Unbearable Lightness

by Portia de Rossi

  While I was learning how to eat again (or perhaps for the first time), I cultivated new hobbies that had nothing to do with how I appeared to other people in terms of how I looked or professional accomplishment. My new hobbies required skill, focus, intelligence, and most important, honing and relying upon my own natural instincts. My brother owns a helicopter charter and training business called Los Angeles Helicopters, and I began taking flying lessons with his instructors. Although I didn’t get my private pilot’s license, I racked up forty hours of flying in a Robinson R22 and moved my focus from weight loss to learning this new and challenging skill. Driving to Long Beach, studying aeronautical physics and learning autorotations took up the time that driving around town to find yogurt had previously occupied.

  My passion for riding horses was reignited after spending time with Francesca’s mother in England over the holidays. As a small child, I loved horses but after suffering a dislocated shoulder from slipping off a cantering horse, I stopped riding out of fear. Twenty years later, I found myself with the same enthusiasm and excitement for horses that I’d had when I was a child. Over that Christmas in England I would wake up at 6:00 a.m. and head down to the barn hoping to be able to watch Fran-cesca’s mother ride dressage and take a lesson on the Welsh cob she kept for interested visitors. When I returned to Los Angeles, I joined a hunter/jumper barn and within a few months bought a horse of my own.

  To say that my first horse, Mae, saved my life isn’t an overstatement. Just being outdoors all day and breathing in fresh country air and noticing the beauty of the trees as I rode on meandering deer trails through the woods was enough to alter my consciousness, to respect nature and my place within it. The horse was like an extension of myself, a mirror showing me my underlying emotions that I’d become skilled at ignoring. When Mae was afraid, she was telling me that I was afraid. When she refused to jump a fence, she let me know that I was intimidated by the hurdles in my life. She’d speed up when I thought I was telling her to slow down, as she was responding to my internal anxiety not to my voice weakly saying “whoa.” Sometimes I couldn’t even get her to go. I’d squeeze her sides and she’d just know that I didn’t mean it. She’d know that I just wanted to stay still for a while.

  Do I love myself just the way I am? Yes. (Well, I’m working on it!) But that doesn’t mean I love my body just the way it is. People who recover from eating disorders can’t be expected to have higher standards than the rest of society, most of whom would like to alter a body part or two. I’d still like thighs the size of my calves, but the difference is that I’m no longer willing to compromise my health to achieve that. I’m not even willing to compromise my happiness to achieve it, or for the thought of my thighs to take up valuable space in my mind. It’s just not that important. And while there are things I don’t like about the look of my body, I’m very grateful to it for what it does. I’m grateful that it doesn’t restrict me from doing my job the way I restricted it from doing its job. When I sit quietly and silently thank the universe for all the blessings in my life, I start with Ellen and end with my thighs. I thank my thighs for being strong and allowing me to walk my dogs around my neighborhood and ride my horses. I thank my body for not punishing me for what I put it through and for being a healthy vessel in which I get to experience this amazing world and the beautiful life I am living full of love.

  I have recovered from anorexia and bulimia. I am immensely grateful that the disorders, although robbing me of living freely and happily for almost twenty years, aren’t continuing to rob me of health. Not everyone who has suffered from eating disorders has the same good fortune. The disorders have left me unscathed both physically and mentally. However, having anorexia has left me with an intense resistance to exercise. As well as being resistant to exercise, I have an intense resistance to counting calories. And reading labels on the backs of jars and cans. And weighing myself.

  I hate the word exercise. I am allergic to gyms. But I don’t think that “formal” exercise in a gym is the only way to achieve a healthy, toned body. I have discovered that enjoyable daily activities that are easy, like walking, can be equally beneficial. I have noticed on my daily walk with my dogs that I rarely see an overweight person walking a dog, whereas I see many overweight people walking on treadmills in a gym. I attribute this not only to the frequency of having to walk your dog, but also the good feeling one has when doing something good for another being. Seeing my dogs’ excitement as I walk them around my neighborhood every day makes me happy, and when I’m happy I walk a little taller and a little more briskly. I can only imagine the enjoyment parents must experience when seeing the joy on their kids’ faces as they play tag football or shoot hoops with them. I also enjoy being outdoors. I like breathing the cold night air deeply into my lungs as I walk up the hills in my neighborhood and smelling the forest air as I walk on hiking trails after a morning rain. Another way for me to stay fit is to do activities where I can learn a skill, like horse riding or tennis or dancing. I find that if I can concentrate on getting better at something, rather than getting fitter or looking better, I accomplish all three things—the latter two being happy by-products of the original goal. Doing an activity to relax is also important for me. I swim to clear my head rather than count laps and burn calories. Swimming slowly is a form of meditation for me.

  I have found ways to increase my heart rate, stretch my muscles, and breathe deeply every day in an enjoyable way that I would never label as exercise. I eat every kind of food that I like, moderating the portions using my appetite and not a calorie counter. I love fat and I love carbohydrates. Nothing fills you up and feels more satisfying than a mashed potato or pasta and olive oil. There are days when I eat a large bag of potato chips for lunch and I feel too full and greasy to eat anything else until dinner. It may not be the healthiest, most balanced day in a lifetime of days, but I more than likely won’t repeat it the following day.

  To say that you can stay at your natural body weight and be healthy by eating what you want and not working out sounds extremely controversial, and yet people have lived this way for hundreds of years. It seems to me that it’s only since around 1970 that the concept of diet and exercise has existed in the way it does now, which is based on exertion and restriction being the key to weight loss, and yet since then, we have seen an increase in obesity in countries that have adopted it. (These are also the countries where the fast-food industry boomed during that time.) The diet industry is making a lot of money selling us fad diets, nonfat foods full of chemicals, gym memberships, and pills while we lose a little of our self-esteem every time we fail another diet or neglect to use the gym membership we could barely afford. Restriction generates yearning. You want what you can’t have. There are many ways to explain why the pendulum swing occurs and why restriction almost always leads to bingeing. I was forced to understand this in order to recover from a life-threatening disorder. And in a way, I wrote this memoir to help myself understand how I came to have an eating disorder and how I recovered from it. I really hope that my self-exploration can help not only people who are suffering from anorexia and bulimia, but also the perpetual dieters. You don’t have to be emaciated or vomiting to be suffering. All people who live their lives on a diet are suffering.

  If you can accept your natural body weight—the weight that is easy for you to maintain, or your “set point”—and not force it to beneath your body’s natural, healthy weight, then you can live your life free of dieting, of restriction, of feeling guilty every time you eat a slice of your kid’s birthday cake. But the key is to accept your body just as it is. Just as I have had to learn to accept that I have thighs that are a little bigger than I’d like, you may have to accept that your arms are naturally a little thicker or your hips are a little wider. In other words, accept yourself. Love your body the way it is and feel grateful toward it. Most important, in order to find real happiness, you must learn to love yourself for the totality of who you are and not just what you look like.
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  I made the mistake of thinking that what I look like is more important than who I am—that what I weigh is more important than what I think or what I do. I was ashamed of being gay, and so I only heard the voices that said that being gay is shameful. As I changed, I no longer heard the condemning voices. When my relationship with Ellen became public, I was amazed by how well the news was received. I was still very scared, but I was also very much in love, and love outweighed the fear. I wanted to celebrate our love. I was so proud to call myself her girlfriend that whatever people might have thought about my sexuality wasn’t important anymore. I simply didn’t hear a single negative comment. I began to see myself as someone who can help others understand diversity rather than feeling like a social outcast. Ellen taught me to not care about other people’s opinions. She taught me to be truthful. She taught me to be free. I began to live my life in love and complete acceptance. For the first time I had truly accepted myself.

  August 16, 2008

  I walk out of the bedroom of the guest apartment where Kellen and Jen, Ellen’s and my stylists, have just finished tying the bows of my Lanvin pink ballet flats. The act of getting me into my wedding dress, a fairytale wedding dress designed for me by Zac Posen, is performed slowly and meticulously, with the gravity and respect all ancient rituals demand. My mother, dressed beautifully in a teal dress and jacket that we had bought together at Barneys just days before, is waiting excitedly to see her daughter in a wedding dress, a sight that she could have never imagined experiencing after learning that I was gay. When she sees me, she cries. She tells me that she is proud of me. She tells me that she loves me.

  “I love you too, Mom. Now stop crying or you’ll start me crying. I can’t mess up my makeup.”

  We never hold ourselves back now. We can get very emotional.

  As Molly and Mark put their final touches on my makeup and hair, I recite my vows to my mother for a practice run. I can’t wait to tell Ellen how I feel about her in front of the people who are the closest to us and who support and love us, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, in fame or in obscurity. Among our assembled guests are Wayne Dyer, who is officiating the wedding, Sacha and her husband Matt, the partner she chose over me ten years prior in St. Barths, and my brother and his incredible second wife, Casey.

  “This ring means that I choose to spend the rest of my life with you. I promise to love you in the nurturing and selfless way that you love me. I’ve changed so much since I’ve known you. Your love has given me the strength to be softer. You’ve taught me kindness and compassion. You make me better.”

  I stop reciting and look at my mother. She is proud. She is calm. She is smiling at her healthy daughter who has found a deep profound love with another woman. And not just any woman, Ellen DeGeneres, the woman I used to use as an example of why my public outings with previous girlfriends were nothing to worry about. My mother would say to me, “Now you’re in a relationship people will find out that you’re gay!” And I would reply, “Relax, Ma. At least I’m not dating Ellen DeGeneres.” Ellen DeGeneres was the “worst-case scenario.” She would expose me as being gay. She would force me to live a truthful, honest life, to be exactly who I am with no pretense. I thank God for her every day.

  I highly recommend inviting the worse-case scenario into your life. I met Ellen when I was 168 pounds and she loved me. She didn’t see that I was heavy; she only saw the person inside. My two greatest fears, being fat and being gay, when realized, led to my greatest joy. It’s ironic, really, when all I’ve ever wanted is to be loved for my true self, and yet I tried so hard to present myself as anything other than who I am. And I didn’t just one day wake up and be true to myself. Ellen saw a glimpse of my inner being from underneath the flesh and bone, reached in, and pulled me out. I continued reciting my vows to my mother although I was a little nervous about her reaction to what I was about to say. Although I was completely recovered before Ellen and I became a couple, I wanted to remind Ellen of my struggle for self-acceptance and to tell her that because she saw something in me that I hadn’t previously seen in myself, my perception of myself changed. She didn’t see an average girl, a mediocre girl from a middle-class family who had to win the race and change her name in order to be considered special. She saw a unique and special person. She saw a woman who was worthy of care.

  “You treat me better than I’ve ever treated myself . . .”

  As I had expected would happen, my mother interrupts. “But you’re all better now, aren’t you?” She is extremely concerned about the possibility of my relapsing into the dark and lonely world of an eating disorder.

  I look at my reflection in the mirror and I like what I see. I’m not looking at a childhood fantasy of what I should look like on my wedding day or a bride in a wedding dress. I am looking at me. I contemplate the idea of being better and it brings to mind my favorite quote from Wayne Dyer, our friend and the man who is about to marry me to the woman of my dreams. “True nobility isn’t about being better than anyone else; it’s about being better than you used to be.”

  “Yes, Ma. I am better.”

  I am better than I used to be.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who made Unbearable Lightness possible and who encouraged and supported me along the way.

  Peter Borland

  Alysha Bullock

  Ann Catrina-Kligman

  Carolyn Costin

  Judith Curr

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Victor Fresco

  Kathy Freston

  Mike Hathaway

  Judy Hoffland

  Nancy Josephson

  Alex Kohner

  Jeanne Lee

  Annick Muller

  Harley Neuman

  Paul Olsewski

  Megan Pachon

  Donna Pall

  Craig Peralta

  Gina Phillips

  Sacha Plumbridge

  Casey Rogers

  Margaret Rogers

  Michael Rogers

  Patty Romanowski

  Kali Sanders

  Lisa Sciambra

  Nick Simonds

  Dana Sloan

  Randee St. Nicholas

  Megan Stone

  Jennifer Rudolph Walsh

  Oprah Winfrey

  Kevin Yorn

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Part Two

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments