Zen Bender

by Stephanie Krikorian

  After one visit, I was sold.

  I began to go monthly when I could. And Alexis became the de facto head of my wellness team. I began to treat acupuncture as my preventive medicine splurge, plus she cured my iPhone-itis (as in my wrist and elbow throbbed from texting and social media-ing). She helped with my lower back issues, headaches, whatever. During my monthly visits, she was (and continues to be) on it.

  Interestingly, Alexis didn’t just deal with my chi. She pulled out anatomy books, discussed injuries, talked about emotional issues, and we chitchatted too—discussing personal finance, politics, the perils of homeownership, ticks, life in the era of Trump, and of course self-help books. She practiced alternative medicine, but she offered up a well-rounded approach to physical and mental health. Like me and most people I know, she’s only about 10 percent out there, if you know what I mean by that. Not outer space out there. Just New Age out there. And I like that out-there side of her. But I also like that she’s grounded in reality and has never steered me wrong.

  She and I would discuss whatever crisis du jour was going on in my life, as I lay on her table with needles sticking out of my legs, feet, ears, and stomach, and we would talk through my stress. One day, she made a rather astute observation: that most situations that caused me anxiety could in some way be traced back to my home. That home was not a sanctuary for me. In fact, it had become a torture chamber.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she was right. Even sharing with her some events that pre-dated Harlem, home had been a cause for anxiety, for one reason or another.

  When she first brought it up, I didn’t have an answer, and she didn’t have an immediate solution, but it did start me thinking.

  At the time, I was also collaborating on a book called You Are WHY You Eat, by Dr. Ramani Durvasula. Dr. Ramani always gave me so much good advice, and I gleaned a lot of it editing her writing. As we talked through a lot of the notions in her book, the idea of the stakes getting higher in certain situations started to resonate with me. I was working for myself. I was becoming aware of age, and life, and the fact that time wasn’t infinite. And so, the stakes were higher. I wasn’t twenty. Parents were aging, retirement was looming, and things I’d once not given a care about were front and center on my worry list.

  Dr. Ramani’s book wasn’t about eating alone, or really about eating at all, though it shed interesting light on the concept of eating to please other people and struggles with weight. More, it addressed the concept of tackling weight problems in order to empower yourself to tackle greater change in your life. Especially as the stakes soared.

  All of it applied to my home situation. Dr. Ramani’s theory on my home choice was an interesting one: She felt that, by choosing the actual structure in which I lived as a priority over the neighborhood that it stood in, I had made certain assumptions about myself that were completely incorrect. And in doing so, I had forced something on myself that I didn’t like, and therefore put myself in a bad mood that never went away.

  She was correct in many ways.

  I had made my purchase in the dead of winter, when the streets were quiet. At the time, I didn’t notice or predict that this would be an important factor. But when the spring and summer months rolled around and the sun was shining, when the wonders of the streets of New York came alive, a cacophony of humanity took to 116th and it came alive with gatherings and social interaction that I hadn’t expected, that in the evening proved lovely, but in the day proved distracting for a stay-at-home writer.

  Additionally, at the time of purchase, I was leaving for work each day, and, while things like local wine stores and yoga studios didn’t seem important because I knew those conveniences were a mere subway ride away, later, when I was working from home, it would have come in handy if they had been within walking distance. (They both eventually popped up in the neighborhood but, patience not being my strong suit, I had by then become frazzled over the lack of either.)

  Most of my assumptions about my needs and what I wanted proved very wrong and, indeed, extremely problematic. I needed quiet. I needed convenience, like being close enough to the action that I craved.

  Apparently, I didn’t know myself very well. I didn’t know what would bother me. But Dr. Ramani did.

  What I didn’t know was that I didn’t need a big space. That meant I had made an erroneous compromise. New York City is full of trade-offs. But when it came to living, I had made one that was too big for me to handle. I thought I wanted a larger apartment, so I made a classic New York choice—location versus size. I chose wrong.

  After seven years in Harlem, and the insights of Alexis and Dr. Ramani, I finally realized that size didn’t actually matter.

  Like shiny hair, neither did shiny marble countertops or Kohler faucets. What mattered to me was peace, which wasn’t happening inside my building, and it wasn’t happening on my street when I stepped out.

  It took me some time to figure out how to change my situation. Though seemingly unrelated, I began by doing what Dr. Ramani said to do on many fronts. I started eating on small plates. I started watching the way people would encourage me to eat or drink with them (to feel better about their own eating habits, they needed someone to eat or drink as much as they did), and maybe most importantly, I started to at least notice when I didn’t trust my gut, or, as she called it, “spider senses.” I started taking note of the stakes and which ones rose and which ones mattered most.

  All these small moves started to bring an awareness to my life that I hadn’t possessed before. I realized that I spun on a daily basis. And I chased my life, rather than living it in a more conscious way.

  Dr. Ramani theorized that our initial feeling on something is often spot-on, but that, at times, we get ourselves deeper into situations even though they feel wrong; as we do, the stakes get higher, and extricating ourselves becomes more difficult. Taking all those smaller steps, as Dr. Ramani suggested, empowered me to see clearly about a larger one.

  That was my home life. Eventually, I could see that situation very clearly. Not only was it too expensive for the income I was then suddenly not bringing in, but also it was too stressful—and too full of compromise.

  Seven years after moving in, my neighbor Doug got a job in Los Angeles and put his Harlem apartment one floor below mine on the market. Within twenty-four hours, he had seven offers.

  The recession was over. And so was my time in Harlem.

  I listed my apartment, and without having anywhere to go, I jumped once again, hoping a net would form. I put my things in storage and checked out of Casa Loco. Like my decision to quit my job, I had a solid positive vibe about my move, though I had no real plan.

  Something else happened once I knew I was leaving. I started feeling okay about walking at night again. Late at night, I strolled the streets, keeping to the busier ones, feeling calmer and almost sorry to be leaving. It hadn’t been the streets that were the problem, it had been my general high level of stress about my life situation that had kept me from stepping outside and doing what de-stressed me the most.

  I realized during those walks: I didn’t want to leave New York. I wanted to leave a building that had grown too chaotic for my state of mind. It was a fun place to live once, but then it wasn’t. Leaving was a risk. I might never make it back to the city I loved. But then again, I’d been pretty clear on that vision board that the city was part of my way of life.

  Dramatically less expensive, with small, manageable compromises, three months after moving out, I closed on a simple house in Springs in the Hamptons. A valuable lesson was learned: Life will always be full of compromise. The key is to know ourselves enough to figure out which ones we can best manage.

  Looking at this in the rearview mirror, I eventually saw another by-product of following Dr. Ramani’s book. Fear, in many ways, was slowly starting to leave me.

  Many people have at times told me
I am brave. I would have described myself more as bold, as I think I’m chicken about a lot of things. After constant warnings as a child against talking to strangers, I’ll admit I’m still worried about getting kidnapped, like everyone was all the time in the after-school specials. There still exists that genuine fear of getting my head taken off by a Sears truck, like my mother always warned.

  But once again, I took a chance and made a step to finding some peace. For every five failed fixes I had tried, a couple of them had finally worked.

  Chapter 7

  The Life-Changing Magic of Tapping into an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder You Didn’t Know You Had

  home

  If you’ve ever struggled with weight, you know the shame and frustration of never finding anything to wear. It’s really occupied so much of my headspace that, if never being able to find clothes that fit was my job, I’d be rich and would have been able to retire long ago.

  What could I have accomplished if I had used the time more wisely, instead of always stressing about what was in my closet that would look the least bad? Probably a lot.

  I was nominated for a New York Emmy for a reality show I had created, but I didn’t go to the ceremony because I was so worried about finding something to wear. I knew I’d be uncomfortable, as I was challenging to fit, so instead I didn’t even try—I decided to avoid the agony of shopping and pretend I was above going, that it wasn’t important to me. Oddly enough, I had just won a raffle, something I was prone to doing, for a custom-made gown. Even that didn’t give me enough of a boost to go.

  It’s quite fair to say, that battle, both in my head and in my closet, has been the domineering force and utter brutal time-suck of my life. Period.

  Part of the problem is that I’m short. If you’re five foot two, I guarantee you’ve spent a considerable amount of your income having pants and sleeves and skirts shortened to accommodate your lack of height. In the olden days, there was no such thing as buying a pair of jeans and immediately wearing them. That changed at some point, as retailers started to sell tall, regular, and short jeans. Back in the day, a week’s notice was required before wearing; jeans had to be purchased, washed, and shortened. Skirts, too. Dresses. Jackets. Everything.

  Eventually, retailers and designers got savvy and offered a petite line for shorties like me. It was slow going at first—only a few places sold them. Though nobody ever offered a full line-up of height-challenged clothing, some retailers made some pieces available in a pinch. I always theorized that, as with sizes 10, 12, and 14, designers didn’t want to see short or chubby people in their beautiful threads.

  Ever walk into a store and have the clerk say, “We have more sizes in the back?” That means more sizes for the sturdier people. They only rack the tiny stuff so as to humiliate you into knowing you aren’t front-of-store-worthy. I was told by a friend that the small ones come out of the box first, hence the back room for larger sizes, but still, if a scrawny clerk says that before I have even asked a question, she’s sized me up.

  I can’t be certain, but in my ‘90s and 2000s world, Ann Taylor was one of the first to offer short-people clothing. Not that they were overly fashion forward (not that I was or am either), but there were basics, as a fashionista might say—cardigans, black and gray pants, shirts—the stuff people could wear every day with a little mixing and matching of accessories. That meant, as petite items went, it was Ann Taylor or the tailor.

  Rarely did I need a suit for my job—in television, the well-dressed people were on air, and then there were the rest of us. The divide was clear and apparent. These days, working from home, if I get out of my pajamas by five in the afternoon, it’s a fancy day at the office. I have regular Lululemon and dressier Lululemon for when I need to leave the compound and go to, say, the post office. If I had some sort of meeting back in the job days, then I would buy what I needed as I needed it. I was never a clothes horse.

  On some occasion or other, I needed a summery suit. I don’t recall why. I’m sure I had a black blazer and black pants, but for whatever reason, I needed a lighter option. A little thicker in the middle, bustier, I didn’t always fit into the petite line exactly. It wasn’t until years later, as boob jobs became mainstream, that designers started letting out the tops, which eventually gave me at least a fighting chance at buttoning a blazer.

  Off to Ann Taylor on this specific occasion, I tried on eighty-two things and had my standard breakdown in the changing room, as I always did when I tried to find something to wear, before settling on a suit out of my price range (which was often what ended my meltdown—the clear decision to spend more than I should on fewer pieces to get out of there slightly less scathed and have one thing to wear).

  That suit was gray with a single row of buttons. No shoulder pads. It had pinstripes in a gold-but-not-metallic color and white. The suit wasn’t shiny, but it wasn’t dull. The pants were the right length and proportion, but they zipped up at the side. None of this style was my best look; however, the jacket covered up the flaws. I was stuck with a compromise, as usual, but it was good enough.

  I wore the suit once, for whatever I needed to wear it for. And then I hung it back in the closet with the rest of the one-timers that collected shoulder dust, glad to be out of it and hopeful I’d never have to see it again. Looking at it as it hung felt like failure; failure to be the right size and to find the right suit.

  Years later, I needed a summer suit again. I had a job interview. At the time, my mother was visiting at my apartment at 59th and Columbus. Previously I had been able to suffer the indignity of tearing every single last item of clothing out of my closet in a desperate search to find one thing, anything, that fit or looked semi-okay, alone. I didn’t have to share the horror episodes with anyone.

  I tore through everything to find an interview suit. Closet almost empty, contents on the bed and floor, I found the Ann Taylor pinstripe option and zipped it up. I stepped out of my bedroom to check the full-length mirror in the hall, and my mother pointed out what I already knew, but was hoping wasn’t apparent: The suit was tight.

  That was being kind. The suit didn’t fit.

  My mother said very gently, “I think it’s pulling a bit in the back.”

  So, when my poor unassuming mother, who would do anything on the planet to make me feel better and have an easy life, said something that was 100 percent true and that I already knew, I snapped at her. Looking back, “snapped” feels like an understatement.

  “Unleashed” more aptly describes it.

  I tore her head off. I felt, for one brief second, nothing but rage toward her, as though decades of anger about my ups and downs on the scale suddenly bubbled up and were her fault. As if having cried in my closet all those times I struggled hadn’t let out the frustration, the remnants of every closet or retail-dressing-room fight leaked out of my pores at that very moment.

  Logically, I knew it wasn’t her fault that my ugly suit didn’t fit. But I didn’t want to hear it. It was already screaming inside my head in the same way it had every other time something didn’t fit.

  These are your damn genes. That’s what I thought, not said.

  Instead, I screamed at her in a rather unkind way some other words about not telling me what to do. Basically, in that horrible way one can only scream at one’s mother, saying nothing that makes any sense, just using a ton of words to misdirect one’s anger toward the one person who will tolerate it.

  Uncharacteristically, I flipped out, which was not my typical behavior toward my mother.

  And then, ten minutes later, my mother still liked me, for some strange reason.

  I don’t remember if I went out and bought a new suit for that interview, after blaming my mother for everything in my life, or if I squeezed in and squeezed by, but I clearly remember how ashamed I felt for not being able to zip that suit up, yes, but more for how I had misdirected my rage. I felt bad about it immediat
ely and have ever since. I suspect that my mother, having raised three girls with short fuses, didn’t even rank it in the top five irrational-child episodes of her life as a mom. Maybe she doesn’t remember it. But I do.

  Like every piece of shitty clothing in my wardrobe, that stupid suit survived various homes that I have lived in. I moved it with me from place to place. And I moved a lot. Each time, I dragged all my crap with me.

  Along the way, my purges were always minimal. I had a system. I’d take a few items out of the closet that I hadn’t worn in a couple of years and put them in a bag for Goodwill. Then I’d grab half of them back out of the bag, because it felt wasteful to toss a perfectly good dress circa 1994 that I’d never, ever, ever wear again, and so I’d pay money to have it moved along with my stuff. Every time.

  Permission to Purge

  Adulthood is often marked by the day one eliminates the last piece of college Ikea furniture from one’s décor, though Ikea is making a decorating comeback as frugal becomes the new flashy, but for whatever reason, clothing didn’t go the way of the standard-issue POÄNG chair everyone I knew in my twenties (including me) owned.

  There were some clothing items I was nostalgic about, so I kept. I had a white blouse that always reminded me of a fun New York night—the time a random selection of work friends and I went for a drink, then spontaneously went to a club, then went to the Empire Diner and sat next to Sean Penn and ate blue-cheese burgers at five in the morning (and the entire night I stressed out because I’d left my first-floor bedroom window in Hoboken cracked ever so slightly, and FYI that apartment was eventually robbed).

  My checkered crop pants reminded me of a fun trip I had with my younger sister, so I kept them even though they never even remotely fit after that trip. I have held onto a dress I wore once after hitting Weight Watchers so hard that I dropped so much weight it was unmaintainable. I kept that dress to stare at as aspiration for the next diet. Sometimes I kept things because, yes, they fit once. But due to my frugality or nostalgia or hope, I often hung on for too long.