{on choice}

it is an astonishing feeling to realize that, unlike what i had previously attempted, i cannot will myself well.

i always hear that eating disorders are a mental choice - choose to fight off the demons, choose to choose truth over lies, but sometimes you cannot want to be healthy.

it is an insidious cycle, but i am slowly getting back up. i am learning that in the same way as some nights i crave the blades so badly that my bones ache and my hands shake and claw at fading scars... and i do not want to stay clean, i do not want recovery...

i can choose to want it.

i can keep my eyes on Him, above the waves, and i can decide that this is what i want, even when it is not what i want at all. this is what i want long-term. this is what i want in the long run.

health. wellness. wholeness.

and starvation does not do that. ripping my skin into shreds will not mend my soul.

i know this.

the book i read this past weekend shed so much light where there was darkness. i am amazed at how closely her thoughts, her feelings, her experience parallels mine.

and i know that there is a legitimate mental illness component to this disease. the fact that i can look in the mirror and truly not see what others see. i can look at my body and see enormous when everyone else sees tiny.

but the book blows me away. An Apple A Day, it is entitled, and i stumbled across it on accident at the library with my little brother.

the shock begins when i realize that our diet is basically the same... fruit and caffe americano, convincing ourselves that we are healthy, just 'eating clean'. it is not healthy.

she goes on to say that the average anorexic lives on anywhere around 800 calories/day, which is less than the average inmate at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which blows my mind and rocks my world down below its foundations.

i have been obsessed with the holocaust since before i can remember, and to think that on average i consume a grand total of 300, perhaps 500 calories a day... and they consumed on average 1000-1300 calories a day...sickens and shocks and repulses and terrifies me.

but here i found it different than most eating disorder books... it gives me answers.

i have been asking, for the past year, two years... 'what is normal eating?' Who will tell me what it means to eat like a normal person?

this book tells me..... finally tells me.... i finally have answers. concrete answers.

see, there is a passage where her boyfriend write out what he calls 'the action plan', her method for recovery. It is as follows:

"Action Plan:

• as agreed, you will eat three meals a day. Each meal must be a proper balanced meal 
• a proper breakfast consists of a large bowl of museli with milk, fruit, handful of brazil nuts, vitamin pills. alternatively, it could be toast with jam, fruit, nuts, and vitamins. it must include carbohydrates of some sort. on no account can 'breakfast' be a piece of fruit and low-fat yogurt (see below). the word 'breakfast' involves the breaking of a fast, not the continuing of a fast 
• a proper lunch consists of a cheese sandwich with a piece of fruit on the side. alternatively a baked potato with beans. or a pot of couscous with a roll, or vegetable soup with a roll. note: it must include carbohydrates and some protein in the form of beans or cheese, etc. 
• a proper dinner might be vegetable chili with baked potato grated cheese and a side salad, or it night be a vegetable curry with brown rice and a salad. or pasta arrabbiata with cheese sprinkled on top, or vegetable lasagna, both with salads on the side. you need to branch out and try different dinners that include proteins and carbohydrates. 
• you must keep a food diary covering the three meals a day (i don't want to hear your usual objections to this). be it as simple as 'breakfast: museli, lunch: cheese salad, dinner: baked potato and veg chili'. this way you can, quite crucially, keep tabs on what you are eating, making slip-ups impossible. 
• at the end of the week, well assess the week gone by. there must be no gaps. no missed meals whatsoever. 
• low-fat yogurts and fruit do not count as meals. 
• steamed broccoli and a roll does not count as dinner. 
• there must be no buying of 'low-fat' items: those items are for people on a diet... 
• all this starts now" 

and this makes sense. this, my brain can comprehend.

although, my problem is not low-fat so much as sugar free... so i would swap out the 'low fat' thing with 'sugar free'. no sugar-free or diet beverages, candy, food... 

but otherwise? this sounds like me... convincing myself that a piece of fruit and a large caffe americano counts as a meal. 

and if i have been seriously asking for the past few weeks what 'normal' eating sounds like/looks like... this is a good start. and this is worth a shot. 

right?

i can't do this alone, and i will - i have to - call upon His name to keep my eyes above the waves, to drown out the voices from all directions saying to stay this skinny.

fall seven times... fall seventy times... get back up. always get back up...

i do not 'want' to be healthy in the short-term. in the short-term i want to be skinny and size zero (i am finally size zero and it is hollow. it is empty, but it is acceptable)... in the long term i want wellness, i want health,

so if i cannot choose to just snap out of it, choose to be 'better', then i can at least decide to choose to want to be better.

i make myself a balanced meal for dinner - raspberries, spinach, burger, whole-wheat roll.

it is the hardest meal i have eaten in a long time, but holding my little brother's hand praying asking God to bless the food, bless us, bless me now my Savior i come to Thee...

i come back to Thee... again and again and again and again...

and get back up and fight on. 

{on relapse}

life is strange, eating disorders even more so. 

anorexia makes no sense to me, and at the same times, it is the only thing which makes sense. 

i suppose i am what you would call a functioning anorexic... atypical anorexia... maintaining just freaking fine on apple and orange and raspberries and spinach and cucumbers. 

i get good grades. i joined the track team. i can run and i do not fall over in a dead faint. i can smile and laugh, and you would never know anything is wrong with me. 

i am working on the perfect body...but you would only think i am fit, i am toned, i am skinny and perfect and enviable... 

and i am trapped. 

enslaved to this feeling, the sensation of skinny, while at the same time loathing it so badly that it brings me to tears. 

it is partly that skinny means my parents' approval, means my dad said i looked good today for the first time in my life of his own volition, and i was wearing leggings... 

it is partly this nameless force, this physical inability to bring the damn fork to my mouth, and it is enough to bring me to tears, but i cannot do it. i am mortally terrified. i am bound and gagged and i physically cannot. 

there is a plaque sitting on my desk which reads 'actually, I'm pretty sure chocolate tastes as good as skinny feels', which i bought the day we all went out as a family to eat, and i bought it because it made me laugh and because i wanted so desperately to believe that. 

and i spent that meal picking my way through salad, crouton and dressing-less by request, and drinking black coffee (warning: cracker barrel black coffee is simply awful), as the rest of the family enjoyed bacon and pancakes and warm biscuits dripping with butter and i saw myself in the third person for a brief moment, face pinched with wistful longing, yet forcing a smile at mother's approving comment on my 'health kick'. 

i join the track team, and even then, i am oddly proud of my ability to run, to keep up better than a beginner, on an orange and black coffee for breakfast, yet loathing myself for it. 

my family makes burgers for dinner - i hear them in the living room, laughing at a competitive cooking show which they regularly watch - they have whoopie pies for dinner, and I would love to have one. i long to enjoy food, to be able to eat a burger or a chocolate doughnut without cringing. 

i cannot bring myself to eat even one bite. i sob my way through add-ons to my salad, utterly failing to convince myself that 50 calories worth of shredded smoked salmon will not kill me. 

and i hate this. i hate this so much. i loathe it, yet not enough. my mother approves, and borrows out books from the library on how to lose weight. 

i cry at night when no one can see, no one can hear. 

i am fine in the mornings, running high on caffeine and citrus, and the rest of the day drags by in forced smiles and fruit and lettuce only... and i know i am due for a breakdown tomorrow because we are out of oranges and what the heck do i eat for breakfast, then? 

spotify runs a random add on protein and recovery, and how your body needs certain things to maintain itself and build strength, and i shake my head and close my eyes as my brother walks into the kitchen at 9:45 at night to toast himself a dinner roll with leftover burgers, and i sit here frozen because a friend has been trying to convince me for the past hour to get up and get food, and i literally cannot bring myself to 

and why am i so obsessed with this? and why can't i just eat normally? and will running be yet another anorexia enabler in the same way that exercise and black coffee/tea and clean eating are becoming? 

too many questions, too few answers. 

i will eat normally tomorrow, i say, and crawl into bed, knowing full well that tomorrow will never come, and that i hardly care while at the same time it infuriates me. 

how have i fallen so far so fast...again?

{running}

i have always loathed and dreaded running.

i swore i'd never turn into a runner, not even to save my life...running has always seemed to me to be, in every way possible, pointless, painful, and overrated. 

what 'good' is running? go do fifty pushups a day instead, and at least then you'd have abs to show for all that work! 

plus, i can't run. I'm not the long-legged athletic type, and that, coupled with my disdain for running, has left me on the sidelines (or in the dust) a good many times during any and all activities which involved running. 

*cough* races *cough* soccer *cough* frisbee *cough* dodgeball *cough*... you get the idea.. 

if I recall correctly, the last time i actually 'ran' was....iGovern of last year and that was..umm..distinctly not pretty. 

But, just recently, the younger kids joined the track team, bringing the whole running thing back up for debate. 

'Asha, you should join the track team!' 

'Absolutely not. School/work/finals/i don't run, remember?' 

however, it's been a few weeks, and my younger brother and i have started taking walks in the evening around the neighborhood which somehow morphed into runs, and i am learning to see me how He sees me, how reality is, and I am learning to walk confident in Him, and i have discovered that I enjoy the wind in my face and my hair streaming behind me. 

so, this morning, i pull on leggings and an old t-shirt, track jacket because it is cold, and i join my siblings lining up to run 

i love it. 

i've officially joined the track team, and shocked myself with my own ability. 

i have always loudly declared that 'I don't run!' and now? I get to run three days a week, school is finishing up so i no longer have that worry, and i have been exercising and eating cleaner and Spring is upon us and I can run. 

Dad drops my brother and I off at the library on the way back, and we walk home, discussing the morning's events. 

he begins to speak, words pouring from his heart. 

'Sometimes, the only thing that keeps me going is the finish line. I get to a point where i think i can't go any further, but then i think, I've come so far, i can't give up now, so i close my eyes or look up, and i just run' 

He is wiser than he knows. those words sink inside me, linking with memorized verses which now come to the forefront of my brain. 

'not that i have already obtained this or am already made perfect...but one thing i do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, i press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus' (Phil 3:12-14)

'therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking unto Jesus' 

fixing our eyes on Him. 

i forget what lies behind, i strain forward to what lies ahead, i keep my eyes fixed on Christ. 

so 'I'll be running the race'

....even while i wait. 

{what the heck is health?}

there is an insidious aspect to eating disorders

 they are portrayed as chains, when in reality, they are far closer to tawny rope vines. 

the sweet-pea clingers which twist wrap themselves in whispers through your bones, around your soul. 

it goes from 'i will eat normally and everything will fall into place' to 'clean eating makes me feel better/stronger/energized' to 'carbs/sugar/fat is poison and i live just fine on salads and apples' to 'black coffee and fruits and vegetables' 

and hey, i dropped two pounds in two days, but it is getting harder to get out of bed in the morning (and let's be honest, it was pretty difficult to begin with) and my smiles grow more strained, less frequent 

in the space of days it goes from 'i will just exercise enough to wake myself up/give me energy/make me feel strong' to 'wake up, work out, walk for hours, wall sit every available moment, plank for warmth, work out, sleep, drag self out of bed in the morning and start the cycle all over again'

my mother notes my 'health kick' with approval, especially the beginnings of a six-pack and wiry arms, exactly .6 pounds heavier than February 2, 2015, my release date from the hospital, over a year ago. 

yet now i am slimmer than i was then, all my clothes slipping off my frame, unable to be held up with belts because the smallest loop on the belt is still bigger than my waist. 

and i am growing to see that the problem is not salads. the problem is not exercise. the problem is not going for a bike ride or an hour's walk/run after dinner. 

the problem is i want to live

not just survive

not just scrape by on what my brother lovingly refers to as 'rabbit food' because when you eat half a cucumber and raspberries for dinner.... he may have a point.

and my mother told me this morning that i should be happy, because 'you finally have the body you've always wanted' and yet i do not have losing weight as a goal. 

i want to be strong and i want to eat clean and i enjoy the feeling of health which comes from eating greens and i am rediscovering raspberries and cucumbers and even zucchini and yet... 

why do i feel as though i should feel like something is fundamentally wrong? 

i browse pinterest at my kitchen desk, flip through beautiful lattes and espresso, listening to the sound of a little boy breathing as he sleeps in the living room and i ask myself why.. why, when finally the body i have always wanted, the enviable, the tiny perfect... i feel as though i should feel as though something is missing. 

i want beauty

i want to create beauty and enjoy beauty and beautiful things and beautiful food

like the brownies baked for the co-op bake sale today, which sit in their pan, perhaps a bit too liberally sprinkled with powder sugar, which i smiled and said 'no thank you' to this morning, pouring myself another cup of black caffe verona

like the pancake creations i fed my littlest brother. we made them together, measuring out oat flour in wild experimentation, allowing myself two, three, four bites. no more. 

what am i so afraid of? 

i think i know. i know what i am afraid of... 

i am afraid that my body will stabilize itself at a weight above what i am currently at, which makes me feel skinny, and that, when/if it does, i will not know how to love it or appreciate it. 

my father is on a no-carb diet for his diabetes (but don't ask him, he will deny both the diabetes and the diet...we as a family do not discuss things like that)

my mother is discontent and disgusted with her homeopathic remedies which while they 'work', she claims they have increased her estrogen levels to the point of fattest she has ever been. 

and i want to live and enjoy life and enjoy things like warm chocolate and caramel and fresh pancakes and cold ice cream laughing late nights with siblings hearing recaps of their days. 

but what if.... what if, as always before... i attempt, i gain, and my self-loathing grows with each pound added? 

what then? 

my brother with the deadly dairy allergy, his chocolate bars say 'enjoy life' on them. because, after all, what else are we to do with life but live it?

life consists of Christ and life is meant to be lived, and if i was never objectively 'fat' to begin with, will it matter in eternity whether or not i weigh 10, 15, 20 more pounds than i do now?

because, after all, add 18 more pounds and that is what i weighed at the beginning of this year, add 11 to my current weight and you have how much i weighed in Virginia late January, and what i weigh now is roughly what i weighed at the beginning of camp last year, and if he who saw me at camp and saw me in January saw no real difference between the two... then what does it matter? 

i know what it matters. 

it matters because i walk differently, talk differently, act differently, am different when i am confident, when i think i look good

and now i talk confidently, walk confidently. because i have suddenly realized that i lose nothing by comparison with others. because i like my body best this weight. 

i do not walk as though i am afraid or ashamed of myself, do not exist in public as though my sole aim in life is to take up less space because i feel that i take up too much space already. but that is the way i have always walked...flabby thighs, stomach rolls, do not look at me. 

i am mostly content with my body, its shapes and curves. i almost like it now. i like sitting down without sucking in my stomach. i like the noted approval my extremely-toned-without-even-trying brother gives me upon examining my bicep. i like being skinnier than my sister, stronger, sans stomach fat. i like pulling my legs up to my chest, and watching the sunbeams dance on the hardwood floors through the space between my thighs. it is more socially acceptable. it is social media and teenage girls and i do not miss my cellulite. i do not miss the lumpy hips and never finding jeans that flatteringly fit and i do not miss the feeling of stripping down before the brutality of a dressing room mirror in tears yet again. 

but.... there are things i do miss. i miss the obvious curves in any dress. i miss hot chocolate and ice cream and i miss being able to plank without elbow bones grating against the floorboards. i miss not hiding away in my room every night after dinner because the temptation is too great to bear. i miss whipping up deliciousness - caramels and toffee and cupcakes and brownies, and i miss wrists which do not look as though they will break at the slightest pressure. i miss the curve of calves and forearms. i miss being able to sit comfortably without bone-bruises. i miss ordering more than salads, miss tastes of dad's plate across the table because now i only eat vegetables.
i miss mental concentration, clarity, hands that don't shake. i miss not always feeling on the verge of passing out.

and although i balked at the well-intentioned clueless one who once told me, around this weight, that i looked as though i was 12.. if i am honest, i do look older when i am not this skinny. 

but... will i be able to appreciate my body if it gains belly rolls and a muffin top and all the squishy parts it had before? 

will i be able to walk confident even with the bouncing rolls and always feeling as though bursting out of my clothes? 

i don't know. 

gaining weight is never considered a good thing unless you are skin and bones and i am not skin and bones, therefore losing weight is considered a good thing, and they really don't care about your health so long as you conform to a socially accepted standard of what they sell you as beauty...acceptance...worth. 

and i bought myself a plaque because it made me laugh, which says 'i'm pretty sure chocolate tastes as good as skinny feels' because it does. but it only tastes as good, and not better. never better than skinny feels. and so i pick my good, which turns out to be skinny...

but what if health tastes better than skinny will ever feel? what if self love is actually possible? 

but how, when i am so afraid of gaining weight? it is not really the weight which scares me anymore, though, if i am honest. it is the fear of not being able to find anything beautiful about my body if i do gain weight. 

i am afraid that i will not accept me any heavier, and i am afraid others will not, either. 

and i thought at one point, a couple days ago, that i was eating salads for my own sense of recovery and my own desire to do what my body works best with, instead listening to other outside opinions on what recovery looks like, or better is.

but now i see that i was wrong. i am listening to other sources. 

not the 'gain weight' voices, nor yet the 'you're too fat' ones, but the voices of society, the voices of social media, and the terror that i will lose what little modicum of self-acceptance i have discovered if i gain weight. 

and this has been a ramble, and i know the solution isn't salads... or caramel, for that matter... but is seeing myself how He sees me really enough? how does one become truly comfortable in their own skin?

this stage is so many open-ended questions, and He is giving me peace, promising to show me in time, but i am impatient and overthink

and so...i am learning to trust... i am praying for sight.

{life lessons in French food}

i should have been French.

i really should have... and not just because France is stunning, and all that, but really.

i adore French history, the French language (don't even ASK me how many times I've tried to learn it!), French fashion, French makeup, even French braids!.. and i've always been fascinated with the concept of French food.

Ratatouille would have been a splendid movie but i hate rats...The Hundred Foot Journey, on the other hand, i fell absolutely in love with.

well, today i stumbled across a few French recipes, which led to a bit of research on the French diet...(no, this shan't be another blog post on how to eat like a French person, because goodness knows there are a multitude of books and blogs on that topic), but my research was enlightening to say the least!

as far as i can gather, the entire secret to the French diet is moderation.

not numerous baguettes, not chocolate for breakfast every morning, not even the proverbial croissant or wine or dark chocolate or numerous courses...

but plain and simple moderation.

in fact, the more i think about it, the more that seems to be the secret to the effortless French simplicity in all aspects of life.

nothing overdone, gaudy, flashy, but rather simple enjoyment of simple pleasures in moderation.

they have their cake and eat it too because instead of eating a giant slab which leaves them miserable afterwards, they have a tiny sliver and enjoy it.

the more i think about that, it seems to be the key to life in general... or... one of them, at any rate.

nothing in excess. learn moderation.

even Paul said 'let your moderation be known unto all men'.

of course, this doesn't apply to character qualities... you can't be 'moderately' loving, or 'moderately' kind or 'moderately' gentle.

but when it comes to tangible, material, actionable things... moderation, moderation, moderation.

this is what i am learning in relation to eating.

i can, of course, boycott sugar, boycott carbs and fats and just eat apples and lettuce under the premise of health.

or i can learn moderation and eat well balanced meals at the proper times.

food is a good thing, but in moderation. eat too much or too little and you have a problem.

exercise is a good thing, but in moderation.

work is a good thing, in moderation.

....which, of course, requires that little annoying word which is so so hard to actually practice... because the secret to moderation is ... self-control. or discipline.

whichever term you prefer to use.

i am not the most disciplined person. especially when it comes to sugar, books, spending...

yeah not something i'm proud of.

i would be better off eating no cookies as opposed to just one, because it is never just one.

i would be better off not spending at all, as opposed to just buying 'a little' because somehow i always spend more than i had intended.

i would be better off sometimes not exercising at all, because if i do, then i always end up over-exercising and being unable to move the next day.

it's easier for me to starve than to count calories, because if i just eat 'a little' i end up eating a lot.

so moderation and self control all sound great, but they are not my default. they're not even something which happens when i am mindful about them.

this is something where, i can try really really hard to be disciplined about certain things, and still consistently fail at it.

but hey... God is in the teaching stages, and it would appear that this one is up next.

learn to enjoy life, to live.. now learn to have discipline so you can enjoy everything in moderation instead of falling back into old black and white habits of 'too much' or 'not enough'.

and it's a really good thing i don't have to do this all in my own strength, because this is all incredibly daunting.

but 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me'

so, here goes. 

{get back up}

"and why do we fall? so we can learn to get back up"
- Batman

and i begin to wonder if perhaps that is what Margaret Thatcher meant when she said that 'you may have to fight a battle more than once to win it

because the first time you charge into the fray, hopeful, you will fly high and you will fall hard and for the first and second and third and fourth time you will see that it is all far harder than you'd ever thought it would be - could be

and you keep falling and you keep getting back up and by the fifth and sixth and seventh fall, you begin to see just what it will take in order to achieve the victory, and that nothing is a quick fix, but there are changes you can make, and lessons to be learned, and sometimes the more you fall, the better off you are in the long run

it is the difference between Dieppe and Normandy, the difference between hope and fear, the difference between God-dragged-me-kicking-and-screaming-into-'healthy' and one-day-i-chose-to-decide-to-walk-in-His-Will-and-learned-that-He-will-lead-me.

it is the difference between lasting change, and just behavior modification.

and God knows i need real change

but God also knows that I cannot change me.

only He can.

so i guess i'm back where i started at

the nameless day where i got up.

and i decided to choose.

see, i fell. again.

i fell hard and i fell fast and i was sure that i didn't even want to try to brave the impossible climb.

but this time, something changed.

this time, instead of waiting till i spiral further and He is forced to grapple-hook me, i brace both arms and heels on the sides of the pit to stop my rapid decline.

i take a deep, shaking breath.

i stand up and lift my face towards the light.

and i begin to climb.

{house of mirrors/man in the mirror}

'she says, 'i want to be thin more than i want to live'
and i just want to wrap my arms around her bones and hold them together so she stops coming apart. 
i want to kiss every bruise and tattoo her with kindness. 
i want to reach into the past and rip out all of the people who have ruined her.
i just want to hold her so tightly she remembers how to feel. 
i want to bring her out of the cold and have her relearn warmth in the palms of my hands as if i was a nest and she was a baby bird. 
but i am staring at a mirror and the glass will not let me get to her.
r.i.d.

so i break the glass.

i break the glass and reach my arms in through the shards to grasp her icy hands in both of mine, and I pull her into the light.

i forget about treating her as a younger self which i was responsible for, but instead see her for who she is, and decide to choose to love her

choose to forgive her

choose to bring her daily before the throne of Christ for hope and strength and renewed patience

choose to count her blessings instead of her bruises

choose to see how far she's come and forgive the ones who have wounded her

choose to warm her and calm her and educate her and soothe her

choose to heal her

it is very boring at first.

there is no dramatic moment of confrontation

no sudden break through tears which scream of breakdown-fears

only this:

the glass shatters silently

she steps out

and she

begins

to live

{while i'm waiting}

sometimes you face a moment and you truly do not know where the hell you go from here. 

you come to a place - usually surrender - and after the surrender, there is the letting go. there is the peace. 

there is also a profound sense, sometimes, of 'what the hell now?' 'what do i do with my life?' 

the feeling of freedom is beautiful, but there is also 'what comes next? you've been freed. do you know how hard it is to lead?...do you have a clue what happens now?'

'long is the road and hard that out of hell leads up toward light', but what happens when the chains have lifted and now i...drift...in this unexpected freedom? it is the overwhelming sense of release, and yet, at the same time, terrifying uncertainty

and for the girl who almost always knows exactly when and where He wants her, this has been...different...very very different.

this peace which leads to action yet waiting on God. 

a sudden realization that my entire life plan has disappeared, that the one thing I swore I would never do as a career (namely, wear pencil skirts and work in politics) is exactly where i have ended up, and the one thing i knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that i would be, wanted to be (namely, a counselor) i am not sure if I will ever be

there is a concept i read, a phrase which i have never quite been able to shake

when you are waiting on God... when you reach a point of 'what now? what next?'

'hustle while you wait' 

courtesy of Thomas Edison, but i first read it in a small red hardback entitled 'do hard things'.

'hustle while you wait'

'everything comes to him who hustles while he waits'

at first glance that may seem like an oxymoron. 

it is not. 

in the waiting, there is the changing. 

in the waiting, there is the worship. 

in the waiting, there is the work. 

in the waiting, there is the hope. 

but....

'hope...does not consist in crossing one's arms and waiting. as long as i fight, i am moved by hope; and if i fight with hope, then i can wait' (Paulo Friere)

if your wheels are already in motion, it is easier for Him to take and to guide you. 

there is less jumpstarting, less sudden jolts. more learning to walk with Him. more realizing that it is not on me to change myself. 

it is on me to ask Him to teach me to lean on Him, teach me to love Him, to become more like Him. and as He makes me more like Him, He will change what needs changing, and everything else will fall into place.

and you can 'smile in the face of trivial things, and you learn to pray when you wanna complain. stand up straight when the earth is shaking, and just keep breathing when you feel afraid.. there's a time for laughter, and a time for pain, a time for doubt, and a time for faith, but when you believe you can find the strength to get back up on your feet' 

but in the meantime.... in the slow waiting working changing... 

hustle while you wait. 

do the work of God where He has placed you. 

do the next right thing. 

one step at a time. 

and if you are already walking, already moving, He will teach and instruct and guide. 

it is just that simple. 

it's not easy. 

it's never easy. 

but it is simple. 

'the steps of man are established by the Lord when he delights in His way' (Ps 37:23)

'commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established' (Prov. 16:3)

'delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart' (Ps. 37:4)

wait and work and watch and pray, and the eagles wings will grow by feather and by faith and you will soar in His strength, on His strong arms. 

{apparently there's a reason i've been so depressed lately}

it is coming up on a year since the last time i sliced a blade across my own skin in order to heal my tattered heart. 

a whole year

my God 

how.

how? 

he said it was possible, swore wounds could heal 

i didn't believe him

she vowed i'd be better without the blades, one addiction down at least

but am i? 

in two and a half weeks it will be a year. 

i should be overjoyed

but it's as though each day i go without it simply adds another stone to the pile which i must cast off of me before i am allowed to go back to tearing myself apart to mend. 

and with each day that passes, the overwhelming urge to cry becomes stronger and stronger. 

there is not a single untainted expanse of skin on my body - from shoulders to upper arms to forearms to calves to thighs to stomach to back to breasts to even the knuckle i sliced one night while prying open a disposable razor simply for the sense of security afforded by accessible sharps. 

and suddenly it hits me - sucker punching so hard i am breathless speechless shocked

i miss it 

i miss it, and it makes me want to cry. 

i miss the punishment, the bracelets upon bracelets, the overwhelming calm watching my skin split in two. 

i miss it. 

i miss the scars, the long sleeves...i don't miss the mess, but i miss the feeling of mending. 

and i want him to be wrong about the wrist-nick (the night he made me throw out the blades) not counting as a relapse, because i don't want this burden of almost a year clean ... i want to go back... i want it back.. i want.... i want.... 

i almost cut vertical on Good Friday - opened my entire vein. 

the first time i did that was two years ago when he broke up with me and i stopped caring whether i lived or died.

and they don't tell you how incredibly triggering scars are, nor how badly you will long to reopen them. 

they don't tell you 'if i could cut, i wouldn't have to starve'... they don't tell you 'there's no way i could tell them i still struggle with this, because God, i should be over it' 

they don't tell you you'd rather hide open wounds under long pants than have to answer the stares and pokes and curious questioners. 

Plumb knew what she was singing about.... 'i do not want to be afraid / i do not want to die inside just to breathe in / i'm tired of feeling so numb / relief exists i find it when i am cut' 

Britt Nicole... 'maybe making me bleed could be the answer that would wash the slate clean' 

i mean... 'are we out of the woods yet?' because it's been so long and i shouldn't still want this but I do... i do, i do, i do... 

i want it so badly i can barely breathe and it comes like a tidal wave and suddenly I am drowning gasping for breath 

and 'if you love me let me go because words are knives and often leave scars' and i am struck with 'the fear of falling apart' 

if you ever wonder what words the blades whisper, go listen to Pain by Three Days Grace and you will understand everything. 

'i'd rather feel pain than nothing at all' i am freezing and fire licking my veins feels better than ice because 'this life is filled with hurt. when happiness doesn't work trust me and take my hand. when the lights go out you'll understand' 

can i, please, please, please have it.... if i swear to you that 'this will be the last night feeling like this'...'i don' want you to see me cry, i'm fine'.....'masshope is a huge trigger, and i'll join the rest of the teenagers that he says remembered their long sleeves' 

i am exhausted and am i really supposed to maintain this whole recovery thing, while eating, without somehow otherwise destroying myself? 

my mind is either starved into numbness, or screaming. 

'no one will ever see this side reflected and if there's something wrong, who would have guessed it?' 

'so lay me down in darkness...my knees can barely hold me up...you've gotta walk a mile to get out of my head'

i miss the high, i miss the blood and torn skin and God that sounds morbid and terrible and awful, but it's oddly alluring watching my wrists weep blood... 

and the words of Jeremiah haunt me...'how long wilt thou cut thyself?'

i don't know... i don't know... i don't know... 

and yet... 

'new occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth
they must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth
Lo, before us gleam her campfires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be
launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea
nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-stained key'

*sigh*