing and beautiful and funny and smart and talented…
I wouldn’t let that impostor stop me from getting close to you!
January 9th, 2009 at 11:53 am
I felt this. The hiding and the separation. I hope you find your way and that way leads you to freedom and wholeness.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Oh, Flutter. This is one of your finest pieces.
January 9th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
this wasn’t the point, but i love a girl who uses methaphors well
January 9th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
that’s metaphors
January 9th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Oh Flutter.
I see you. I hear you. Damn.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I don’t think this is true. At least, it’s not true here. Here you are seen for everything you are – beautiful, smart, talented.
And that’s something, right?
January 9th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
we are all wearing someone else’s clothes. It’s when we realize they are actually our own, that we are free.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I know. I feel that way too.
January 9th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
God woman, you write so well.
I just love you, with or without her.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Do it slowly. She won’t even realize what’s happening and by then, it will be done. Before you both know it.
January 9th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Pain does feel safe. I have learned to shed to pain, to use happiness and beauty to feel safety. I am changing, one day at a time!!!
January 9th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Oh…..I don’t know what to say. I don’t. I’m sorry.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
We love the you that is within because we can’t see “her”. “She” doesn’t put any of us off. I’ve been big (over 200lb) and I’ve been small (scrawny, malnourished) and now I’m in-between. I can testify that the big me was treated differently than the small me. I’m saying – I can relate. The big me was “left alone” in many ways. Often, that is what I was seeking. I’m trying to address the 20lb that have creeped up on me. I’ve been thinking about my inner self and my motivations.
Thank you for once again prompting me to be introspective and contemplative. You are so very, very articulate. Beautiful inside and out.
January 9th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
If I could write as beautifully and poignantly as you do, then I could have written this and it would be completely TRUE about me! Thanks for giving such powerful words and images to a struggle I’m too damn familiar with.
I love you, Sweetie!
January 9th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Beautiful as always…
January 10th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Note from the other side==yep. I feel so much the same way. everyday. every day.
Big love!
January 10th, 2009 at 9:22 am
She served you well but it’s time now to let her go.
January 10th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Yes…the calling out of the ultimate protector. One that you welcomed in to help when you didn’t know what else to do…these false friends we all have within ourselves. They are as much as a part of us as we are…or maybe they are we as well. I guess it’s better to make friends, have a tea party and remind them of who is really in charge (no matter what they’re pretending to be) Remember, you only put her in place when you didn’t have any other choices available to you. You have been working hard to have new choices now…use them. It’s only scary at first, and you have so much behind you when it gets that way!
January 10th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Man, even Oprah can’t let it go. And if she can’t ….. Wait. Isn’t flutter like a bazillion times better/cooler/funnier than Oprah? I think so. Kick it, girl. You can.
January 10th, 2009 at 11:55 am
(((((Flutter)))))
January 10th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
those things that serve us for so long, even help us survive, eventually eat us alive.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
As someone who sits on the abyss of gastric bypass, this reaches deep into my soul and pulls me.
It’s also why I am the person I am now. It’s part of the thing behind the “very bad thing”…those responsible for what happened to me, get to walk away. I still have to deal with the pain, and being buried under all this pain…and weight.
*hugs*
January 10th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
wonderful, bare writing.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Behind the impostor is where the true light and beauty are. The impostor or the mask that you wear needs to go. You are too beautiful, too talented and have too much of a soul to need her anymore. It is time and you are ready.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I know totally what you mean, but in my case the outside is me, but inside there’s a tiny, corrupt demon clawing to get out.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Here’s to unzipping and stepping out, my lovely friend.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:38 am
this is a remarkable piece of writing – it does make one ache – like some emotional depth charge exploding in your heart…
January 12th, 2009 at 7:12 am
I have been working hard for years to shed the imposter – the armor – sometimes better than others. But she holds fast in a group especially. Beautifully written. Hugs
January 12th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Unhealthy aspects of psyhe become so familiar we are afraid shedding them will yield a less desirable replacement. Nature abhors a vacuum. Be brave.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I’m reading the Gargoyle right now. In it, a man is severely burned. As part of his early therapy the skin of cadavers is placed on top of his scorched skin to protect it and promote healing. Alas, his body keeps fighting against that foreign skin, but it does what it needs to do in the moment. Eventually he doesn’t need it any longer.
This post made me think of that part of the book.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:43 am
I am afraid to shed her.
Then how about letting her be, just be?
January 13th, 2009 at 8:23 am
i think we all do this to some degree. when we realize we don’t need to anymore, we start to let it go. and that’s the good stuff right there. right now. for you.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:19 am
this is… well, it’s beautifully written and just says it all so well
January 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I know this.
January 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
G’day from Australia. I came here from Jennifer Harvey’s site – and I’m glad I did. You are a compelling writer.
January 13th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
oh flutter. let her go.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I feel you on this, in so many ways.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:10 am
This is such a hauntingly beautiful post that it scares me. Congratulations on the Post of the Day mention…you are deserving…
Sandi
January 15th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Why am I hearing Billy Joel singing “The Stranger” right now? I mean there are obvious parallels, but Billy wasn’t nearly as poetic about it.
Nicely done.
January 15th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Oh! I forgot to congratulate you on your POTD nomination!
January 28th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
To read you is to ache with you! How I wish that I could take you in my arms and cradle you as I did my own daughter, so many years ago. To stroke your hair and tell you that it will all be alright.
But I can’t… only you can make it better for you! She stole your power. Now you must take it back.
What if… what if… the emphasis you put on your body image was important only to you? What if most people passing you in the street couldn’t give a hoot about the size of your ass? (and believe me they don’t). What if they look at you and see your beautiful eyes first and nothing else?
What if you learnt to not give a shit about what they think?
What if you didn’t play the impostor’s game any more and took your power back?