When you're a kid, a mother's word is the law. She is your bible and dictator. Every word she utters is true, and every rule she implements is not without reason. As a child, my father wasn't present so I only looked up to my mother. He was the villain and she was the saint. So when your mother tells you that you need to lose weight, you do it without question. You eat the low-calorie foods and avoid icecreams that your older siblings enjoy. You check the sugar count on packages and you eat the smallest pizza slice even though you're hungry for more. You listen and watch when the doctor shows you a chart. Young eyes watch the colorful lines indicating normal kid's weights and then your own, lifeless and black above your bracket.  You stop seeing foods you enjoy as treats but rather as numbers. Everything is a percentage. But when your life is in chaos, these numbers come to be reassuring. They're something you can control about your own body and when you feel used, this becomes everything to you. 

My mother was not cruel to me as a child. She was honest and sugarcoated her words to reassure me. But I took them personally. I believed that she thought I was too fat to be her daughter. After all, I was blinded by numbers and the black line separating me from the rest. It was an obsession that I couldn’t step away from. Merely in elementary, I would look at myself in the mirror and cry because I couldn't stand looking at the foreign person staring back. The person was too big and far too ugly. I smiled for pictures but refused to look at them. If I looked, I would see someone that was not myself. I could not associate my present state with my mind. 

It was around this time that I came to a realization of my past. I had befriended an old man up the block. I passed by his house every other day on the way to my friend's house. We would smile and wave. That's it. One day, he invited me inside to look at his garden. I was taught to be polite and respect my elders so I said yes. I remember the white, rusty fence creaking open. The garden was filled with hues of green and bright flowers. To me, it was beautiful. In the middle of the strip of the garden, there was a towering lemon tree. He offered to let me pick one. Of course, I said yes again. I remember seeing a ladder against the house. He offered to pick me up so I could reach the lemons. I said no because I had already begun to think I was heavier than a hippo. He insisted. I gave in. It would be rude to say no twice. He lifted me in the air and I remember feeling relieved that I was still light enough to be lifted like every other kid. I remember how his hands lingered and I had to wiggle out for him to let go.

I don't know how long this lasted. We were friends. He was always outside when I went to my friend's house. A smile and a wave, sometimes another lemon if I was lucky enough. Then one day, I was walking back home with my friend. He stopped us to talk and I was glad to. My friend refused to trust him and stayed far away. I was by his side, his hand around my shoulders, blindly urging her to have some faith. I remember exactly what he said next. "She trusts me." Then he kissed me like it was nothing. I remember being confused, trying to rationalize that maybe old people had different ways of showing trust. He smiled at her and said, "See? You should trust me too." My friend ran off. I said bye and in a daze, went back home. I was used. In the end, he wanted her. I was a disposable pawn.

Our mothers were friends so naturally, her mom told my mom. I denied everything and told them it was her. I remember how horrified my mother was, how disgusted. I couldn't admit that I was the dirty, dumb one. When I was in the police station the next day, with my father by my side, I refused to admit what the old man had done. I remember looking deep into the female officer's eyes, begging God she would take the hint and ask me privately. I told the police that my friend had been kissed. Since we both gave conflicting stories, everything was dropped. I still walked by the white, rusty fence. I looked straight ahead, sometimes seeing the old man watching from his garden. I had pushed the incident to the back of my mind and forgotten.

With this knowledge, I was once more drowned in the sensation of being filthy. I obsessed over my mistakes,  recounting everything I said with disgust. The old man was dead and no one knew the truth besides my friend. But she had a learning disability so even her mother took my side. I felt awful. To punish myself and please my mother, I became more invested in losing weight. School was a way for me to do that. I would leave without breakfast, tell my friends and staff that I had eaten a large meal before school, avoid lunch, and come home to tell my mom that I had eaten too much at school so I wouldn't have to eat dinner. I survived off snacks. This worked for months. There were days I gave in, others where I went for two days. Sometimes I stopped for a full month. But I wasn't suicidal, simply obsessed.

The death of my cousin in 7th grade tipped me over the edge. If possible, I worsened. To add to my obsessive state with weight loss, I was depressed. I had lost someone who appeared to have a perfect life. If she could not live, why should I? I couldn't see any possibility in which I would live in graduate middle school. I determine, at the age of 13, to die. I starved myself continuously. There were days that I felt unreal, a mere video game character in a repetitive cycle. I wondered if my friends were real people. I slept all day and lived on my bed. I researched suicide methods. But, of course, I kept my grades up. I was praised for my intelligence. Even more commonly, I was praised for how quickly I had lost weight. My aunts smiled and nudged me, asking me to slip them my secret to becoming skinny. I still didn't feel like I was close to my goal. I was still on the black line ostracized from every other kid. I was alone.

Suddenly, I was graduating. In another blink, I was in high school. There was no definitive person or event that gave me the strength to go on. If anything, it was a collection. For example, there was a day I now find funny to look back on. I remember I ended up sitting on the couch watching BTS on my TV since my family was out. I forgot what I had been crying about. They gave me a reason to continue. I got a dog named Maze and as soon as I held her in my hands, I refused to outlive her. She had a stroke coming out of the womb and was by far the smallest and yet here she was, alive and fighting. Whenever I got close to committing, I thought of my family. I couldn't bare the idea of my parents planning my funeral, my older siblings losing their baby sister, and my little brother putting a rose on my casket as I had done with my older cousin. I refused to be a sad story told at therapy or the mysterious aunt on the ofrenda that died before meeting her nieces and nephews. I didn't want to live in the past. I want to be a part of the future. I want to be a doctor. I want to live, not survive.

Bad habits never leave. They live deep inside you, asleep but not dead. It was hard to break away from the comfort of starvation. Sometimes, I think about going back. Things are always easier when the world is seen in black and white. Then I think of my family, new friends, and everything I'll miss. Even if the world is difficult to understand, it can be beautiful in shades and hues of colors. I would not change my past. It has taught me lessons that older people have yet to even begin to comprehend and for that, I am grateful. After all, I can't change what happened to me so I must live with it.