Beautiful Stranger

Today I am wearing a red and white 70's print Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress with Joan & David brown heels. I have big silver hoop earrings on and a tan wrap. I have owned this dress for a year. I have never worn it because it's so bodacious and would call a lot of attention to me. It's the dress that I try on all the time but never have the guts to wear. On a good day, I would feel hot in this dress but the attention I would cause in it would make me feel uncomfortable. On a bad day, I would feel like a fraud in this dress, the voices in my head would say things like, "that girl cannot wear a dress like that." "She doesn't have the body", "Who does she think she is in that dress," and so on. I never wear the earrings because they are huge and sexy and today I am wearing them together with the dress and the heels and some of my personal swagger. I have been liberated from concern with how I look because my outside no longer matters. It is just wrapping paper. So I can wear and experiment in ways I never did.

In reality, no one is looking. At least compared to what I get in the day to day doctor's visits that I have where I am examined. I am not examined on the street. I am not scrutinized on the street.

The people who scrutinize and look at me are complimenting me on my veins. They won't notice my slutty underwear or bright red lipstick or the hot outfit that I have never had the guts to wear. They are interested in my insides, not my outside. They are reminding me to leave only my underwear on and have my gown open in the back. They want to know about my hemoglobin. They are concerned with my white blood cell count. They have me hooked up to an EKG leaving me picking those stickers off me for days. They put foam green slippers on me as I pad to the bathroom in the emergency room to get them a urine sample. Am I orthostatic? Do I have a fever? What drugs am I currently taking? They want me to drink barium sulfate and get a cat scan so they can see my large and small intestine and find out if there is a diseased area in my small instestine as well. They want me to guzzle 'golitely' and fast for a day before my colonoscopy so they can put a camera up my large intestine and look for polyps and see how far the disease has traveled. Then they leave me all demerol-ed out, drooling on myself, gown open in innappropriate places. And I don't care. I don't have any modesty left. Because no one is looking at my legs, my chest, my eyes, my smile, my earrings or anything they used to. It's just wrapping paper.

Feeling fat or thin is relative now. I was told that gaining weight is desirable. It means I am getting better. Of course that is in direct opposition to how I have felt about my weight my entire life. It is liberating to feel that gaining weight is suddenly coveted and good. So I have been given a reprieve from feeling 'fat,' every woman's dream. Again, freed to wear whatever I want and feel like even if I look fat in it, that's actually a good thing.

It's liberating to suddenly have no qualms about my body. I don't see it as a body anymore, it protects my organs and muscles and bones. When I was in the emergency room on Saturday V. was there with me and I made her sit with me through the litany of tests I got including the rectal exam. That's the real me and she saw it. It's what's inside that counts; you know, my hemoglobin, my white blood cell counts, whether or not there is a diseased spot in my small intestine and so on. So here I am, comfortable wearing skinny jeans and 4 inch heels and big earrings and taking the fashion risks I never would because no one cares about the wrapping paper. It's the inside that counts.