The size of my body sometimes surprises me. I am in the shower and I look down. And there my feet are, so far from my eyes. I can stretch out my arms and they go on for what seems like forever. I curl my fingers and watch my fingers move. They are almost three feet from my body. And yet all of that is me. It’s all me.
It boggles my mind. The amount of mass I take up. The amount of space that is me.
I stare at myself before I get into the shower. When did I get so much space between my belly button and my pubic hair? I feel so large.
I feel huge. Are my feet an annexed property? Do they know they are a part of me, like that Gogol story? Will I one day wake up without my nose? Is there anything behind my eyes, like that Borges story? I feel disconnected. I feel huge. I do not understand my physical being.
I want to reach out to you, ask you what happened. Ask how you remember my body. You certainly wouldn’t remember me like this. When you picture me naked, this isn’t what you see. You don’t see the oval bellybutton with the lint still in it; the lumpy torso, the signs of a body breaking down. You must see a younger version, before the hair, before the lumps, before my metabolism slowed down. You don’t remember me. You remember a different person.
Or do you remember him at all? Do you care to?
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