You’re all so thin and beautiful. I only wanted to be like you. To want for nothing. To live in a gorgeous Tribeca loft. To wear Brunello Cucinelli and Loro Piana like it was nothing. To show up to morning drop-off at P.S. 234 with an expensive blowout and a full Alo set, en route to pilates. You lived the life I thought I deserved.
One day. For now, I was supposed to be your yoga teacher. Your guide. I wanted my body to look like all of yours, but I was the reason yours looked the way they did. Well, it was partly me, and partly your private chefs, your nutritionists, your meal delivery services. Your microbiome mojo salad, your yoga bunny breakfast, your metabolism super powder smoothies.
You filled my hospital room with flowers. Peonies and white roses. The designer kind that arrived in sturdy gift boxes. The types I’d seen in my Instagram feed to celebrate influencers’ birthdays in Dubai and anniversaries at the Ritz Carlton.
I resisted the urge to peel off the EKG patches that dotted my chest. To roll the adhesive residue between my fingertips. Instead, I closed my eyes and listened to the rhythmic beeping, almost soothing in its sterility.
I snapped a picture of the boxed white roses and posted it to my story, as if it were a Valentine’s Day gift from my husband and not a sympathy gift from my yoga students. The roses looked so crispy and white and clean in their black box. Their fragrance the antidote to the boxed mashed potatoes and stale urine smell of the hospital.
Lying in my hospital bed, I imagine I’m here to deliver a baby. I imagine the roses are a push present, motivation to get me through hours of labor. I picture myself cradling a baby boy in my arms, just like you all have done. They look like you. I’d like to look like you too.
Students. It’s strange to call you my students. If anything, I’m yours. You teach me how to be.
I ignored the warnings, believing myself to be invincible. Believing the risks to be overblown. Heart attack. Stroke. Sure, okayyy. Maybe if you’re out of shape. Maybe if you’re old. I’m a goddamn yoga sculpt instructor. I’m 23 years old. If I have nothing else to offer, I have my youth. And you, my students, seem to love that about me. I have something you don’t. Had something, anyway, before this self-inflicted heart attack, which is what my doctors are now saying it was. Time. You wanted my youth. I wanted your everything else.
I’ve been lying to my care team. I squirm in my bed as they try to discern why an otherwise healthy young woman might be stuck here, in this position. I could tell them I was abusing speed, but I’d rather see if they can figure it out.
I first learned about speed on Reddit. It sounded too good to be true. These chronically online bodybuilder types didn’t care about the risks. They were motivated, like me, by the end result. By the optimization of our bodies to look exactly the way we want them to. They taught me to stack ephedrine with caffeine pills and aspirin. Warned me that I’d be carded at CVS for buying the ephedrine from behind the counter, but not stopped.
Your bodies were my inspiration. You lived lives that made them possible. Easy, even. You resided in palatial apartments with elevator doors that opened right into your living rooms. I lived in a Chinatown two-bedroom with three other girls, all of us willing to do whatever it took not to go home to Long Island. Early mornings teaching yoga sculpt, late nights working bottle service at Marquee and TAO.
I’m only making money when I’m awake, so I try to stay up and up and up.
The speed helped with that. It felt too good to be true. This little cocktail allowed me to transcend my need for food. For sleep. I could make money around the clock. I could look like you. I buzzed with manic energy, ran laps up and down the West Side Highway. Vowed never to sit down when I could be moving. Taught more yoga sculpt classes, subbing whenever I could. Picked up more shifts at TAO. Brought home more in tips with my new body. My energy was infectious, one guest told me beneath burning sparklers.
My heart pounded as I moved through sun salutations, but I paid it no mind. My chest pounded as I handed out flutes of Dom from the tray balanced precariously on my shoulder. My body shrunk. The packed club felt easy to glide through when I was high. It felt like I could fly over the crowds, straight to VIP.
I’m too embarrassed to admit what I’ve done to myself. To be like you. To look like you. I thought I’d found a cheat code. Who cares that it made my thoughts race. Everything race. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do anything else but move fast. I look at the box of flowers you bought me and cringe, filled with shame. I’m not telling anyone what I’ve done. And when I’m all better, I’ll go back to class and teach you how to keep those bodies you already have. Those bodies I so badly want to inhabit.