Unbearable Lightness

by Portia de Rossi

  It felt strange, all of a sudden: sitting there, exposed and abnormal. I’d said too much. After all, Suzanne was just a nutritionist. I had come to learn what to eat and how to stay on track with my diet, not to spill my guts about my childhood and my insecurities. I realized at that moment what she was referring to when she asked if I’d seen a counselor at the beginning of the session. And in the silence following my rambling, I could see by her smug expression that I had confirmed to her that I was in the wrong place.

  “Portia. I want you to be healthy and happy, but I don’t know if I’m helping you achieve that. I don’t think I’m qualified to help you.”

  I looked down past my manly hands that were sitting on my lap to a stain on the carpet.

  Of course you can’t help me. I’m losing weight on my own.

  The fact that I had to write a pretend journal should’ve been an indication to me that I knew more than she did on the subject of weight loss.

  I looked at her and smiled sweetly.

  She went on to tell me that I had issues that were best handled by a specialist. She told me she would research eating disorder therapists. Then she asked for my mother’s phone number in Australia.

  20

  WITHOUT HAVING an assistant go to the Beverly Center to run my errands for me, I was forced to pull into the parking structure of the dreadful shopping mall on my way home from work to take care of a couple of items myself. I had been contemplating whether to get an assistant, but it was hard to justify such a self-aggrandizing hire. I could certainly afford one, but I wondered how that would look to my friends and family. How would it look to my co-stars when most of them didn’t have one even though they worked a lot more than me? As my character seemed to be appearing in fewer and fewer scenes as the weeks and episodes rolled on, Nelle Porter required hardly any of my time at all, which gave me all the time in the world to shop.

  I hated going shopping. I always tended to feel lonely, even with Bean in a bag by my side. I hated being surrounded by people and yet having no one to help me make a purchase other than the person trying to sell it to me. I hated feeling the desperation of sales assistants and knowing that the commission from my purchase could make or break their day. I also hated people looking at me, I hated children screaming, I hated loud, distracting music, I hated the pet stores with the sick tiny puppies in hot glass cages, and I hated who I was. I discovered how pathetic I was in a store. I defined myself by the items I chose. I could find what I was looking for in black and in pink, and for twenty minutes I would try to decide if I wanted the black one or the pink one. I would think that I was more of a “black” person but that getting it in black was too ordinary. It made me wish that I were a “pink” person when I’m not a “pink” person. This kind of thinking was amplified in a clothing store because invariably I would be overwhelmed by everything I was not only to discover that who I was didn’t even have a place in the store. That in all of Barneys, there wasn’t a tank top or a pair of cargo pants that let me know that I was a welcome member of their society; that they have covered the fashion needs of the upwardly mobile young women who can afford to shop there while sending a message to me that I was not welcome. I didn’t belong there. It told me that their young women wore short skirts and heels and delicate tops with small straps and elegant, tiny necklaces. Their young women were delicate, with soft manners and good bone structure because these young women had inherited the delicate, tall, thin gene from their beautiful mothers who, twenty years prior, were seduced into making offspring by their wealthy, powerful fathers. The Barney’s clientele had no need for tanks with thick straps, boots, and cargo pants. “Go to the Gap with the average, ordinary, people” is the message the store was sending. “You’ll find something for yourself there.”

  As I boarded the escalator and rode down into the bowels of the Beverly Center shopping mall, I became paranoid that my activities might be recorded by the paparazzi. It wasn’t that I feared being caught doing something wrong, it was that I feared being caught doing something so ordinary. I hated paparazzi. Paparazzi made me feel like I was a criminal under investigation for insurance fraud, stalked by photographers who were hired to provide the evidence. Paparazzi are the ultimate hunters. They are patient, prepared, and precise. There’s a wordless exchange that occurs between the hunter and the hunted. They tell you that while you may have gotten away with your life this time, they’ll take away your life next time. They’ll ruin the illusion that is your fake life—the life that you show to the world while keeping all the secrets of your real life hidden. The photographers and you both know that it’s only a matter of time; that with persistence they will expose you for the fraud you are. They told me with one glance that they knew I was gay, that I was fat under the flattering shirt I was wearing, that I was Amanda Rogers, a no one from nowhere. Having an assistant would lessen the chance of being caught as I tended to play the “maybe I can get away with it” game. I would let my guard down, feeling stupid for having an over-inflated ego and thinking that people cared about me enough to take my photo, only to discover that indeed they did.

  As far as I could tell, there were no paparazzi at the Beverly Center. After buying a black exercise mat and nude underwear, I headed back to the car. I decided that because I hadn’t eaten for many hours and my calorie count was fairly low that day, I would allow myself to have a piece of Extra chewing gum. I always allowed myself to have the gum, but at 5 calories a stick, I had to add it to my daily calorie allowance because it was these kinds of unrecorded calories that could build up and cause you to gain weight. I put my seat belt on, reached into my bag for a piece of gum, and put it in my mouth. The sweetness and coolness of it filled my body with a current of ecstasy, and a rush of syrupy water flooded my mouth and my belly. After what seemed like only seconds of chewing, the initial surge was over and I could almost feel my endorphins screaming for survival as they slowly faded back into the blackness of my empty body. Worse than feeling depressed that the rush was over was the feeling of ravenous hunger ripping through my head and my gut. It was a pain that I had never experienced. As if under hypnosis, I reached into my bag again. Robotically, I unwrapped the gum and fed a piece into my mouth. I fed another piece into my mouth. I spat the wad of chewed gum into the ashtray and fed one more piece into my mouth. And then I shoved the pieces into my mouth two at a time. I spat them out. I repeated the frenzied feeding, chewing, and spitting. And then it was done. There were no more sticks of Winterfresh gum left. I slowly came back into my mind only to realize that I’d just consumed 60 calories. I sat in the car unable to turn the key, terrified by what had happened. There was no reason for it, no upsetting situation that had sometimes triggered me to binge in the past, nor was it a conscious decision to blow my intake for the day. It was a normal day, pleasant even. Without an indication, how would I know when this might happen again? What if it happened once a day? How the hell was I not in control of the only thing I thought was possible to control in my life?

  I had been abducted. I was not in control. Now I would live in this state of constant anxiety that I would be overtaken by this vacancy of mind. I would hover there, in this place of helplessness and uncertainty, waiting to be abducted again.

  A surge of fear and anger rushed through my body, and I ripped off my seat belt and got out of the car. In the crowded parking structure of the Beverly Center, I started running. If I couldn’t control the intake, I could control what happened next. I could eliminate it. I could run it off. I started sprinting. I ran as fast as I could to the concrete wall at the end of the parking structure, slapped the wall with my hand like a swimmer at the end of a lap, and like a swimmer I used the energy to turn back in the direction I came with ferocious speed, getting faster and faster with each pump of my arms and legs. When I ran past my car, I could hear my dog barking, her barking getting fainter as I sprinted to the other end of the parking structure, dodging the occasional car that pulled out of a space, and slapped the opposite
wall, catapulting myself off the wall in the other direction to repeat the exercise. I was aware of loud screeching noises as cars passed me, their tires making that sound as they struggled to grip onto the slick concrete through the turns, some of them bulging into the oncoming lane to avoid running into me as I sprinted from end to end. But I couldn’t worry about that. I had to stay focused and keep running. I could eliminate half of these calories if I kept running.

  “Stop running!”

  A young man holding the arm of an elderly woman on a ventilator yelled at me as he crossed my path and attempted to put her in a medical van. He was angry. Maybe my running made him angry because seeing someone freely express their desires by doing whatever took their fancy made him feel trapped, tethered to the ventilator as if he himself depended upon it for life and not the old woman. Although I thought he was very rude to yell at me so loudly, there was something about the tone in his voice that startled me and made me slow down. Once I slowed down it was hard to get the speed back in my sprint.

  I became aware of my footwear, too, and wondered how I could have reached that speed in five-inch rubber platforms. They were my work shoes, my “off-camera” shoes. They were purchased, as the name “off-camera” suggests, for use on the set of Ally McBeal when the camera couldn’t see my character’s feet, but I had given them a leading role. For although they were plain and from Payless, they made my legs look thin. Because their height gave my body the perfect proportion, they were the last things I took off before bed and the first things I put on in the morning. I’d started not to wear any other shoes, even to workout or hike, and I never walked barefoot in my house anymore for fear of passing a reflection of myself in a window. But to be able to sprint in them . . . that’s something that I didn’t think I could do.

  I hated that stupid nurse for breaking my concentration. How dare he interrupt me as I was trying to fix this awful situation I found myself in. It was hard to understand the importance of something like this unless you were desperately trying to lose weight, but I couldn’t say that to anyone for fear of it sounding trivial. No one knew that my whole career hinged on its success.

  I got in the car to drive home. I was angry and riddled with anxiety. If I waited too long to finish burning off the calories consumed by chewing the gum, the calories might turn into fat. At the red lights, I took my hands off the steering wheel and pumped my arms furiously while holding my stomach tight. I alternated putting my left foot and my right foot on the brake so as to bend and straighten my legs an equal number of repetitions. I sang loudly the whole way home while thrashing my head around. I was not a huge fan of Monster Magnet, but there was one song I played repeatedly in the car because it helped me expend energy while driving. I couldn’t get home fast enough. I turned onto Crescent Heights from Beverly and started thinking about a strategy to burn the excess calories. I would park, take the elevator to my apartment, drop Bean off, change into workout gear, and go next door to the gym. No. I would park, drop Bean off in the garden, run up the six flights of stairs, take the elevator back to the garden floor, get Bean, run back up, and then get on the treadmill at home.

  I got myself and Bean out of the car as quickly as I could and started running with her to the garden floor. I hurriedly put Bean outside in the walled garden and took off up the stairs. She would be okay there for a minute. It was an enclosed garden and she needed to stretch her legs. I took the stairs two at a time so I could feel the burn on my thighs. When I reached the fifth floor, I went back to running one stair at a time, but fast, so it felt like I was running in place. I admired my coordination and athleticism. Running that fast up stairs is tricky, especially in platform wedges. I liked wearing the shoes for these tasks, though. I felt as though they burned more calories because I was forced to be aware of protecting my ankles from spraining. Perfect balance was required to land each step with my weight spread evenly on the balls of my feet between my big toe and my little toe, and perfect balance, as I had learned at Pilates, requires energy. And after putting 60 unwanted calories into my body, I had energy to spare.

  When I reached the top of the seventh floor and there were no more stairs to climb, I faced a decision. Would I take the stairs back down to the second floor to get Bean? Or would I take the elevator down and run up the whole staircase one more time? Going down stair by stair couldn’t really do much to burn calories, and it seemed that it would be smarter to take the elevator down and run back up in the time that I had to burn it off before it settled on my stomach and thighs. I got into the elevator, hoping Bean would forgive me for leaving her out there alone for another five minutes, but I had no choice. In the quiet space inside the elevator, I started to comprehend what had just happened to me. I’d binged without reason. I had lost control. I’d lost control and I could do it again without warning. If I lost control again, I could get fat again. I would have to start this thing over again. I would fail at the one thing I knew I was good at.

  I went all the way down. I was at the bottom floor and I ran fast, two stairs at a time, past Bean, past exhaustion, past the memory of what happened in the parking structure of the Beverly Center. I took my hands off the rail and just used my legs to propel me two at a time up the tubelike staircase, with its forgotten wallpaper and its unappreciated carpet. I reached the top, hit the elevator button, and furiously ran in place, crying now as I figured that crying has to burn more calories than not crying. The elevator door opened and I rushed in. I realized after I was in the elevator that a man had been exiting. Could that have been my only neighbor? I’d never met him. The doors closed and my crying seemed to get louder perhaps due to the confined space or the fact that I had stopped jumping up and down for fear that the jumping would cause the rickety old elevator to break down. I shook my hands and twisted my torso from side to side. I thought about the fact that I had to eat again soon. It was getting dark outside probably, and I liked to eat dinner before it got dark so I could digest my food before I went to bed. If I just ate egg whites, just pure protein, I’d probably be okay. But I should do it soon. I should run again and go make food.

  I started back up the stairs, a little more tired now, and took them one at a time. It was still better than sitting on my sofa, worrying. I started a breathing exercise. Inhale four stairs, exhale four stairs, inhale four stairs, exhale four stairs. It helped me keep the pace I needed to reach the top of the seventh floor in two minutes. I started noticing how long it took to get from the bottom to the top on my second trip up the stairs and I could still do it in the same time as it took when I first started. Since I was obviously not as tired as I thought I was, I decided to do it again. Dinner could wait five more minutes. This time in the elevator, I visualized the food entries in my notebook and calculated my calories for the day. My heart leapt out of my chest not because it was straining to pump oxygen to my overworked body but with panic. My notebook was still in the car! My bag was still in the car! Where were my keys? Did I leave them in my bag?

  When the elevator hit the bottom floor I ran past Jeff, the doorman, and into the parking garage in search of my bag. As I opened the heavy steel door of the parking structure I saw my black Porsche, the driver’s door wide open. I was embarrassed running to get my things and close it, but there was no need for my embarrassment because no one was around. I felt stupid anyway. I felt stupid because I was sure someone saw that I’d forgotten to close my car door. Everyone in the building knew whose car that was and now someone who lived near me knew that I was “scatty.” Scatty was the word my second-grade teacher used to describe me to my mother. “Amanda is a bright girl, and has potential to be a good student, but has trouble focusing in class and is scatty.” I was scatty, unfocused, forgetful. I was the kind of girl who would drop out of law school to pursue acting, the kind of girl who would leave her car door open with her keys in the ignition and her purse on the seat. The kind of girl that couldn’t maintain her weight.

  I could see through the barred windows of the abov
e-ground parking structure that it was dark outside, and although it would be harder to run up the stairs with my heavy bag, I knew it was my last chance before I had to start preparing food. I started back up the stairs again, two by two again, this time using my bag as a weight to add difficulty to the climb and to make balancing on my platform shoes harder. I held the bag with both arms out from my chest and climbed the stairwell with its ugly lighting and stained wallpaper. I climbed slower this time but because of the weight I could feel the burn and so as I got to the top I decided to repeat the whole exercise one last time. It was the only time I had used a weight to aid in burning the calories, and if I did it one more time I felt pretty confident that I could forget that the little mishap with the gum had ever happened.

  I arrived at my front door. It had beckoned me at the end of the climb all six times in the last thirty minutes and now, because of my hard work and determination, I got to walk through it. I got to be home. I could finally rest. I turned the lights on in my cold apartment without furniture and threw my bag on the floor. Under the glare of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, I saw all the little round stains on the carpet where Bean had previously gone to the bathroom. It wasn’t her fault, and I was just about to pull up that carpet anyway. She was a good dog. It’s just that sometimes I didn’t have time to take her out.