Portia De Rossi, I love you.

Did you see the Portia De Rossi-Oprah interview yesterday?  It was a gut wrenching yet inspiring talk prompted by her new book, Unbearable Lightness, which chronicles  Portia's struggle with an eating disorder and her recovery.  It's almost more shocking anymore to find a woman that does not have some sort of disordered eating*, so I wasn't shocked.  But I was blown away by her sheer bravery and honesty.

 Here is someone who is stunningly gorgeous, just as beautiful on the inside, and she's just as effed up as all the rest of the women in this country.  I'm  not saying all women have eating disorders, but I think the American approach to food and looks in general is very unhealthy and quite bizarre and unnatural.  It can be hard to reconcile.  She has worked through it and has found her joy and deep authenticity, and I find it immensely generous that she was willing to share her journey.  

I remember seeing her on Ally McBeal and thinking, wow!  She was so beautiful, she reminded me of old time movie stars, she had that elegance and also some sassiness.  I thought she was rare in the celebrity world and I loved that she looked like a woman and not sort of undernourished like the other women on that show.  I thought she was the prettiest, the sexiest, and by far the most interesting.  She was a bombshell with a brain.  Then I noticed she seemed to be getting thinner and thinner.

And come to find out she was suffering from disordered eating and having a hard time coming to terms with her sexuality.   Have you ever wondered, looking at seemingly confident goddess-like women, what is life like for that person?  What is it like to move through the world in that gorgeous form?  Well, there you go, it is not always what we might think.  Mad props to Portia for her authenticity and for doing the world a service, she's a bright sun.

* Natalia Rose has done some wonderful and enlightened writing on the subject of eating disorders, for more on this, check out this post. 

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