A Voice of One's Own

my week in pictures: 1) avocado and gluten free bread during a...

living-justice — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:30:30 -0400

my week in pictures:

1) avocado and gluten free bread during a harry potter marathon :)

2)-6) tribute to my—now 21 year old—little sister!! <3

7) hello, dry skin. my body is still in a little bit of post-thailand shock.

8) math and starbucks with big sis :)

9) bright nails, bright dress, and sandals… ready for summertime!

10) great dane teeth.

random tidbits on a gorgeous friday afternoon.

living-justice — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:30:24 -0400

-sometimes, i do yoga in the shower. i swear the hot water makes the stretching even better.

-i miss singing so freaking much i can hardly restrain myself from singing all day every day.

-today was the warmest day since i’ve been back, yet it was probably cooler than any day i experienced in bangkok, even in “winter.”

-animals bring me extreme amounts of joy.

-i even missed doing dishes and laundry. something about these chores is therapeutic for me.

-i thought, coming back, i would want to buy everything in sight, but i am so pleased to have all my clothes and shoes back, i am, for perhaps the first time in my life, (temporarily, i’m sure) unenthusiastic about shopping.

-no matter how many times i watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two, i still cry.

-i may be in limbo, which comes with its own set of anxieties and stresses, but i feel extraordinarily calm and at peace in my own skin (…most days anyway).

"Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive."

living-justice — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:30:37 -0400

“Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”

- Hafiz (via viage)

sometimes this takes an astonishingly long time to figure out.

(via sloanfinley)

unadoptable: tuesdayblouse: natashakline: For all the artists...

living-justice — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:30:42 -0400

unadoptable:

tuesdayblouse:

natashakline:

For all the artists out there. xoxo

need to remember this

Good advice!!!

yes.

"The problem is that you don’t just choose recovery. You have to keep choosing recovery, over and..."

living-justice — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:30:23 -0400

“The problem is that you don’t just choose recovery. You have to keep choosing recovery, over and over and over again. You have to make that choice 5-6 times each day. You have to make that choice even when you really don’t want to. It’s not a single choice, and it’s not easy.”

- Carrie’s Blog Post (via oddi-tea)

Photo

living-justice — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:30:28 -0400

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

living-justice — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:30:46 -0400

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

- Rumi (via jazzylittledrops)

my week in pictures… 1) 2) and 3) overjoyed to be back in...

living-justice — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:30:37 -0400

my week in pictures…

1) 2) and 3) overjoyed to be back in baltimore!

4) this is what heaven tastes like.

5) i have fallen in love with this dog.

6) nothing makes me feel more kickass than lace-up, knee-high boots.

7) matching manicure and pedicure surprise from my big sissy. :)

8) the state of my journal after a year in asia. whoops.

9) just finished my favorite book ever.

10) a word of gratitude for all the support i received this week and over the course of the past 3 years that i have been sharing my writing! words can’t express how thankful i am! <3

omg yes. so writing? and exercising? and cooking? and advocacy?...

living-justice — Fri, 10 May 2013 20:30:26 -0400

omg yes. so writing? and exercising? and cooking? and advocacy? and activism? and burying my face in gender issues?

i fuckin knew it.

"You will be stupid. You will worry your parents. You will question your own choices, your..."

living-justice — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:30:35 -0400

“You will be stupid. You will worry your parents. You will question your own choices, your relationships, your jobs, your friends, where you live, what you studied in college, that you went to college at all… If that happens, you’re doing it right.”

- Ira Glass (via ceedling)

something i really needed to hear this week.

a journal entry: 20 april, 2013.

living-justice — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:30:00 -0400

“i was still mourning, still sick, still living partly in another place.”—Barbara Kingsolver

i remember watching Eve Ensler’s TED talk, “Suddenly, My Body,” and as it ended, the only clear thought running through my mind was that i wanted to come home to myself and come home to my body. badly. i suppose in some ways her words ignited a mission within me, a mission to come home.

like Eve Ensler, there were many reasons i, too, had left home, many reasons i had left my body, and many reasons that i had come all the way to thailand on my escape route. i was still mourning a variety of things. i was still, in some ways, defined by them. my identity was all tangled up in my mourning. i was still horrifically and entirely affected in the depths of my bones, in the core of my being. i was still considering myself a broken, fucked-up, and damaged little girl.

i was living in a place—metaphorically of course—where things were as good as they could possibly get. i thought i had reached a place of healing, and i, naively, thought i had a clue. i didn’t. i was still sick—sicker perhaps than i could have possibly realized at the time.

i look back to that girl who got onto a plane headed for thailand a year ago, (tears still in her eyes from the brief phone call and goodbye with her baby sister, fears of weight-gain and a million other insecurities still consuming her distracted mind) and see that she was so young, so timid, so stupidly thinking she was grown. she was a girl, a child wanting nothing more than someone to love, protect, and care for her. little did she know that over the course of the next eleven months, she would learn to love, protect, and care for herself.

i would be lying if i told you that i won’t always mourn bits and pieces of my life’s story. to say otherwise would in fact dishonor my own reality and my own pain. forgetting these things completely, i fear, would distance and detach me from my own humanity and, therefore, from the rest of the world, which is something i am absolutely unwilling to do. but i can also say, with just as much confidence, that i am not sick anymore. i am well enough to come home—back to america, back to my roots, back to my family, and back to the hope i once had of creating my own beautiful home—the place i know in my heart that i will be most content and at peace.

until this moment, i am not sure that i have ever been ready, and maybe in some ways i never will be completely ready—whatever that even means, but i am all in one place now instead of a woman half in and half out of her own body. i have finally found the way home into myself, into my own skin. i am mary theresa—daughter; sister; friend; fierce and generous lover; passionate dreamer; over-caffeinated energizer bunny; honest writer; uncaged bird; wild dancer; timid singer; smiling wanderer; extreme questioner, thinker, and feeler; nurturer; and occasional loner. i have been transformed both by the love of myself and by the love of the people in my life. i have hit rock bottom and, by the grace of a higher power, made it back out to tell the tale. i have discovered love so strong that has knocked me off my feet, joy that utterly consumes me, pain that all but paralyzes me, and laughter that moves through my body like a wild dance. i have been changed by things i didn’t choose, but i have learned that i get to choose how i change. i have learned to love my olive skin; my multi-colored, starburst eyes; my strong legs; my wide hips; and my sometimes bitten-off fingernails. i have given of myself and learned to take sometimes, too. i will never be any more or less than the woman i was created oh so purposefully to be, but i have learned that, in my own right, that woman is so totally and perfectly lovely. this year has opened my eyes to my own limiting perceptions and helped me to start to rid myself of those perceptions. this year has begun healing me and allowing me to exist, finally, all in one place, in my body, in my home, in my skin, in myself.

living-justice: and there it is: my work in print. i am...

living-justice — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:00:09 -0400

living-justice:

and there it is: my work in print. i am bursting with gratitude.

"You cannot use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."

living-justice — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:30:41 -0400

“You cannot use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

- Maya Angelou (via sternenschmiede)

Photo

living-justice — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:30:33 -0400

my week in pictures! 1) the sunset as i boarded the last leg of...

living-justice — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:30:31 -0400

my week in pictures!

1) the sunset as i boarded the last leg of my journey home

2) sisters reunited—an attempt to take a good picture…

3) much better!

4) the second time i saw the sunrise on the same day… this is what happens when you travel back in time. :)

5) morning run.

6) Maggie May! <3

7) happily gorging myself on veggies.

8) yes, she really is bigger than i am.

9) Hail Merry gluten-free, vegan macaroons—a surprise from my sister. she knows me too well.

10) saying goodbye to my dear friend in the airport.

Pictures of people who mock me

living-justice — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:30:32 -0400

Pictures of people who mock me:

For years, strangers have made fun of me for being fat. But I got my power back — by turning the camera on them

FASCINATING! this woman inspires me and her outlook on life is refreshing to say the least!

Lessons From My Parents

living-justice — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:30:20 -0400

Lessons From My Parents:

http://www.familius.com/lessons-from-my-parents#.UYI5jKVVgy6

so grateful to have an essay about my mama included in this!!

forgetfulness.

living-justice — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:30:29 -0400

for a year i have tried to perfect the art of soaking in all there is of a particular experience so that i can recall the details of what it was like to be in any particular moment whenever i so desire. i’ve tried to do this my whole life, looking at a particular sunset or night sky and begging my mind to memorize all the sensory details, begging my heart and soul to memorize what it feels like to behold them. for a year, i’ve tried to perfect this art—to memorize the stars as Rachel and I wandered through the streets of Inle Lake, Burma, our necks bent back as far as they could reach; to memorize the face and tiny hands of the little girl i came to love so dearly at an orphanage in Mae Sot, Thailand; to memorize the sunrise over Mount Batur and the lightening illuminating the night sky and Emalee’s joyful face on the beach in Bali; to memorize the Bangkok skyline from our windows; to memorize the view of the moon from Koh Phangan’s shoreline; to memorize the people who, over the course of the past 11 or so months, have become a sort of family; to memorize the views from each bus window (and let me tell you—there were A LOT of buses); to memorize the human, tender moments shared with a friend as the Les Mis credits rolled over the screen in front of us; to memorize the sunsets and friendships of Railay Beach; to memorize all that surrounded me as I looked into a blue sky from the inside of a cliff; to memorize each temple or each student’s face; to memorize the feel of an elephant’s thick, leathery skin as it flapped its ears over my legs; to memorize the buzz of markets or Bangkok’s stifling heat; to memorize the little fish that tickled us in the waterfalls of Kanchanaburi; to memorize the mountains all around us as we floated down a river in Laos; to memorize the horrific stories and each victim’s face in Cambodia’s prison and killing fields; to memorize the soft sand and clear water of Koh Tao’s Sairee beach.

i’ve tried so hard, and this is what i’ve learned: i can never memorize things like these, but as i boarded my flight to Thailand last May, i read a chapter of my favorite book, entitled, “The Gift of Forgetting,” which is, perhaps more importantly, what this year has truly taught me. every moment of life is more special because it cannot be memorized; it cannot last. each sunrise, each sunset, each star in the night sky, each kiss, each amazing conversation, each newfound love, each day is more special because it will never be again exactly what it is now. our inability to memorize truly is a gift. the transient nature of all our experiences truly is a gift.

i’m not sure if i’ll ever stop trying to remember, trying to soak in every last nuance of each astounding view before me or each life-altering moment, but i can say with confidence that regardless of my efforts, forgetting these things will be the gift that allows me to be equally astounded by the next.. and the next… and the next.

joyfully, mt

and then i overcame an eating disorder.

living-justice — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:30:24 -0400

in the spring 0f 2010, i told the man that i was in love with that i couldn’t volunteer with him because i needed to workout. i honestly would have freaked out if i had gone with him instead of feeding my addiction, but i can look back, three years later, with certainty that at this moment, i knew something had to give. i knew my priorities were not what i wanted them to be. i didn’t want to be the kind of girl my sickness had turned me into. at that point in my life, i was 22 years old, and i had struggled since i was twelve, eating my lunch in the bathroom so that no one would see me or judge me. it had been ten years, and i didn’t want my life to continue to be a series of mixed up priorities and decisions based on fear and self-loathing. something had to change, and while i was terrified that healing wasn’t possible, i had to try.

that summer i fought with myself day in and day out, trying to workout less and eat more normally, but i was barely holding on to my sanity. that fall, i moved into a house, and met a woman who would become one of my dearest, most beloved friends and sisters. having struggled with these things herself, she picked up on my obsessions immediately. within the first two weeks of living together, we had sat for hours across from each other at our dining room table, discussing eating disorders. for the first time in my life, i met someone who had overcome her eating disorder, who had learned to feed herself again, who had let go of an obsession that had once plagued her. over the past three years of our friendship, this woman has given me more hope than i ever could have asked for and has armed me with great advice, literature, and care to help me move forward in my journey. no one can ever heal for me; she knows i have to do this myself, but she has walked with me on my journey, for which i am forever grateful.

soon after meeting my dear friend, i cut my hair shorter than it had ever been. shockingly, i started body hating less and less. my hair (or lack there of) freed me from the pressures of femininity and therefore allowed me to feel more like myself than i had in a long time. slowly but surely, i seemed to be getting better, but my disorder still lived deep down under my skin and would pop up at the slightest provocation. there were times i was doing okay; there were times i was far from it.

somewhere in the back of my mind, i knew coming to thailand would be the biggest struggle of my life. and, let me tell you, it was. i felt like i was gaining weight uncontrollably, and nothing i did seemed to change that fact. i was breaking down.

a dear friend, M, said to me during this time: this year is going to push you so hard, that you overcome this. you’re going to go back and feel better than you’ve ever felt because you’re going through this right now.

i hated him for saying these things, but deep down, i knew (or at least hoped) he was right… and he was. eventually, after tears and meltdowns and more shame than i can comprehend, i let go. i let go, and guess what, my obsession slowly but surely seemed to disappear. there were days i worked out; there were days i didn’t. i began listening to my body in ways i never had before, trusting my body in ways i never dreamed possible. before coming home, i spent two months traveling, and my experiences were not ruined by constant guilt. i ate when i was hungry, and i ate what i wanted. i was active at times, and i relaxed at times. food and exercise were not the focal point of my life, living was. and in those moments that i felt my body hatred seeping it, i acknowledged it and gently let it go.

i finally realized, at 25 years old, that my body has never been the problem. the problem has been my perception of beauty. the problem has been my self-worth. i am more than this body; i am whole. i am not defined by my weight or my shape or any one piece of myself. it may have taken me thirteen years to get, here, but i finally know now.

sitting on a ferry on the way to koh tao, i was dozing on and off. suddenly, i sat straight up in my seat with one clear thought in my mind: i don’t have an eating disorder anymore. this may sound silly, as if i’m oversimplifying my healing process, but there is another realization i’ve come to. i’ve realized that i am in control of my thoughts. when i begin to hate myself, i can stop, and this is something that i didn’t feel capable of doing for the past thirteen years. i can now, though, and with that power in mind, i can say with confidence that the battle is over. self-love has finally overcome self-hate.

with joy, gratitude, and a newfound confidence, mt

Photo

living-justice — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:30:39 -0400