Within This Space Between
Photograph of Kimberly Neil taken by Noah B.
By. Kimberly Neil
Distant, unlikely, preventative, in flux, ominous — once, there was an expiration date. Without it there was nothing to hold close. Numbness hit unexpectedly, so did that gift of tempting inaction. It was easy to fall into passivity and in a way, be still.
The laws of inertia certainly were not created to explain a path to self-destruction, but The Principal Law has a point: “A mass at rest tends to remain at rest; a mass moving at a constant velocity tends to keep moving at that velocity, unless acted upon by an outside force.”
Before there was a finish line, there was the way it all began. Picture this. One twelve-year-old is in a room, specifically the one in the house surrounded by porcelain and white tile, family and friends in another. After lunch came the familiar feeling that accompanied being full. This particular feeling had existed as long as possible for the twelve-year-old, nameless. Outside, pollen and music from cars driving too fast around the city were in the air. Within this space between winter and spring, there was enough noise to keep the adults in the other room from hearing what was going on.
The first time I purged did not unfold the way a Lifetime movie or coming-of-age television series leads audiences to believe. Nothing in my memory of that day is particularly special. The one momentary difference was the sound of traffic on a busy street blanketed by neighbors yelling, laughing, dancing. For me, that was enough to turn curiosity into experience. After, I did not feel lovely like a teenage onscreen heroine. I did not feel better. I did not feel.
Sometimes nostalgia appears, and I find myself wishing it were possible to remember what came before all of the little moments that added enough outside force to provoke coming undone. There are softer memories of happiness laced through it all: climbing a mountain because of school tradition, running through trees and jumping in a lake with friends, dancing in the studio, learning in classes with people who saw me in ways I refused to see myself. I was moving at a velocity of momentary abandonment of worry,
and these are times that I felt beautiful and alive.
I was thirteen when I did not think I had a problem / sixteen years old when dance teachers in my life expressed concern / nineteen years old on the volleyball court with an irregular heartbeat and lightheadedness that became my comfort zone / twenty-one starting over at a new college only to be hospitalized months later / twenty-two and recovering / twenty-something when being assaulted erased any progress I had made.
For all of these years, all I held were my secrets and no idea of who I was underneath them.
Within this space between stretch marks on the places I’d been touched without wanting it and now, I dissolved. Surrendered. I decided to name the feeling that began to grow years ago: healing.
Once, there was an expiration date.
Now, all I have is time.
Kimberly Neil graduated from Mount Holyoke College in May 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in Dance Ethnography. Her self-designed major combined technical dance training with medical anthropology, intersecting her love of dance and feminist health politics. In college, Kimberly served as a Diversity Fellow for the Office of the Deans. She wrote for a student publication titled Radix, Teen Vogue, and The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) through Proud2bme.org, a resource to inspire teenagers and young adults to embrace a healthy, recovery-oriented lifestyle. Post-graduation, Kimberly has continued to choreograph, write, and advocate for eating disorder awareness. She hopes sharing her truth will inspire others to do the same.
You can find more of Kimberly’s work at:
IG: @skimneil
VSCO: https://vsco.co/kimberlyneil/gallery
https://linktr.ee/skimneil
https://tv.apple.com/us/episode/misty-copeland/umc.cmc.6oypl5oiqhscu9jdlb9bhzkyy?showId=umc.cmc.3bcp1uw2craeu8lbc53h7i205