In Body I Trust Read online

  She believed in God but was certain that if He had to choose between her going to Heaven or Hell, He’d certainly send her to the latter. She wasn’t good enough to be in Heaven. She wasn’t deserving of someplace so perfect. She was a terrible Christian. She never went to church and lied to her family about her weekly attendance to appease them. All she ever did was write the occasional letter to God, asking Him for something or sharing her opinions on things she knew there’d be no response.

  “Weed feels like it activates a part of my mind I don’t always use or have the ability to access,” Amelia said, talking out loud to God as if he was a tangible presence in the room. “It’s freedom, like I’m on a staycation from the darkness. Why is weed such a bad thing?”

  She didn’t necessarily know for sure that you weren’t allowed to smoke weed as a Christian. She just assumed not, but had never double checked. She didn’t care enough to do the research. Amelia let out a deep exhale and let herself sink lower into the bathtub.

  Her towel laid on the floor next to the tub so she could dry off her hands and use her phone to play music. Bon Iver was the first band that came to mind, one of her absolute favorites. They came out with a new album—titled i,i—in August of 2019. The fact that she didn’t know this information until eight months later meant she’d stopped caring about the music she was once so passionate about. The young child in her that used to want music playing constantly in the background of life was gone, hopefully not forever.

  She pushed play on the album and placed her phone next to her resting head. The acoustics in the bathroom gave the feeling of a live concert. She twirled the ends of her hair beneath the water. Her arms floated as deadweights. Her ears were submerged, only her face skimmed above the surface so she could breathe. Her lungs inhaled slowly and her chest rose to the surface. Tiny bubbles like soft pellets burst against the skin underneath her arms. She pretended she was in the ocean, surrounded by a deep and mystical underwater world. Just when she couldn’t breathe in anymore, she counted to four, and slowly exhaled. Her arms and chest sank to the bottom. Inhale. Bubbles lightly circumnavigated her biceps and forearms. Exhale. Down to the bottom she went.

  Thirty minutes of deep breathing flew by. The water was no longer hot; barely lukewarm. Her fingers and toes were pruned like she’d aged forty years in less than an hour. Amelia never thought she’d live long enough to experience what it was like to be old.

  Her eating disorder was the world’s slowest form of suicide. Her body would eventually take over, and she’d be whisked away into whatever came next—Hell, Purgatory, pure blackness without any stream of consciousness. She sank her body back beneath the water so she could experience the feeling of nothingness, the feeling of death, one more time.

  She released the drain on the tub and stood to dry herself off, wondering what she’d do next. If she stayed home any longer, she’d find herself doing something stupid. Instead, she decided to take a reprieve and go to Cheesman Park.

  It was the place to go during the springtime near Capitol Hill. Eighty-one acres of open fields for the cool folks of Denver to congregate. The park was always filled with people enjoying the sunshine, which meant there’d be ample opportunities for inspiration towards her next story. It was also a great excuse to force Amelia out of the house. The park was close enough that if anxiety took over, she could walk back home.

  It took her fifteen minutes by foot to get there. The farther she walked, the more calories she’d burn. She walked outside the gate, up 12th Street about twenty blocks, and entered the park.

  Friends gathered around with their picnic blankets and beers, listening to music, and laughing about not being able to do a headstand. Cheerleaders from the local high school practiced their routines while their moms applauded and took photos to post on their Instagram stories. Children fell off of their scooters and bicycles, rubbing the dirt off of their knees and getting back up to fall yet again.

  Amelia took out her queen-sized floral sheet and laid it on the grass. She wore her bathing suit underneath her clothes just in case she could muster the courage to be exposed, letting the sun make her fair skin less pasty and transparent. But she couldn’t. Not this time. Still, the intention was there. She gave herself an opportunity to be comfortable with her body, but it wasn’t going to happen. One small, baby step at a time. Like when she eventually had to buy a new pair of pants.

  Throughout her eating disorder, her weight fluctuated dramatically. When she restricted her food, her clothes would no longer fit, causing her pants to fall from her waistline. When she went through a series of binges, her size would jump up in a matter of weeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d purchased new clothes. Even mentioning the idea brought her to tears. She was disgusted with herself, but she couldn’t wear the same pair of sweatpants day in and day out.

  After backpacking for a year, minimalism had become a part of her lifestyle, of her existence. She found comfort in her Marie Kondo-esque desire to remove any material items that wouldn’t fit on her back. There was a relief in it, like she was peeling away layers of dead skin to make room for experiences rather than things. It gave her control over something.

  Control. This concept of being able to manipulate the world around her, to design her own reality exactly how she wanted it to be. How could Amelia possibly believe she had control over anything? It seemed like the universe was trying to make a joke out of her. She pictured God or some energy greater than her own, laughing behind her back while she blindly searched for even the smallest amount of control.

  It took almost an entire week for her to complete the arduous process of buying a pair of pants. Getting into her car, reaching the parking lot, and making her way through the automatic doors were just the first steps. Sorting through a plethora of styles and sizes to find pairs to try on was the next.

  Each day she was one step closer to making the purchase. When she finally did, it was a small and humbling victory for Amelia to record in her journal. She wrote herself a permission slip to say it was okay to take the mundane things in life one incredibly small step at a time, even if that meant she wasn’t ready to be out in the open for everyone at the park to see her in a bathing suit. At least she took the first step by putting it on.

  Cheesman Park was unusually packed for a Wednesday afternoon. She pulled out her cigarettes and lit one to ease the panic in her chest. Smoking in public made her paranoid, but refraining from smoking made her equally as anxious.

  She slipped her sunglasses from the top of her head to the bridge of her nose. They were giant pink hexagons camouflaging her into the background, like the little boy in Big Daddy. When the little boy was scared, he’d put on a pair of sunglasses and pretend to be invisible. With her sunglasses, she was a chameleon with giant eyeballs, able to see the world around her, but invisible to the casual passerby.

  A couple sat on a large, multicolored blanket about twenty feet to her left. They sat with their legs crossed, facing each other as they relaxed from a heated game of frisbee. It appeared to be the flirtatious beginnings of a new relationship. The man took off his black baseball cap and rubbed the top of his bald head. The woman smiled tenderly at him, stole the hat from his hands, and tugged it over her long, brown ponytail. The hat was far too large, but his eyes told the story of his adoration for her by the way he looked at her flushed, red face.

  They fell onto their backs and stared at the clouds, raising their arms to the sky to block the sun. Too far away for Amelia to hear what they were saying, she imagined what their story might be. Two human beings finding love and connection, the honeymoon phase when everything was simple, no knowledge of each other’s baggage or the other person’s history. Just that pure, innocent love when you meet someone who makes your heart race. Amelia forgot what that felt like. The couple wrestled around on the blanket until he leaned in on his right arm, held her cheek, and gently kissed her face.

  Amelia looked to her right. An older gentleman, maybe sixty
and wearing a white visor, walked along the trail. He spat on the ground and adjusted his sunglasses near his temples. Amelia turned around and saw a girl her age laying on her stomach, both feet swinging in the air, turning the pages of her book. A baby in the background of Amelia’s scenery cried out, “Mommy!” in excitement. A puppy soaked up the sun with its owners while they ate their takeout picnic.

  The world was one giant theatrical play with trillions of subplots. Amelia’s was only one of the many. Every person in the world was singing a different tune, but they were all a part of the same symphony. That didn’t make the loneliness any easier.

  Amelia collapsed onto her back and allowed her face to soak up the sun for just a few more moments. Winters were always harsh towards her seasonal depression, but now warmer weather played a similar role. Seeing the faces of everyone around her—friends, family, and lovers in a shared state of bliss—reminded her of everything she wanted but couldn’t have.

  Amelia pulled out her notebook to write a letter to God. Letters, just like the ones she slipped under her mom’s bedroom door as a teenager. Maybe one day God would write back, sending a letter in the mail with His response, giving Amelia the answers to all of her life’s problems in three to five business days.

  She closed her eyes, took a breath, and began to write her letter to God, pleading for strength to fight through another day.

  Chapter 7

  Three bottles of merlot sat on the kitchen counter. Six o’clock seemed late enough in the day to have a celebratory drink.

  Amelia popped the cork and poured herself a glass of wine, filling the glass all the way up to just a few centimeters below the brim. She put the glass up towards her lips. The aroma of rich plums hit just below her nose. She took the first sip, letting it coat her throat as it slid down. She rarely drank wine anymore. It reminded her too much of being in Europe with Dominic. Her body would sway from intoxication, like she was back on the boat in Prague, watching the city lights along the canal brighten as the night progressed.

  But she had to forget Dom just for one more day. She needed to blur the memory for six more hours, one glass after the next until her birthday was over. Amelia grabbed her wine glass to sit in the sunroom. The sun made the room glow at certain hours, bidding a slow farewell to the day as it set behind the city’s skyline.

  On the coffee table were two photo albums. For Amelia, photos were more than just something to be posted on social media to gather likes for validation. She never printed them in bulk, only one or two at a time if they warranted a special place in her book of memories instead of collecting digital dust in the cloud.

  Amelia picked up the top album and began flipping through each page of her collection of deserving stills. She stopped at a photo of Dominic and her standing on top of a boulder with Machu Picchu painting the background.

  Amelia slowly brushed her thumb against the photo. First her face, then trailing down towards her stomach. That stomach, that person. She didn’t recognize either one. She was wearing a blue sports bra with black leggings, exposing her midriff which at the time had impeccable six-pack abs. It wasn’t until the comments flooded her notifications after posting it on Instagram that the disordered thoughts began. People making remarks about how fit her body was and how great she looked. It was gasoline being poured on an already burning flame. She had to keep her figure that way.

  But the reality of carrying her life on her back and hiking for multiple days at a time made her feel like she was stronger than she was, even though the truth was that she was at her weakest.

  After months of hiking from Ushuaia, Argentina up to El Chaltén, Dominic and Amelia treated themselves to a weeklong stay at a bungalow in Bariloche, their final stop through Patagonia.

  Whether it was the water, a dish that wasn’t clean enough, or the meat they bought from the market, Amelia became unbearably sick. For two weeks, she couldn’t keep anything down. She found herself around a dinner table of new friends eating raw potatoes while everyone else chowed down on delicious, homemade burgers. Eventually her appetite had shrunk to the point that she barely noticed she wasn’t eating.

  When they finally arrived in Cusco, Peru to begin the Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu where the photo was taken, Amelia was only able to stomach eating every so often. At this point, the one belt they shared wouldn’t fit her waist even on the smallest notch. Dom never noticed the drastic weight loss. They were attached at the hip every day so to him, it seemed gradual, healthy. She never heard a word from anyone about her body aside from the mute warnings of her wardrobe.

  But that photo wasn’t just about her body; it was about her state of mind. On that day, Amelia was in a cloud of bliss, extending her arms towards the sky overlooking Sacred Valley in the Andes as she rode the waves of the psychedelics Dom had given her. Before the day captured in that picture, Amelia hadn’t ever tried anything like acid. Weed, alcohol, food, and cigarettes were already enough vices to keep her busy. It was always one of those things she assumed she’d never do and was perfectly content with that notion. On the third day of the trek, Dominic just so happened to have a few tabs he’d been gifted from someone at their previous hostel.

  Turning away from the photo album, Amelia picked up her wine glass and took three giant gulps, leaving no drop behind. She grabbed the bottle and poured herself another full glass. Whether it was the wine or her mental exhaustion, Amelia couldn’t escape falling into the well of nostalgia.

  For the first hour after placing the rainbow-colored tablet under her tongue, the effects were gradual. A stillness swallowed her whole. Everything slowed down to a steady, controllable pace. Amelia wanted to swaddle herself in a blanket like a comforting suit of armor to keep her safe. But she couldn’t. Amelia was deep in the jungle, miles away from the next campsite. Her words were soft; her body relaxed. The acid sharpened her vision as the mist along their morning hike grew consistently thicker.

  Out of nowhere, the clouds parted, opening the trail up with a beam of light shining through the trees. She stopped abruptly and bent down, placing her hands on her thighs. Her tingling lips opened wide in astonishment. Never in her life had she witnessed a shade of green so vibrant. She froze, not wanting to move a muscle in case the vibrations of her body would make the colors disappear. She wanted to remember that moment for the rest of her life. All of her doubts, fears, and anxieties vanished. It was just Amelia and that palette of green.

  After what she could’ve sworn was hours of aweing over the technicolored scenery, Dominic and Amelia continued on, each step taken with precision. The mist created mudslides along the path, slick beneath the soles of her sneakers. Her senses were heightened to a new and extreme level. She could see the distinct shapes of the leaves growing and taste the humidity of the jungle on her lips.

  They finally made it to an opening near a set of ruins that gave a distant view of Machu Picchu. Amelia ran over to a pile of rocks, threw her backpack on the ground, and stripped off two layers of shirts. Her eyes, glossy and wide, scanned their surroundings. She wanted to feel her sweaty skin while the sun warmed her face. She didn’t care that there was a group of people staring at this strange woman touching herself. Amelia was liberated.

  A friend they had made along the hike had told her there was an intense energy inside of the nearby ruins. She had to feel it for herself. She ran through the passage of stone walls covered in dark green moss and was instantly shocked by something powerful, like a deep inhale pushing air against the lining of her veins. She skimmed her hands along the walls and spun around in circles. It was an energy connecting her to something, or to someone.

  Amelia ran back towards the overlook and sat with her legs crossed on the grassy field. She had a sudden urge to hug Sara. Sweet, loving Sara. Her best friend of over twenty years. Her chosen sister. Amelia wanted to tell her how much she loved her and wished she could experience this with her. She called out to Sara, knowing she wouldn’t hear but still hoping she could feel the embrace of
Amelia’s thoughts.

  A buzzing sound swarmed around Amelia’s head. A speedy little wasp was zooming around her shoulders. It flew into her sports bra and abruptly stung her on the top of her right breast. Amelia frantically jumped around, slapping her chest to get it out. She’d never been stung by a wasp before. The thought of potentially being allergic shot through her mind. In the middle of nowhere Peru, in potential need of an EpiPen, and she was tripping.

  With a tiny prick, the wasp flew out of her bra and into the open canyon. The pain started to spread. In a clearer state of mind, the pain wouldn’t have been nearly as bad. But the tingling, stinging sensation started to expand throughout the entire right side of her chest. Instead of fear or anxiety, Amelia had a profound moment of clarity. This was something she was supposed to be experiencing. She could see the fear in Dominic’s eyes.

  “Dom, don’t worry. I’m embracing the pain. It’s all a part of the experience.” Amelia rolled her head around in slow circles with her eyes closed, touching her chest where the wasp had stung her. Dominic stared at her with confusion. It was the last thing he expected her to say. In that instant, she had a revelation.

  There would always be a lesson behind the pain.

  Amelia took a deep breath while the vision of looking down on one of the Seven Wonders of the World remained in her thoughts. Having an existential moment while tripping on psychedelics should’ve changed her. But it was only a temporary sanity. A short-lived moment of spiritual cleansing that never followed her home.

  I could handle a wasp stinging me. I could handle carrying my life on my back across the jungle for miles.