Lens of life

Pastel streaks blended into a darkening sky, a living watercolour painting for the world to see. Amber watched, her expression calm as her eyes tracked a few fishing and tourist boats chug slowly up the river after their long days. The dark silhouettes of the Great Dividing Range, where ‘ The rainforest met the reef’  breaking up the otherwise pristine sunset with their lumbering dark forms.

The gentle pinging of her computer had her attention returning to the screen in front of her as she loaded the latest photos from her camera and phone onto her laptop. As she clicked through the photos, the pure happiness of the last few days shone out from the screen. Her family had needed a vacation, they all had. Work had been rough on her parents, year 12 was weighing on her brother and Amber...well she had experienced her own lessons throughout the year.

Her brother lounging next to her on the couch laughed at the Monty Python skits that flashed across the television while her Dad on the couch across from them reached forward to the collection of movie night food cluttered over the coffee table and grabbed a handful of chocolate peanuts. It was times like this that made the whole year worth it, the tears and the tantrums. The discipline and the pain. 

Amber herself reached forward and grabbed an ice cream sandwich, her Dad’s small smile in her direction before he looked back towards the television had her grin widening a little. She had made it, it had been a long journey but she had made it. She was holidaying in Cairns, eating junk food and watching a comedy after a perfect day of hitting the beaches up the Captain Cook highway. Her brother and Dad were laughing and well fed and her Mum was sleeping peacefully in the armchair nearby, this was serenity...this was what happiness looked like.

Of course, it had taken her many months to get to this serene state and sorting through the photos in front of her only highlighted this. It had been a little over a year since they had been up here. A year and a bit of watching her health decline and those close to her worry. It had been a little over a year of getting herself into her sorry state and then the long hike to recovery. A year where food was the enemy and exercise was her demon in disguise. Where something that acted like her salvation was actually her demise.

A year of watching her once muscly body morph into a shadow of it’s former self. Where her toned appearance was due to dangerously low body fat rather than healthy fitness levels. Flicking through her photos...it was like reliving them all...all over again.

Step 1: Let's be fit and muscly, fitness culture is my favourite

Step 1 was filled with pictures of a still rosy cheeked young woman, her eyes were a little dull but overall she looked fit and happy. No one could’ve guessed that she was running 10k+ at least 4 times a week.

Step 2: Let’s do weights and run.

Step 2 was filled with more pictures of that same young woman’s body progress shots rather than actual pictures of her hanging with family and friends. The leaner she got the more pictures there were...yet at what cost?

Step 3: More or less the same but the weight loss was obvious.

Step 3 was where the concern of friends and family piqued...and rightly so. That young woman’s body was no longer a healthy looking size. It looked more like an elite athlete or a marathoner...perhaps a bodybuilder. They lived unhealthy lives and stayed in that state for a season before swiftly burning out...is that what was going to happen to her?

Tear’s cornered at the edges of her eye’s as Amber relived the memories. The constant fatigue...the inability to get through shifts at work.

The passing out on runs and the sporadic seizures...The concerned looks and the low BMI. The loss of 10kg despite weight lifting...the way exercise and food consumed her life. You could see it. She could still feel the echo of it sometimes.

Where every waking moment was obsessed and worried about her calories and eating times. Where her thoughts never strayed from her exercise amount and intensity...it was always a battle to try to one up from the day before or match the level of intensity, even for walking! Where she would dread exercise all day and would be woken at night by her exercise and food obsessed thoughts that would cross over into dreams verging on nightmares.

Where did it end? At what cost?

The photos flicked across her screen like some creepily realistic horror film, a reflection of society that seemed too obtrusive and confrontive to actually reflect upon. This is what society taught young women. This is what they turned her into...yet she escaped. She escaped the fitspo culture and the incessant need of society to make females as small as possible, at their own health expense. 

She escaped the all encompassing need to be fit at the sake of her own health and relationships...until it was all she could focus on and it consumed her life. She escaped that prison. The prison her own mind held over her own appetite and exercise, a prison enforced by society in itself.

The loud laughing of her brother next to her brought her swiftly back to the present as she took a deep inhale. It was ok...she was okay. She had made it. 

“ That’s a nice photo of you.”

He stated with a smile around a mouthful of hot chips from the marina Milkbar.

Looking tentatively back at her laptop Amber couldn’t help but agree. It had been taken that day, she was running through the surf on one of the nameless beaches that dotted the main highway. Compared to the photos she had just been looking at, it was like a sunbeam on a rainy day.

Her skin was a healthy shade with lean muscle, sure she had a little fat but in a good way...in a fit way. No longer was she all skin and bone and veins and tendons. She was free. She ate junk food, she fed her body. She focused on her family and friends. She focused on her education and hobbies...away from the demons in her head. Away from the suffocating expectations of society.

Sighing softly, in happiness Amber settled back into the couch cushions and looked once more out the window at the settling night. Twinkling stars refracted in the slightly wind ruffled river mouth as it joined the endless dark of the sea. Far away, multicoloured lights indicated distant ships and the headland of other towns. The sky had turned a dark indigo with the loping mountain ranges basically undetectable from the night sky. Rolling her shoulders back she continued to nibble at her ice cream...not feeling any guilt or shame in eating at all. Not feeling any guilt or shame in relaxing with her family...she was free.