skeleton dreams

Sunken cheeks. Guess I finally found the right light to highlight them. I hadn't realized how much weight I'd lost until I looked in the library's staff bathroom mirror. Something about the overhead lighting cast deeper shadows than I'm used to seeing.
"Can you tell I've lost weight?"
"Yes."
"Do I look unhealthy?"
"No. Actually, I was scared to see what you'd look like when you came back."
Illnesses do this. They sap your strength and your ability to eat. Being in the sun in Florida and having no access to junk food also helped me shed. The antibiotics made it difficult to eat anything but toast. I feel my ribs now when I rub my side.
But when I look in the mirror at home, things don't look small. I don't look like the skeleton I feel. And there is fear in these newly discovered bones. I don't want to be weak. But part of me wants to keep losing weight. I want to look like nothing. The part that fears gets more terrified when I realize that.
I want to be healthy.
I want to be strong.
I want to have muscle.
But there is also part of me that still longs to conform to that feminine ideal of beauty. The skinny waist and protruding ribs. The sunken cheeks. I feel equal parts revulsion and longing. I want on me what I would find unattractive on someone else. This is more hypocrisy.
I'm not losing myself. I'm finding the person that I've wanted to be. I just have to go through a lot of other people first.