Every time I have sat down and wrote about being in recovery/being recovered, I have always felt the need to justify it. I always felt compelled to just try so hard to prove a point of, "I'm recovered, I know I've said this before, so fuck you if you think it's just empty words." And it wasn't necessarily that I thought I would "go back" or that I didn't believe in myself, but it's hard to make yourself believe otherwise when you're used to a constant pattern.
But things feel different this time around. There is something inside of me, that I can't quite reach to bring up and explain. I don't even know if it is something that I can describe, but instead something I can just feel. When I say I don't want to ever go back, I don't ever want to go back. And I know that nobody every truly wants to go back, but when things get hard, it's always the more "desirable" option because it feels safe in the familiarity. I can't ever fathom the idea of going back. I can't ever fathom the idea of being sick again. I can't fathom the idea of having an eating disorder again.
I look at the past stretch of time (because I can't tell you where...this, for lack of a better word, all began and when it will end.) and see the ways I have changed and grown. The ways I have pushed myself to succeed, to believe in myself, to change and learn to adapt to change. I know I have said it a lot, and heard it a lot for that matter, but I have come a very long way. I have become, becoming?, the person that I want to be. A person who understands what it means to live and be alive and feel and have good conversations over a slice of cheesecake with my girlfriends. A person who sees myself for what I can do, what I can be. The abilities I have, the talent, the brain, all of it. And fuck, lets throw beauty in there too.
I believe that you can be recovered - that life doesn't have to be lived in a limbo of always being "in recovery." I don't believe that we have to live our lives with one foot in each world. Do I believe that everyday is a fight? Yes. Every god damn day is a fight regardless of what you have gone through and lived through. That's what life is.
I beginning to like the person that I am these days.
One day, maybe I could even love her too.
