But, like, is it really? Isn’t recovery grey and murky? When do we draw the line? I never know. I have 10-years of eating disorders and 2 years of recovery, so I’m not even going to pretend like I can talk definitively.
There are times however I know I push it in terms of relapsing; times I conveniently put myself in situations where I won’t have the chance to eat for several hours and “can’t” get to food (i.e. the airport- always a prime example. Boarding an 11:50am flight from Dallas back to New York and conveniently not getting in till 5pm eastern time.)
“Oh,” I think to myself. “WHOOPSIE, guess I just skipped lunch!”
Well- I did it again. It’s been 3 days, but to be honest- Truth #4 took a lot out of me so I need some time before diving back into another-
Was going through diaries trying to put together what will be the rest of my little Rehab series- and while I’m not really in the place to write about anything candid today- I’ve put together entries from my 2011-2014 diaries in hopes that they could do some of the talking for me.
These are hard to read- even for me- will probably be harder for my parents, and in a way, more vulnerable because they’re really my words.
My words- not stories I’ve taken and manipulated to some degree as I write this.
But-aye- in order to stay true to what I’m doing- I feel they need to be shared.
And as my darling Kimmy said (cause I make her proofread all of my posts beforehand):
oh, this is so beautiful
made me cry
i just remember picking you up at the airport…how incredibly happy you were how healthy you looked how excited you were for your future with your little putty in your hands and your binder full of letters
you were so strong in that moment. so confident. i wanted to bottle that feeling up and give you little sips for whenever you felt lost. i wish so much that you could always be in that space-
And so do I, my beautiful best friend- I’m well on my way.
Scared, and excited, and nervous, and unhealthy, and my throat hurts from throwing up, and my cheeks are bloated because I can’t stop eating- and when I’m nervous, I binge.
Dave has a heroin problem- I’m terrified. I’ve never known heroin, never seen it. Never understood it. And there he was, smoking it in front of me. The foil streaked- Standing in the door of his bathroom, watching his eyes turn to glass, his sad, shamed, way of looking at me and not looking at me at all. The tar moving around the foil, I remember thinking ‘This is what it does? This is what happens.” It rolls around the paper, and he chased it with his rolled up parking ticket, blackened at the edged, he chased it with his mouth the tar streaking the foil, the foil crinkling as it passed.
It was very silent, standing there. My eyes bearing into his head. I wondered what it’d be like if he died then. If he fell in front of me. Would I hate myself for letting him do it?
Do I hate myself now because I know and I’m leaving?
He looked so sad though, standing there. How lonely a drug can be. How lonely throwing up is.
I ate a whole bag of white chocolate pretzels while I sat outside his room, hearing him suck in, hearing the locusts, I wondered if I’d catch a whiff. I wondered if the smoke from heroin travels.
We slept in the same bed that night, my head on his shoulder. Interchanging the shoulders, the frame, the unique way in which people breathe as they sleep.
I wondered if he would die that night. I wondered if his heart would stop, while I laid on it. If he’d drift off and not come back. If his lungs would collapse, if his cough would ever go away, I wondered how he got here.
How do you get to this point?
And then I look at myself, and I wonder how I’ve let myself get to this. Why am I throwing up in a bathroom twice in one day. Why do my teeth hurt, why does my stomach bloat because I hurt it. Why do I hurt myself.
Why does anyone hurt themselves?
Why can’t we do what animals do, and protect?
Isn’t that the point?
And we get off on all these tangents
and we’re so fucked up for knowing they hurt.
Is there any other way to word this?
It’s so fucked.
I looked at him, and his immaculate life, and his freshly-shaven face, his ironed clothes, pressed and folded, his new house, his nice car, and Jesus, what happened to you.
How can you have this whole other existence?
When did I lose you?
When did you lose me?
When did we stop being kids, where did we lose those people?
Cause if we stuck those two people in front of each other, I don’t know that they’d recognize each other.
I sat there that night, watching him smoke heroin in his bathroom, and all I could see was a little boy, with bushy hair, taking the stairs two at a time, a Smoothie King in his hand, a cut off shirt, muscles full and healthy and vibrant, his way of entering the room grinning and sweaty and tackling me into the couch, my arms around his neck, smelling his work out. Feeling his muscles through his shorts, his hairy legs colliding with mine. His little-boy happiness to be there on top of me, on a couch that was too short for him, his feet dangling off the ends, my feet tucked under the crevices of his knees. Blissfully unaware of everything we would be, and could do to destroy ourselves, unfazed by drugs, and death, and bulimia.
I watched him smoke that heroin, and all I could see was that little boy in a big truck.
And I’m so sad that little boy grew up.
And I hope that little boy finds his soul.
I just know this isn’t the person he is. If it doesn’t kill him, he’ll be better.
But, isn’t that what we say about everyone? Isn’t that what we say to avoid facing the reality. Aye, look to the future mate, look so far ahead you cant feel the presence, and only what you’ve created in your head.
