Tonight I watched “All That Jazz” for the first time. I wasn’t quite ready for how deeply it would affect me.
The thoughts I’m portraying here were certainly sobering, but they’re not exactly upsetting or sad to me. I’m on a path where I can be comfortable withe only having me and I’m making work that makes me feel good about what I’ve done and added to the world.
Only having me and what I made is not really such a bad deal.
In my defense, I’d never been to a burlesque show before. And it was hot outside.
Besides, I have nice legs, so to wear pants would be to deprive the world of a great wonder.
Another moment from the same conversation:
“How long was the trip?”
“Oh, 2 or 3 hours?”
“5 1/2 HOURS, JESSE!”
I owe Adoria, big time.
I still may not have a lot of friends here in Portland yet, but that hardly means I’m alone out there in the world.
I already shaved.
Kayla’s officially a good egg. Expect to see more of her in these pages.
And in general if you’re a person I actually hang out with.
I guess it’s clear that I’m dating again.
I don’t really feel like there’s anything I can add to this, so … yeah.
The physical transformation I’ve undergone, going from over three hundred pounds to just a little over two hundred, has been nothing next to the changes I’ve made to my very identity.
I rewrote everything so completely that I’m still filling in the gaps in my new backstory. I’m still finding missing pieces that need their narratives attached or discarded.
This hasn’t been a result of a loss, but of a gaining of identity. A return to the true north that had been hiding in me since childhood.
The internet was a place that I could begin this process in a relatively safe way. I could be a version of myself I felt comfortable letting the world see.
The fact that the “internet Jesse” was probably even more fucked up than the “real Jesse” is telling, but that’s a subject for another day.
This project is often about facing my fears and the dark things within myself that I wish I could hide away by exposing it to the world (or at least to the people who read this little comic). Today I stared at the darkness and I did not blink.