who in the world i might be

Cy, Part 1 (the part that I wrote two years ago)

I’m really sad tonight, and I think it’s because I’ve been holding on to something for a really long time. It’s one of those situations that makes me realize how much strength it takes to be kind, sometimes. 

This is something that I probably should have written a long time ago, just so I could actually read it and realize how absolutely ridiculous the situation I got myself into was.

I’ll start from the very beginning. I’m not going to use his real name. None of you know this guy (except possibly some of my plus model girlfriends in NYC, and you all are totally over him, I’m sure).

In 2005, I made the decision to return to New York City after a year spent in San Francisco. The day I set my feet back on the New York City sidewalk (where they belong), I met Cy. I met him when I weighed over 400 pounds. 

Cy thought I was beautiful, even then.

Cy was a sculptor. And he likened me to his muse. Like the Gérôme painting displayed on this note. It all seemed so romantic.

Cy was, without question, the most beautiful physical specimen I had ever encountered. And I somehow got it into my head that he was as beautiful on the inside. He encouraged me to believe in myself, to believe I was special, to believe in a whole lot of things I should have already known. My heart was beaten to a pulp when we first met, although this is not an excuse. I’ll elaborate on WHY this is not an excuse later.

He was good to me with his words. In fact, his words were so good and beautiful that I didn’t notice how much his actions contradicted them completely. I believed in the goodness of his words so much that I wanted to become as beautiful as they were. I wanted to deserve him.

So I lost 200 pounds. And it was really, really easy. I was doing it because I loved somebody. It’s amazing how easy these things that seem impossible become when you do them because of love.

I won’t take you through the turmoil that has been the past 3 1/2 years…suffice to say that Cy was exactly what I wrote above. An Adonis with a silvery tongue.

Everything was a lie.

Cy was living with his girlfriend, and later his wife, the whole time.

I’ve known the truth about him for the past year and a half. And I suspected the truth about him from about a week after we met.

You hit what you head for; you get what you ask, I suppose.

I know I’m a complete fool for feeling the way I feel tonight, and for crying over something that I’ve been trying to make peace with for years and years at this point, but it is because I’ve just come to realize that this experience has made me feel like a piece of really self-involved conceptual art. 

I did lose the weight that I lost because I wanted to care for myself, too. It’s just confusing. I wanted to SHOW this person that I was good enough for him. 

Why don’t I believe that I’m so much more than good enough for him?
I want to believe that I deserve the man he wanted me to think he was.
So ridiculous, because I know that man doesn’t exist. 

Cy, Part 2 (written right now):

I saw Cy recently and now everything is in perspective. 

I am worth ten trillion of him. 

I have obviously gotten from point A to B somehow, and the simplest explanation I can offer is that I have learned to provide for myself. Cy represented something that every little girl wants - a prince on a steed that comes to save the princess from the tower.

I saved me from the tower. 

MORE than just losing the stupid weight, I saved me from the dragon and the tower and the evil witch and all of it. I did. Not Cy. Me. Cy only made me realize that I wanted to come to my own rescue, and that I was worth saving.

I provide for myself. It may not be Buckingham Palace, but I have a cute little apartment that I pay for with my own money; I have three jobs that I procured with my own merit and wit; deep down I know I can walk into any bar in Manhattan and have any man that I want; and most importantly I can say with complete immodesty that YOU ONLY GET ONE CHANCE WITH ABBY POWELL.