the light meets the dark

I have all these ideas about what recovery means to me and what that looks like. I don't really know where they come from and what it all means, or even if it's how it will look for me down the line from now. I've been doing so much thinking about the eating disorder world and if we ever really do leave it, fully, I mean. I want to reject Marya Hornbacher so badly when she says you never come back all the way. That you always have one foot in a world where everything is backwards and upside down and sad. I want to reject this because it pisses me off. And I feel like it just gives me an excuse to be like, well if that's always how its going to be, than really, what is the point?

But I've really been contemplating this, do we ever leave it fully? I see people who are recovered, hear stories of people who are recovered, like K, and it makes me long for a formula - one solid answer. I know it's different for everyone, but I want a formula for recovery. I want to know how to get from B to A. I want to know if that's possible, or if we just stay in some limbo.

But truly - years down the road from now when someone is doing better, can we still be so heavily impacted by the eating disorder in the most subtle of ways? A comment about weight, or a diet, or calories - doesn't it all just revert back to the eating disorder? My cousins wife's daughter from her first relationship told my niece that she was fat at Christmas. And I listened to my niece go on and on about how she was going to go on a diet, and that she weighs herself every single day. She's 9. And right away, my mind just reverts to the eating disorder - to that time in my life. And it's moments like that that make me think, do we ever truly leave it? Or are we forever living with one foot in the world?

I have this ridiculous notion that I'm going to get together with all my friends who were sick at one point in time, and we're all going to be recovered, and talking about the menial tasks of life that really, aren't so menial. Tasks that I didn't think I would live to be able to do - picking out towels for the guest room, getting the mail, paying bills. Simple, stupid, everyday shit. But simple, stupid, everyday shit that exists in the real world. And that's the difference.

This was just a giant 1 in the morning ramble because I can't sleep and because I truly want to believe we can leave the eating disorder world, despite the evidence to the contrary.

i like it in the city when two worlds collide

Where am I at these days? Somewhere in the middle, I like to believe anyways. I don't know, I feel ridiculous saying it, but I sort of just like gave up when I got home from New York and when things got tough. And like that's really what always happens. Things get hard, reality hits me, and I just decide to stop fighting. Like, I went out for lunch today with a friend who said it so well. Getting better and being better - I know I can do that here and there. And it's right, being better and being healthy and being the person I'm supposed to be - I know that I can do that in New York. I know HOW to do that in New York. And like, then I come home, I'm forced back into a reality that I don't want and somehow I tell myself that I don't know how to do it here.

The thing is, I know how to do it here. If I can do it in New York, that has to mean I can do it here, I'm just choosing to not, or ... not trying hard enough? Maybe? I don't know. Things are so much more on track now than they were when 2011 came to a close and when this year first started. We're only a few weeks in, but I feel like I've got a better grip on things right now than I did when the year started. It was like, I knew what I wanted to do, where I wanted to be and how to get there. It's like, I knew the way and yet I was still so incredibly lost, if that makes any sense. Like that quote "Have you ever been so lost? Known the way and still so lost?"


School is going really well right now. I'm sitting at a 99.3% average for my biology which I'm extremely thrilled with. I have to sign up for Grade 11 Chemistry and then of course, do grade 12. I'm hoping to be done with high school in the middle of march, if not the end.

I guess that's all there is to update? I don't know. I feel like I lead a very boring life, but I guess I'm okay with that.

two weeks away feels like the whole world should have changed

I honestly thought that I would be more sad than I am right now. I mean, I cried a lot yesterday on the bus and when I got home and in the car and at group and everything. It's always overwhelming to come home. It's always a weird feeling to step off the bus some 10...12 hours later and try to place myself back in the city. Like, was I really there 12 hours ago? Was I just sitting in J's apartment on the futon? And now I'm here? I don't know if it is from traveling all day or what, but it's always just so weird to think that just this morning I was there, and now I'm here. So, lol, I cry. I cry and leave awkward voicemails on my friends phone because no matter what, there is always a part of me that aches when I leave the city.

But I'm sitting in my bedroom right now (weird?) watching the Manhattan in Motion video, which it sounds lame, but something I thought I wouldn't be able to do. Simple things like listening to Empire State of Mind and watching this video and other NYC related things. I uploaded all my pictures to facebook and lived every moment again through them and didn't sob hysterically. I laughed and smiled and seeped back into those memories, even for a second. I don't even know why I feel like this or what shifted or anything. All I know is that, yes, I do miss the city, but I'm really, truly, okay.

Maybe this all has to do with the fact that I'm actually going back in two weeks - that in two weeks time I will be back to my "home." I will be back in the company of my favourite new yorker; I will be back to where a squawking cat wakes me up at 4 every morning. I will be back to the MTA instead of the TTC. I will be back to lots and lots of people.

I wish I could say more about this past week. I wish I could just....get it all into words and explain and express. I made it to the last 20 minutes of group last night post 12 hours on a bus and just was so grateful. I sat there and the change within myself was just so god damn present in that moment that it was worth paying the 3$ subway fare to make it. It was worth it all. I think I'm going to go drag the christmas tree upstairs now.

it hasn't felt like home before you

It's 5am. I've just said goodbye to J. Seriously, where has this week gone? I remember sitting on the bus last week thinking about this moment - thinking about my last night and what I would be doing and how I would be feeling. This part never gets easier; it's the worst part and simultaneously the best part. It sucks because leaving the one place you know you belong and can't stay has got to be one of the worst feelings in the entire world, but knowing that leaving means you just get to come back again is also a very....rewarding? feeling. And I'm coming back in just a matter of weeks, so it really all does feel different this time, but also the same. Hmmm. I'm wondering how that can be. I'm not looking forward to the bus ride however.

I talked a lot this week with J about my life and about where I have been. All week I have thought about where I was this summer when I came to where I am now, and I truly cannot even place that girl to who I am, especially now. I remember going to the Donut Plant in the summer and nervously picking at it and only being able to manage half because I was so sure my ass was going to expand instantly and I would lose control and be a giant fucking mess and then now, when I just order a donut without thinking and eat it without thinking and just have a good time. I can't even REMEMBER what I talked about with J while I was at the DP in the summer because I was just so god damn lost into my eating disorder. I sort of am just sitting here just....I don't know. This whole change?

I need to get the rest of my things together so that I am not frantically running around trying to catch the subway at last minute to get the bus. I hope that my bus is semi on time tonight so I can make it back for koom bi a because I just really want to be there for the last group and just, I don't know. Everything about this trip is just always so heavy (in a good way) in my whole entire being and group is the perfect place to just....get it all out.

I'm going to be okay.

brave.

It's 1:18am and I'm going to kick myself tomorrow when J wakes me up to go skating, but I don't really care. I'm sitting in the living room looking out at the city and I want to just cry because it's all so god damn beautiful - more beautiful than I can even put into words and I don't even want to try because I just don't think I can encapsulate it all. I love here....I love being here. I love being here with someone who loves and appreciates New York more than me because there is just so much to learn. Stories and places and pictures and smiles and laughs - soul opening laughs - and from the very first time I stepped foot into this city in 2009 I always knew that it was special to me. I'm so different from that girl. But that's what I really love about New York, no matter how long it's been, it's still the same and yet so different and it's really at these moments that I notice even the slightest differences in myself.

I wish I could just capture this moment. I wish there was some way to hold it in my hands and come back to it whenever I need to. It sounds ridiculous - all of this does, and I'm just so past the point of even caring. I want to let loose and scream and laugh and smile and eat really good food and love it. I want to dance all night and sing at the top of my lungs and be okay with it. Because fuck, I think about sitting in group when K asks me all the time, but what else are you? And it's such a god damn struggle to say anything, so I just say what I always say after its choked out of me, but I just want to scream right now that I'm brave and I'm beautiful and I'm funny and I'm smart and I'm caring and I'm kind and I'm so many things and have so much potential to be these things and be the person I'm supposed to be, whoever that is, and I can do that. That's who I am here. Everything is balanced and centered and my friends in the next room sleeping and I just want to say Thank You for changing my life. Thank you for sharing this with me and letting me be apart of it because fuck, it feels so good to be apart of something, whatever it is. I walk down the streets of NYC and know this is where I'm meant to be. I sit on the subway and I wish I could just explain it, you know? I wish I could make my mom understand, make people understand that this is the only thing I'm sure about in my life. That honest to god, my purpose in life is this city. it's not the future children I may or may not have, it's not the person I've been crushing on for the past year, it's not to cure cancer or be a book publisher or a doctor or anything. It's this city. That simple and that complicated.

My first night here in July I just laid on the futon and cried. I cried because I felt disgusting and so unworthy of being here and being friends with J and crying over a fucking donut and I'm sitting in the exact same spot and I just can't even put myself to that girl. Which is strange because its 130 in the morning and the night is when I always slip away, and I'm so god damn present right now and I want more than anything to stay here.

and it's all coming back to me.

Sitting on the bus right now. The internet is kind of shoddy, so hopefully this posts when I'm done. It's just a little before five, meaning I've been on the bus for the past five hours. Feels like a lot longer, really. It's been pretty good so far. I had a really awful experience with MegaBus in the past so I was about weary about riding it, but it's been smooth sailing for far (fingers crossed as I still have six more hours to go!). I've had two seats to myself near the stair case (extra foot room) for the entire ride. We have one more stop in syracuse and then one hand in the air for the big city. Syracuse is always a busy station so I assume it could get super busy there....who knows. Hopefully it's not too bad because S-NYC is still a good portion of the journey and I'm probably going to pass out soon.

I'm excited to go. I really am. I felt pretty much how I expected I would feel last night. I don't know, its that whole before you leave anticipation that rubs me in the wrong way. I just get really nervous and anxiety ridden and just really am not sure what to do with myself. I stayed up pretty late sort of just whatever, so I wasn't feeling 100% this morning, but popped some ativan and was good to go.

I'm excited. I really am. I have that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I know I'm going to be there tonight. That I'm going to sleep on J's futon and I'm going to hear the people and the traffic and the noise and the sirens and I'm going to be okay.

New York....I'm ready for you.

all of these lines across my face

I'm going to New York? What? That sounds really weird to be typing out. I mean, I knew that I was going to New York for NYE, but I'm getting on a bus in less than a week to go for a week. The offer came yesterday night and I've been hemming and hawing all night and all morning about it. So many reasons to go, and so many reasons to not, a big one being money. I really don't have the financial means to be going, and even NYE is pushing it. I haven't been working, clearly, and it is the holiday season meaning lots of shopping to do. But, everybody is encouraging me to go, and I know deep down that it is my choice ultimately.

I feel like something is holding me back and I'm not quite sure yet what that is, but I feel like I always feel this. That ambivalence. Minus the times that I just sort of decided to get on a bus and go and left the next day in 2010. I guess I had money then? Or was just completely off the charts in doing whatever the hell I wanted to do not caring about the consequences. But even in February I was unsure. I remember crying about over the trip at the kitchen table to my mom one night. I remember fighting with her in July about going. And then I look back on the person I was when I came home from those trips. I felt alive again. I look at where I am now versus where I was before I left in July and they don't even compare. I can't even recognize the girl I was in July. I'm not in an amazing place right now eating disorder wise, but I'm in a much better place than I was before. I'm no longer laying awake at 3am freaking out over what will happen if I drink a glass of water. I have been struggling lately, but not anywhere near that degree. I really would like to see J and the city and just be there. I know I'm taking a chance that now things may not work out at New Years, I know that. But, fuck, I'm sitting here thinking, this is a chance I have to take. Or, am willing to take? Whether it works out or not, if I take it, I've taken it. There is no going back.

Other than that. That's pretty much what is going on with me these days. Keeping busy with my Biology. I have a mixture of good days and bad days and I'm just sort of accepting that as the norm and trying to...keep going?

Still, I need better ways to cope and deal.

It snowed today for the first time this year and I haven't taped sheets up over my window yet. I haven't cut my hair or tried to drown myself in the bath tub or run around town in high heels and my bikini at 1 in the morning.

Winter...maybe I'm ready for you this year.

well i'm gone, this songs your letter.

I keep wondering how I got to this point. I keep wondering a lot of things lately. I have to go to work in the morning. Work...I'm sitting here self medicating and prolonging the night because I can't fucking stand the thought of having to go to work tomorrow. I can't stand the thought of actually having to interact with customers and coworkers and people and every head honcho from head office is stopping by and I just can't even fucking fathom being there. I really can't. And yet, I have nobody to blame but myself because everyone is telling me to just quit because I shouldn't deal with this stress and it's doing my head in and they're treating me like shit and yet, I just am fucking sitting here on the verge of sobbing, but god forbid I actually show an emotion, so self medicate. Yeah.

I want to say that I miss New York and J and central park and that moment I laid my head down on the futon and closed my eyes. I want to feel that again, and yet I feel like now I'm just some idiot who runs away when things get hard. Things are hard and I want to go, and I want to stay because I also can't fathom the idea of looking like a fucking dumb shit who can't get their fucking crap together all these years later. Hi. Do you really want to be my friend, because it can get pretty tiring after awhile and deep down inside,  I would actually get on my fucking hands and knees and beg you to not leave.

It's exhausting to fight a battle you feel you're losing.

and you'll find somebody you can blame

Meltdown. I had an absolute meltdown in group last night. By the time I had gotten to group, I was already in a bad mood. Traffic was bad and then the subway broke down and it was just a fucking disaster, so by the time I got there we were already halfway through check in's. I pretty much just blew everything off and was like I'm frustrated with my life, that's all. And it was just so fucking noticeable how pissed off and bitchy I was, and still, K, challenged me and asked me if I had an answer to her fucking question. I didn't, obviously. And so, again, she asked people to think of something. KB said I was a worthwhile human being and S said I was beautiful and I just started crying because I'm so god damn tired of being challenged. And of course, it didn't stop there. At the end when there was enough time to talk, I just expressed myself about being challenged; about every week that I hate that I'm put on the spot to answer a question I'm not quite sure I'll ever have an answer too. And I just couldn't stop crying. I said I hear what people say, and I just, how can I even think something of myself when I'm am the girl who always fall short; so close, but just never quite makes it all the way. And she just flat out challenged me with the truth. Told me I have lived my life like this so long, that this is my prison, that I have brainwashed myself so much to believe that I'm really guilty of all these things I'm not; all these things I believe I am...ugly, stupid, unimportant, worthless, uneducated, drop out, unemployed, fat. She told me I've conditioned myself to these thoughts that every week when she asks me if I have an answer to my question, she literally just watches me shut down. That the things I could maybe say or want to say, I can't even let myself believe them so I immediately just shut down.

She's right. Because I want to tell her that I really am a worthwhile person and I am beautiful and I am inspiring and I am kind and caring and funny and helpful and I type these things and I feel guilty. I feel swallowed by guilt, like I've just broke some cardinal rule of how I'm supposed to live my life. Like I've committed an eighth sin. It fucking aches to write things I don't believe myself to even have worth to amount to. I want to believe I can change, but I write these things and try to feel them and I just feel trapped. Thundering, all I can hear is, how can you be any of those things when deep down you know the person you are, the things you've done/haven't done. Who are you kidding? You're a piece of shit and that is all you have ever amounted to.

And then I got home and everything about work surfaced. I laid for hours in bed with my sister just talking about life and so badly I wanted to be connected to all the things going on in her life; so badly I just want to slip out of myself and into the pieces of her life, or someones life, anybodies life, so that I can maybe understand what I'm supposed to be doing or where I'm supposed to be going and maybe, just maybe, it will be enough for me to hold in my hands and carry back to my own life. I laid awake till 3am when I decided that I needed to make myself a feast because that's what I do. That's who I am. And then I sliced my fucking finger open trying to cut a bagel and made a mess. I had to wake up my mom who was angry that I was eating during the night, terrified I was eating during the night, and we talked and talked and I just didn't hold back because it was 3am and who I am in the dark of night is not who I am in the day and sometimes its just easier when it's night and you don't have to play respectable girl whose got it all together.

She called into work for me today. I need a job, but she asked me, at what cost?

I don't know.

I'm not sure of anything these days.

and the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood

So where I'm at these days, hmmm. I'm sitting in Starbucks again, surprise, even though I cannot afford the 3.31$ mocha that I'm drinking. Been a lot of that lately, and still it hasn't stopped me.

Where to even start. I hate that the weather is changing. I hate that I can feel the shift. I hate that I feel that shift inside of me. Despite everything that I'm doing and working on right now (which somehow went from nothing to everything), I still feel so directionless. I feel lost. After work yesterday, I just showed up at my moms office and started crying and I just wanted to tell her, it's more than just work. It's more than anything I can even comprehend right now, but I didn't. I feel...I don't even know if stuck is the word. I think about the future and its a black hole. I think about all the work I'm putting into getting my sciences and I find myself thinking, What even is the point? Why am I working so hard towards this when I don't even know if it's going to work out. And I know, I KNOW that is not a reason to not do something, because yeah, it may not work, but it also may. It's so much more than just that thought and yet I can't even come up with the words to express it.

I feel like I can't tell anybody but my mom about the job situation. I'm happy to have a job, trust me, I am, but I was really misguided in the interview. It IS commission based, and so the stress of trying to make sales is really hard. I worked for three hours yesterday and barely made 50% of my sales goal, which means that if I don't improve that on my next few shifts, I lose 50% of my hours for the following week. Well, as it is, I only am getting like 15 hours. So then what? 7.5 hours a week? 70 bucks? That's the thing, I work a lot of days, but not a lot of hours. Shifts are like 2-3 hours. So by the time I get there and back I'm spending almost just as much I'm making at 70 bucks a week. I am going to keep it regardless for now because its like Blockbuster - money is money. My mom has offered to help me out with my cell phone bill, but I've yet to tell her about that maxed out credit card bill. I also am swimming up to my ears in debt with student loans and owing my sisters money. They keep telling me not to worry about it right now - that they would rather me save my money for school and pay them back second, but it's just like, I hate having it hang over me. I hate money, and yet I'm sitting in starbucks drinking a $3.31 drink. Not even the Christmas Cup is making me feel better.

Tonight I'm going to group and even that, digging up subway for was a nightmare. Dimes. I'm paying for the subway in dimes, because thats really how I've been rolling these past few days. I just want my first paycheque to come in from roots so I can start putting a dent in my bill. I actually entertained the idea of going to work at McDonalds full time. I really don't even fucking care at this point. I wanted to stay out of the food industry so bad, but I just don't even care about myself right now enough to do what is best for me. Like, in my mind, what I see right now is, needing to pay off my debt. And doing what I need to do to do that. And I know that pisses people off and I just don't care. I am so tired of always owing money and I have nobody to blame for that except myself. So really, get myself in? I need to get myself out. I dabbled in the idea of getting my job back at Tim Hortons, but I doubt they would go for that. Not to mention, I just remember how fucking miserable I was. But like, I'm at a point where I just can't even remember that, or am ignoring it or something. Like, that's what it keeps coming down too. I really don't even know. There is something so much bigger going on and people are just like, oh what's wrong, you seem off, is everything okay? Like no, everything is not okay but I don't know why and I am not sure how I'm supposed to figure it out. I don't know how to fix something when I don't even know what the problem is. I want to chalk it up to winter. I want to chalk it up to the fact that I always go crazy, but that's such bull shit because it's an excuse and its a cop out and I'm tired of that for my life.

Still, I wish I could figure out what I'm feeling because than maybe shit would just get easier. Or I'd know what to do or what road to take to try and fix this shit.

I hate this weather. I feel so cold from the inside out.