"People Suck" Party

If you’ve never been to one – I highly recommend it.

They can be as elaborate as you’d like: Streamers, cocktail dresses with little desserts and shrimp abounding. Or if you’re working on a budget, skip the streamers (who looks at those anyways?) grab your sweatpants, your best friend, and chow down some
$5 Footlongs.

Kristen and I go way back – we’re talking embarrassing high school years when she always wore glasses and I didn’t know how to do my hair.

We email several times a week and get together once a month for a girls night out. There’s dinner, conversation, and some minor therapy on the side of dessert. We are each other’s “go to." Someone we can count on to tell us like it is. Kristen will tell me when I’m being ridiculous (usually my fear of being single forever) and likewise I’ll tell her if she’s being a push over.

A week before our scheduled dinner, I got an email: “Can we call our dinner a People Suck Party?”

To the outsider, it sounds like Kristen has anger issues. To me it says she has something to get off her chest – and I’m the person for the job.

“Absolutely!” I reply. “I’ll get the streamers…” I no sooner click send when I’m hit with a sense of dread and think, “Crap! This means I'll have to talk!”

I know Kristen well enough to know that she doesn’t create these parties solely for her purpose. Sure, she might have some baggage she needs help carrying, but she knows when something’s eating me – and this is her way of easing me into talking it out with her.

Sneaky pants.

Dinner comes and we woof down our grinders (me in my sweats) and hash out her “junk.” As we eat dessert, (healthy brownies with frozen yogurt and peanut butter), the moment of truth comes.

We’re sitting on the back porch when she eyes me and says so sweetly, “So . . . what’s up with you?” Code for: “I know something is bugging you and if you don’t tell me what it is right now so help me, Kelsey Michelle. . .” (Note: Kristen is a very soft person and would never say something like this out loud).

I have no choice.

For the billionth time I have to look at my friend and confess (with tears) that even after months of therapy, nutrition education, better workouts and more balanced emotions, I still struggle with hating my body.

Yes, I’m getting better.  But sometimes all I see in the mirror are my “imperfections” looking back.

I tell her I dread the thought of putting on my pants in the morning because if there’s a slight chance they don’t fit like last time . . . then I resort to being calorie restrictive again and have a grueling workout to “feel better.”  And WHY do I let something so stupid like pants throw me over the edge? Why am I not better by now?

She’s heard all this before. For the last 6 months, Kristen has been through all my eating disorder issues – from my discovery, admission, article publication, and therapy work. She’s never impatient when I drag her into the bathroom in tears and ask her if I look fat. Never “checks out” of the conversation when I talk about how frustrated I am that my body won’t be the size I think it should be.

She does give me a quizzical look when she catches me counting the calories in my grinder before I take a bite.

Fact of the matter is, Kristen is the one person I can be me with. Not just the happy, pulled together and caring Kelsey that people see at the office or in church – but ME: messy, imperfect, crazy and most exuberant Kelsey who tries too hard to do everything at once.

Even though I hate admitting that my E.D. still eats at me, I know I can talk about it with her because she’s my “person.” Someone I can always count on, someone I can let inside my walls to see the inner Kelsey that I lock in the tower.

We all need the “Kristens” of our lives.  

It’s not easy letting them in. I think it’s because we have to face our true selves first . . .  and that’s terrifying.

Having someone know the whole you can leave you feeling vulnerable and exposed. Don’t play chicken with this one. Find that friend and let them in. The rewards are much greater than the initial fear.

I don’t know where I’d be without Kristen to help carry my burdens, (probably locked up in a Loony Bin), but I am grateful for our “People Suck Parties.” I’m grateful for the monthly chance to not have to pretend that I have it all together – that I can lay whatever on the table knowing that someone will be in my corner, fighting with me and splitting that occasional Red Velvet Cake.

Whoever your “person” is . . . go and thank them today. Because without them, where would you be?