Unbearable Lightness

by Portia de Rossi

  “Yes,” he said simply. “Yes, it is.”

  We cracked up. We laughed so hard we were snorting. Nearby Christmas shoppers saw us laughing and couldn’t help but laugh, too. We left the store and were cracking up all the way to the parking garage, dropping shopping bags as we doubled over. Even after we’d recovered for several minutes, I’d burst out laughing again on our drive to the pub, thinking about my macho helicopter pilot brother wearing a purse. That would set him off again, too, and as I laughed with my brother and drove past red brick Victorian terrace houses and through the eucalyptus-lined streets of my hometown, I felt that I was truly home.

  When we arrived at the Great Britain, GB for short, Michael went to the bar and I settled in at a high-top table. I looked around my favorite pub. There was a goldfish above the bar in an old black-and-white TV set and tableaus of mini living rooms, with vintage floor lamps lighting worn sofas and mismatched coffee tables. I never felt more myself as I did in that grungy pub. Bill, an old school friend whom I rarely went anywhere at night without, used to drive me to the GB where we’d meet Sacha and friends from law school. Occasionally I was introduced to girls. Although I was too shy to really do much about it, I loved feeling that excitement of getting dressed to go out thinking that perhaps that night I could meet someone and fall in love. The hope of falling in love was a lot to sacrifice for the sake of my career. Apart from that feeling, I missed being able to relax in public without fear of being noticed, and talking to whomever I chose without worrying about people finding out my big secret.

  There was no real reason why I hadn’t told my brother that I was gay. Then again, I just didn’t really have a reason to tell him. I wasn’t dating anyone, and because none of his friends had any idea that I was gay, I wasn’t worried that he’d find out from someone other than me. I knew Mom wouldn’t tell him. She didn’t want anyone to know.

  I could hear my brother talking to the bartender about how he just arrived from LA and the old-fashioned cash register make the ding sound as it popped open its drawer to swallow up the gold two-dollar coins. I took a drag of my cigarette and found it hard to breathe the smoke back out of my mouth. My throat had constricted with anxiety, trapping the smoke in my lungs. It was time to reveal myself to my brother. I was sure he’d be confused and have a lot of questions, but I had to tell him how alone and misunderstood I’ve felt. I could no longer keep this secret from him and I just had to hope that he would understand.

  He returned with the beers. He put them down on the table. He sat down. He took a sip.

  “Brother. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time. Something I’ve known since I was a kid, really. Well, teenager, I guess. Umm . . .” I took a deep breath and looked at him in his eyes. “I’m gay.”

  There was an eruption of laughter at the pool table. One man had apparently scratched by sinking the white ball in behind the black to lose the game. The man who won was yelling and walking backward with his arms spread wide, a pool cue in his right hand. He was coming dangerously close to our table. To my surprise, my brother didn’t seem to notice and to my even bigger surprise he looked angry. He’d been staring at the table for what seemed like an eternity and for a brief moment I wondered if he’d even heard what I’d said.

  “What did you think I would say, Porshe? Why would you think that I’d care about something like that? I’m not some narrow-minded bigot that you’d have to hide this from. I mean, who do you think I am?”

  Of all the feelings I thought he would have, betrayal had never crossed my mind. I had betrayed him by hiding the person I really was from him for fear that he would reject me. I had insulted him by insinuating that he harbored thoughts of discrimination and bigotry. His reaction was so surprising to me and it left me feeling ashamed for judging him. And yet I couldn’t remember feeling happier. I could tell by his expression that once he got over his anger at me for keeping this secret from him, there was nothing left to talk about. He wasn’t confused. He didn’t need questions answered. He didn’t ask why or how or with whom or whether I thought maybe it might just be a phase. He didn’t ask who knew and who didn’t know or whether I thought it might ruin my career. I was his sister and he didn’t care whether I was straight or gay; it simply didn’t matter to him. I’d been worried that he wouldn’t believe me, but he didn’t even question me. All that mattered to him was that I had been struggling with this tortuous secret without his help.

  His phone rang. It was a work call from LA; it wasn’t yet Christmas Eve over there—it was just the twenty-third of the month, a day like any other. He took the call and spoke in a tone that was all business. In his voice there was no evidence of anger or betrayal—it was light and friendly without a hint of emotion. He spoke and chugged down his beer.

  “You ready?” He didn’t even look at my untouched beer.

  “Let’s go.”

  As we walked side by side down the Melbourne street in the late-afternoon heat of summer, he put his arm around my shoulder. He understood. He still loved me. We sauntered down the city street listening to the magpies that squarked so loudly we couldn’t have heard each other even if we had needed to talk. But we didn’t. We just needed to silently acknowledge that we were home, that we were where we came from, that for that moment we didn’t need to live in another country just to feel accomplished. We were okay just as we were. Our silence was broken by the remote unlocking the rental car. He uncharacteristically opened my side first, like a gentleman, and just as I was about to thank him for his valor he said:

  “You’re good at wrapping gifts, aren’t you?”

  24

  CHRISTMAS MORNING, like every other morning since I’d arrived in Melbourne, began in the dark, as jet lag, the discomfort of an unfamiliar bed, and hunger prevented me from sleeping past 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. I lay in the darkness of the master bedroom of my two-bedroom hotel suite and ran through my calorie consumption and calorie burn of the day before. This mental calculation had become a ritual, and it was done with precision and some urgency. Only when I could solve the equation of calories in and calories out could I feel relief and begin my day. There was a scale in the bathroom. I saw it when I arrived the night before. It was digital and measured weight in pounds, unlike other Australian scales, which measured in kilograms. Could I possibly stand on it? Could I weigh myself? I’d been too scared to check my weight since arriving in Australia because of the water retention that can occur during plane travel, and I didn’t want to upset myself. But lying in bed Christmas morning, I felt thin. I could feel my hip bones and my ribs. I lay on my side with my legs slightly bent with one knee on top of the other for the ultimate test of weight loss: if the fat on my top thigh didn’t touch my bottom thigh, if there was a gap between my thighs even when I was lying down, then my thighs had to be thin. There was a wide gap and I made a mental note to measure that gap with one of those stiff metal tape measures when I got back home. I felt as though I could get on that digital scale and give myself the Christmas present of a good number, a number that would show my hard work; a number that would congratulate me for dieting successfully for eight months.

  For eight months, I hadn’t gained a pound. I’d stayed the same for a few days at a time, but I hadn’t gained. My initial goal weight was 115 pounds. My mistake was that I set a goal weight thinking that 115 pounds would feel different from how it really felt. I thought I would look thinner than I did at that weight. At 115 pounds, although my stomach was flatter and my arms looked good, my thighs were still too big. At 110 pounds, I was happy. I really liked how I looked. I only went under that weight because I needed a cushion in case that uncontrollable urge to binge happened again and it wasn’t chewing gum, but ice cream, candy, or potato chips that abducted me.

  The only thing I cared about now was not gaining. As long as I never gained, weight loss was no longer that important. But seeing a new low on the scale did give me a high. And the lower the number, the bigger the high.

&
nbsp; I walked into the bathroom and used the toilet. I then held my breath as I eased onto the scale, my arms holding me up on the bathroom counter, holding my weight off the scale for as long as it took to gently add weight pound by pound until I could let go of the counter and stand with my arms by my side. In this hotel bathroom, naked and vulnerable, I closed my eyes and prayed. The red digital number in between and just in front of my feet would determine whether I had a happy Christmas or a miserable one. To no one in particular I said out loud, “Please let me be in the nineties. I’ll take ninety-five, I’m not greedy, just don’t let it be in the hundreds. I’d rather die than be in the hundreds. Please, please, please, please.” I started to cry with anxiety, but I quickly calmed myself down as I was worried the jerkiness my body makes when I cry might have caused the number on the scale to shoot up and not come down again. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to start over, to ease back on the scale again just to make sure that the number I saw would be the accurate one. As I got off the scale looking straight ahead at my reflection in the mirror, I felt as though I needed to use the bathroom again and I did so hoping that I’d gotten all the excess water out of my body. I eased myself back onto the scale feeling fortunate that I hadn’t read the first number, that God had whispered in my ear and told me to get off the scale and use the bathroom so I could avoid the pain that the false read would’ve given me. I stood now with my hands by my side. I was empty. I was no longer crying. I was ready to receive my Christmas present, the gift of health and self-love that I’d given myself this year. With complete calmness and acceptance, I looked down at my feet.

  89

  “Merry Christmas, Portia.”

  “Merry Christmas, Portia.” My aunt Gwen and Uncle Len walked through the door of the hotel suite bearing gifts and my uncle’s famous Christmas fruit cake. Frank Sinatra was crooning carols in the background, a giant, fully trimmed Christmas tree was the centerpiece of the spacious living room, and my grandmother and mother were sitting on chairs together in front of it, talking. Moments later, my cousins wandered in and the tableau was complete. I silently congratulated myself for providing this lovely experience for my family. This was what I could do with the money that was given to me in exchange for my freedom. I could create a Christmas where they could all relax and enjoy one another without having to worry about anything. I could create the perfect holiday.

  The day started out perfect for me, too. I did sit-ups and leg lifts with renewed energy and vigor. I was eighty-nine pounds. It sounded so mysterious and magical I could barely say it out loud. It was special. Who weighed eighty-nine pounds? It was an accomplishment that felt uniquely mine, uniquely special. I went to the gym at 5:30 and ran up and down the hall for thirty minutes, waiting for it to open at six. I was the only one in the gym on Christmas morning, as I was the only one who took health and fitness seriously. In a way, working hard in the gym Christmas morning was the answer to the question I had asked of myself when I began this journey six months prior. This wasn’t a passing phase. This was my new way of life. On the day when everyone else slacked off, I worked because being thin was what I liked more than anything else. But something else happened in there, too. I felt lonely. For a brief moment, as I pressed the up arrow on the treadmill until the speed climbed to 7.0, I felt very alone. I heard the thud of my feet as they found the rhythm of the belt and wondered why I had a demanding taskmaster of a voice in my head that could be silenced only if I ran instead of slept, when everyone else in this hotel was waking up gently to a quiet voice that was telling them to stay in bed, that it’s only six, it’s not time to think just yet.

  “Have some champagne, Porshe.”

  “I don’t drink anymore, Ma. You know that.”

  “Oh, come on. It won’t hurt you.”

  My mother likes tradition and the idea that the family clan will pass on all the same habits and morals and ideas, generation after generation. A tradition in our family was to drink champagne with a pureed strawberry liqueur concoction my cousin made especially for Christmas morning. I felt that I couldn’t refuse.

  I drank the champagne and my mother instantly looked relieved. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol from the champagne that loosened my tight grip on my diet, but the simple act of drinking a glass of champagne with my family was exhilarating. I was happier in that moment than I had been in eight months. For just that one day, I was going to put the “cushion” theory in play. Seeing my family relax as I drank the champagne encouraged me to continue to drink and eat and be merry. Next I ate turkey meat and my mother smiled. Then, at my family’s urging, I ate potatoes. They relaxed. They laughed. It seemed that my eating potatoes gave them more pleasure than opening gifts, not having to cook, and Christmas Day itself. So I ate some more. I felt invincible at eighty-nine pounds. And I loved that for the first time since I was a small child, I could just be like everyone else. I wasn’t a model or an actress who had to eat special food, nor was I an overweight girl who complained about her weight, making everyone else bored and uncomfortable. I was just one of the family at that dining table, partaking in their rituals, their food.

  By the time everyone but my brother and my cousin, Megan, had left, however, I was no longer happy or relaxed. I was in shock. I had drunk a glass of champagne. I had eaten turkey roasted in its own fat. I had eaten beans glazed with oil. But what shocked me the most was that I had eaten potatoes. I had eaten two medium-sized roasted potatoes with oil and rosemary and salt. I started to panic. I clenched and unclenched my fists and started circling my wrists in an attempt to take the horror of what was digesting in my gut away from my mind’s eye. My body was shaking. I couldn’t control the shaking because the panic that was setting in to make it shake felt like itching. Somehow I had to get relief. I raised my arms above my head and shook out my hands as if to expel the energy. My cousin and my brother were still in the living room, sitting by the Christmas tree, but I no longer cared. In front of my cousin and my brother, I started jumping up and down with my arms above my head and shaking my hands to try to get rid of the calories in the potatoes.

  “Porshe, what are you doing?” Megan asked me in a tone that suggested she wasn’t waiting for an answer. She had something to say to me. She was quite emotional. I could tell because when Australians are emotional, sometimes they can sound bossy.

  “I pigged out at lunch and I’m just trying to work some of it off.” To downplay the fact that I was jumping up and down and shaking, I tried to sound nonchalant and used a smiley voice that was on a frequency that sat high above the panic. I smiled and in between bounces shrugged my shoulders in a “you know how it is” way that I was sure all women would understand. But I didn’t really care if I was understood. I just had to get rid of all that crap in my stomach. I felt so panicked I couldn’t be still.

  “Portia. You ate potatoes, just some potatoes. They’re not going to make you fat, okay? What’s the big deal?”

  They will make me fat because it’s not just some potatoes that I just ate, it’s the potatoes I know I’m going to eat in the future now I’ve allowed myself to eat those. That by eating those potatoes I could get back on the same old yo-yo dieting pattern and suffer in the way that I’d suffered from age twelve to twenty-five. Eating those potatoes could cost me my career, money, and my ability to make money. Eating those potatoes will make me poor. So eating those potatoes will make me fat. Because without any money or a career, I will definitely end up fat.

  “I’m going for a run.” I quickly walked past her and my brother to the bedroom, changed into gym clothes, and strode past them again and out the front door. Compared to the earlier laughing and talking and singing, the suite was eerily quiet. I don’t think they spoke to each other the whole time I was changing. As I jogged down the hall, I replayed the scene in my mind. I knew I’d end up ruining Christmas no matter how hard I tried to make it perfect. I knew I’d end up upsetting the people I love with my selfishness and my lack
of thought for others. I had tried so hard to make everyone happy and yet I just couldn’t lie well enough to do it. Lying was too hard. As I ran out of the elevator and through the lobby, I could sense that people were staring.

  I wasn’t like everyone else. I was an actress. I changed my name, my accent, my nationality. I was gay. It was time to stop even trying to pretend.

  25

  IT GOT quiet at night on the streets of Camberwell. It was always quiet with Bill unless I was prepared to talk. Sitting on the stoop of the fish and chip shop next to 7-Eleven was something that we liked to do after we’d done everything else. After we drove across town to the less gentrified neighborhood, where the architecture was better but where the people who lived in it were generally poorer, had coffee, drank beer, played pool, saw a band, and drove back across town to the middle-class suburban neighborhood where my mother lived, we’d sit on the stoop of the Camberwell fish and chips shop enjoying the balmy weather and the freedom of not having to look at a clock. There were as many hours as we needed in the middle of the night, if in fact, 2:00 a.m. was considered the middle of it. Usually with these free hours I would tell Bill my troubles, my plans, my desires, but tonight I really didn’t have any. I was just sitting there, living. Living was in stark contrast to dreaming about living. Usually I would tell him my plan to make Sacha fall in love with me, the directors I had hopes to meet, why being in Los Angeles was better than being in Australia. When I was bored of talking about myself, I would talk about him, challenge him about why he didn’t have a girlfriend, a job, an escape plan from his life. But I was still really just talking about me, talking myself into the reasons why I didn’t have a girlfriend, a job that I liked, but mostly, I was trying to find a reason for having had to escape from the place that was my home. To convince myself of my choice, I had to make it a place that everyone should want to escape from. But tonight I really had nothing to say. I wasn’t excited about anything. I realized that in stark contrast to Christmases past, I had no drive, no reason to propel me forward. I had nothing to say. And because Bill doesn’t really like to talk, Camberwell at 2:00 a.m. was pretty quiet.