Bikini Berlin
I’ve been feeling like I should be doing more, seeing more of Berlin. I had this idea that coming here would change me, like in that movie Sabrina where she goes to Paris for the summer and gets a haircut and all of a sudden Greg Kinnear is smitten with her (I’m referring to the 90s remake, not the Audrey Hepburn classic). So I asked Matt to look for someplace interesting to window-shop, where we could get a coffee and see some of those famous Berlin hipsters. He found the perfect place: Bikini Berlin, where there are indy pop-up shops and a Japanese tea place. I realized that there surely wouldn’t be any plus size clothing to speak of, and I started having imaginary arguments in my head:
Me: Do you have any plus size clothes?
Hipster: No. If you were a vegan, you wouldn’t be so fat and you’d fit the smaller clothes.
Me: #?&*$!
Or…
Me: Do you have plus size clothes?
Hipster: No. It’s too expensive to make them, and most people are thin anyway.
Me: Actually, most people are plus-sized and you’re missing out on their money, which is much more expensive.
Hipster: (Scoffs)
In reality, I didn’t even ask anyone about plus size clothes because a) we can’t afford hipster clothes and b) we were too intimidated by most stores to even go in. I kept thinking someone would speak to me in German about how they don’t have my size and how I should just get out of the store. And Matt just didn’t even feel cool enough to go into the shoe store at all. We wondered how much business was actually being conducted at this little “mall” since most people seemed just as intimidated as we were and the shops themselves were pretty empty. We did go to the Japanese tea shop and consider buying some incense or some chopsticks that came with a little carrying case, but I somehow didn’t feel qualified to even do that. Everything was so pristine and beautiful, that I just didn’t feel allowed somehow. I wonder if these shop-owners only knew why they weren’t selling things, they might try to make their shops a bit more shopper-friendly.
The journey to Bikini Berlin involved a hike to the subway plus a transfer, and I was exhausted by the time we’d made the return trip. We’d also stopped off for a major purchase at a Home Depot-type store. We bought a small electric fan. Everyone around here seems to just put up with the heat- no AC, no fans anywhere. I feel like making a public service announcement that they don’t need to live this way. At the very least, my fellow heatstroke sufferers, get a fan! It was 17.99 Euros (about $20) for something from China we had to assemble ourselves- pretty expensive in my mind, and very difficult to track down. But boy, was it worth it. I promptly parked myself in front of it on the floor of our apartment and basked in all its electricity-wasting glory. But emotionally, I was spent. Our little outing wasn’t exactly easy for me, plus I’d indulged in sweetened iced coffee, throwing off my calories for the day. This always stresses me out- I don’t know why I do it. We’d planned to head back out for a coffee and some work, but I reassessed and admitted I couldn’t do it. My husband went out for groceries and I collapsed with some YouTube. When he got back, I came clean about how I really wasn’t doing well and was probably headed for a major meltdown. Matt talked me down and we came to the conclusion that maybe I was aiming too high. Maybe the point of me being here was simply for us to be together while he had his business meetings. Maybe just getting through my usual routine from home was enough. I cried about my sense of deprivation with the food and my intense urges to binge. We talked about how keeping the food on track was just as important as taking my pills in terms of my mental health. We made a plan that if things started to get really bad for me, I would just go home. Our last trip to Germany ended early for me, but there was a lot of suffering before I left. Matt told me this time he would not watch me go through that. I’d just go home and back to my normal routine. We watched a terrible TV show and ate a healthy dinner.
I know I’ve talked about this Sabrina-syndrome before, but it keeps popping up. I feel like I’ve hardly seen the city and that it would be a shame to miss out on Berlin. But every time I try to push myself, I regret it. Maybe just coming on this trip was enough of a push. Just functioning in a foreign city is enough of an accomplishment for now. I’m on track with food, with exercise, with my pills, with my writing. The desire to do more makes me absolutely infuriated- I really feel capable of so much more than this- but the reality is, I’m limited. My mental illness is real, and the effects are real. I have to accept it.