the woman tried to change her life. one morning, she awoke with an insistent image. it was herself, but refined, elegant, shiny and new. she also looked about 25 pounds thinner.
the woman became ecstatic thinking about this image over and over, every second she could. she was completely obsessed. it was what she had always wanted herself to be. an uptown girl.
the woman was soon full of "vital life energy”; an incantation she learned and repeated 45 times a day from an instructional DVD she bought over the internet. "I AM VITAL LIFE ENERGY" she would scream to herself every morning, at exactly 7am during her morning HOUR OF POWER. she felt “alive for the first time in years”, she told an uninterested co-worker.
she continued signing up for the newest workshops, researched all her food habits, bought the latest motivational books. in a span of three months, she spent $3200 on her new life. but, it “didn’t really count as an expense, because it was an investment”, she told her mother one afternoon at a juice bar.
one day, on her way to work, she witnessed a gruesome accident. a motorcyclist lay sprawled out on the concrete, motionless. Another car flipped over, a body inside, engine running. the sound of that out of control engine terrified her.
she began to sob uncontrollably. she didn't know why, but she couldn't control her emotions anymore. they where running away like that engine. a week of crying was enough! she bought her first book on emotional self control after reading all the reviews online. they were very positive. one customer wrote, “this book will change your life. trust me, it changed mine almost instantly.” she was destined to be somebody else completely.
her weight, her nose, her goddamn ugly shoes, her lack of emotional self control, her stupid honda civic, her back-fat, her frizzy hair, her gossipy and unreliable friends who drag her to T.G.I Friday's on the weekends. yes, she absolutely despised herself.
