The Post Where I Get Melodramatic

Two weeks ago, I remembered why it is that I love writing, after so long of forgetting why it is that I like living. Maybe it was the smell of autumn in the air, or the pumpkin spice latte in my hand (decaf, because my body can no longer tolerate caffeine, but I’m trying to look on the bright side). Maybe it was that I turned a corner in battling dehydration; there are fewer moments where I stand dead-eyed, fishing for language in an empty stream. 

I want to open the windows and clean all the oxygen in this house, even though it will let the chill into my bones. We have lightbulbs that need replacing, and my clutter has become more cluttered because I haven’t had the energy to do, do, do. Yesterday I made a list of goals, and it was ambitious. Today I had plans and even hopes because I am excited (oh so tentatively) to exist. I am accomplishing things again. 

There is still a spider crawling around inside my skull, trying to spin cobwebs over my eardrums so I will only hear its voice telling me nothing is worth it. But for the past month and a half, it has held so little power over me. I will take anything for a win. 

Do you know how many posts I have drafted in an effort to bring you one, just one? I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count them out for you. Somewhere along the line, my vocal chords became barbed wire—it hurts to speak my mind. That does not mean I will be silent. Most days I want to crawl into some deep, dark cave and just be thought for a while. That does not mean I will set up camp there. 

For a time I had stopped reading and writing, because my attention span was so badly diminished, and with it, my ability to care and invest. I’m back, though. Slowly but surely I am leaving the darkness of starvation that told me it was light, and yes, I have miles more to go. Eight times out of ten, I still disapprove of my reflection. The difference is that now I don’t think that silhouette warrants a death sentence. Two months ago, I gained five pounds of muscle weight through eating more and exercising well, and the world didn’t stop spinning—didn’t even hiccup. 

Sometimes I think I was a better person when I was heavier; I think I cared more and did more and felt more. When I stopped eating, I think I carved more from my frame than just fat and muscle. 

What matters is, I’m trying. I’m pulling myself out of bed and bucking against the urge to numb it all, to do anything but think. I’m finding it’s scarier now that I’m leaving the woods than it was when I wasn’t out yet. I’m looking over my shoulder at what was chasing me, and I have no words to describe how ugly it is. 

In times of war, POWs have been starved as a means of torture, to whittle them down to the barest outlines of themselves. It is one of the cruelest acts of hatred a human being can commit against another. 

I treated my body like a prisoner of war. 

There are days I can’t stand to be alone with myself because I’m scared that I will do it again, scared that next time I won’t be able to stop. I don’t want to live there anymore. For so long I felt like I was failing at recovery, because even when I was trying to get better I was still losing weight. But inch by inch, I’m getting my life back, and I’m not letting go.

C'est moi