a dream for Judy

I am confused by the thin person I see in the mirror.
I don't know how I want to be.
When I am not thin, I long for it.  I want to see a hint of ribs and long branch of torso curve up into my armpits.  But I know this is not IT.  I cannot be defined by this body anymore.  That is the whole point of recovery, right?
At the same time, I am afraid to eat and mess it all up.
I know if I don't eat, it will get worse, and my distortion will grow.  I will get thinnner, and more confused, more driven to eat less.  Many people I know read this blog, people without eating disorders.  I get embarassed to reveal these thoughts.  I'm afraid they will think I am crazy, but I am here to tell the truth. 

At 4:12 a.m.  I rolled from my bed.  I kissed Andrew and put on my cozy clothes.  I made a cup of sugar-free hot chocolate and came to nest at the computer.  Now it is 2 hours later.  I am comfortable here, in this writing voice. 
I don't have to know anything. 
Be anything.
I just get to observe.
Then I record what I observe.
That's all it is.  Writing is noticing.

I studied art in school.

My best professor said, "I hope by the end of this class, you have learned to see in a new way."

It was a figure drawing class.  He said nothing about drawing.  Only about seeing.

Writing is the same.

It's my observations that reveal truth.  Just as a kid will draw what they think a cat looks like rather than an acutal cat.  I could fall into writing what I think I feel, or see, or do. 

When I shed all that and just record what is in front of me, a beauty is distilled.  I don't know how it happens.  It's like magic every time.  And I find, once again, there is enough.  Right here, there is enough.  I don't have to run ragged searching.

My favorite song as an 8 year-old girl was Somewhere Over the Rainbow. 

Now I am 33.

I am not waiting for a land from a lullabye where bluebirds fly and dreams come true.

Not anymore.  I liked this song because it was about transcendance.

Even though I was a kid, I knew. 

I knew none of this actually defines us.

I won't be satisfied by getting stuff, or keeping stuff, or becoming a title.

I bounced from thing to thing, never finishing.

I didn't attach myself to anything, anyone, at least not for long.

I screamed at life to show me something worth my time.  My heart.  My hope. 

That's how the eating disorder grew.

I thought, "I'm always going to be hungry.  It is never-ending.  So I may as well just not eat.  At least then I'll be skinny."

No needs.  That seemed the best way.  It still feels true sometimes.

The only way to contentment is an absence of appetite.

______________________________________________

I just got up and ate a tuna sandwich.  Odd breakfast.

But the truth is, I do care.

I do have things to eat for, to live for, to ache for.

Judy Garland died from an accidental overdose of barbituates.  She had cirrhosis of the liver.  Her whole adult life she felt inadequate.  Too fat.  Too crazy.  At 18 she began seeing a psychiatrist because of an emotional breakdown.  She started juggling amphetamines and barbituates to manage weight and mood.  Her weight not only fluctuated, but it was caught on film within the space of one movie.   She was married 5 times.   Her first suicide attempt came at 25 years old.  The same age I got sober. 
Here our paths veer apart. 
She suffered for 30 years and died at 47 years old in her bathroom.
I have been in recovery for 7 1/2 years, and it is worth all my time.  I live with my whole self today.  I am not crazy or separate or fat.  I am in.  I am all in.

bonsai ultimatum

I am missing the control I used to have.
I cannot believe my body deserves to be starved anymore.
With this new health comes a vulnerability I sometimes wish to shed.
As if my skin never saw sun, and has no defense against light.
I feel everything, and miss my leather.

Even on the days I wake up and shout, "Enough is enough.  No more eating today!"
This resolve melts into the silky under-belly, making me soft.
I don't want to be soft.
But I find it is necessary if I am going to live a life worth living.
I cannot rotate in the same circles maintaining - keeping small - clipping my bonsai.
I am much larger than that and sometimes I get embarrassed by my huge sound and the lengths over which it resonates.

"I've been reading your blog."
I hear this often, and am surprised at the audience.  Then delighted.

I don't want to hide.
Not really.
I can't have both. How can I tell the truth if the truth is a series of lies I chose to believe?
I have a choice now, and I cannot easily forfeit that.

In our photo album is an image of me 6 years ago.
My stomach is a serpent curving up and over my hips pulling tight and refusing to release.
I remember that time.
The days of dating my husband. I was terrified for him to see me gain even one pound.
Tight.  The serpent had me convinced.  There was no room for one deviant leaf.  Not one bite of cake.  Not one day of running missed.  The bonsai ultimatum.

Today the same training is entrenched and I aspire to outgrow it.
I fear what I will grow into.
Mostly I fear that I will grow too big, and be a slave of a different nature.
A large and grotesque one.  I fear I will loose control in the other direction when the pendulum swings.
But my softer voice tells me the truth,
"There is no control.  There is only acceptance of your own humanity.  You can trust this.  You can fall into the arms that have held you."

One square per day

sunrise from the boat deck

There are two things going on in Lake Powell.

One is fast and the other doesn't move at all.

In the vacuum of morning I listen to my body breath in and out.

She creaks and stretches the previous days' surf from her muscles.

She looks up and out from behind wind blown hair. 

As the wings of one black bird stretch space, she is up there with it.

My kids aren't here.  My husband is still asleep.  All the houseboats are dark.

It is just me.  I await the stirring of the world.  I welcome it.  

When I first wake up, the sky is still dark.  I can see Orion's belt. 

I wish I had my computer so I could write and remember this.

There is an impulse to keep it.

I want to bring it home and carry it in my purse so that I never yell at my kids again.

boat zooming

The sun comes up and with it 100 bodies.  They are eager be in the water - naked - free of clothing and adult weight.

I bounce from boat to boat in a hot pink bikini transcending my 30's.

I surf every chance I get, like a kid with an ear for the ice cream truck.

My appetite to be out on the water perks with the first grumble of boat engine.

I bound across the sand like a happy dog and hop over the deck.

The wind skims my back and makes eyes squint..  I curl into Andrew's chest.  It is a warm cave.

Our first year together, Andrew had a boat.  We were on the lake every weekend.

It feels that way again.  

Before kids.  

Before the 4 bedroom/2 story house.  

Before joint bank account.   

Before yard work.

We'd wake up at 6 am.  Drink lattes.  Have sex.  Wait for the wakeboarding crew to stumble in half asleep.  Then blast down the freeway in his red engine of a truck with music pushing against the windows.

Once again, the music is loud, and I am quiet in our space together.  The boat is brimming with people.  The most unlikely dancers erupt out of their seats.  I am not one of them.  I never have been.

"You're beautiful, Sarah," he whispers into my hair.

And I believe him.  I feel beautiful.  I feel simple.  It is easy to find grace here.

The age difference flattens to nothing.  Some of my favorite people are here and they are much older than I am, but not in Powell.  In Powell we are all children.  Underneath our play rests an awareness.  I catch it sometimes when a new surfer stands up on a board for their first time. They let out a cheer.  Eyes meet.  We smile and nod.  We are blessed.  

our camp.  10 houseboats.

 I do get scared still.  It is hard to eat here sometimes.  I try to be moderate, and in that effort I take it too far and let my stomach shrink.  I try to ignore it.  I pretend I don't have an appetite.  I am not the only one.  I take comfort in that.  I am a woman, and with that comes the pressure to be thin.  I am not so quiet all the time.  This is why I cherish the morning.  In her space I find a truth which I carry for one whole day.  "I am enough."
By the time I lay down for bed, this belief is worn thin as one sheet of toilet paper.  That is all I get each day.  One square, and it has to last until the morning where I will find another one resting on the sun's rim.

At the end of each trip I think, "I made it."
One whole week in a swimming suit and I didn't have to starve or binge or lie.

campfire gathering of 110 people

this is exactly how it feels for me.

Steamy bath

Michele Wright

I have missed this spot in front of the computer.
After 10 days, my writing voice has become quiet.
I feel awkward here now, as if I'm walking into class late.

My kids have been sick.
I am desperate for sleep.  Even when they are not awake, I am on alert for the next peep.
Last night I laid awake with mommy-dear-ears perked above my pillow.  Finally at 3 am I got up and took a steamy bath to ease muscles.  Shhh....Shh....I whispered to brain over and over.  It wouldn't listen.  It kept replaying Disney songs and random one-liners.  I realized how useless the thing can be, my thinking brain, like a leaky faucet.

Ironic, now that I need it, I think it is finally asleep.

I have lost weight.  I am back to my pre-baby weight.  I don't weigh myself, so I don't know a number.  I only know that my old clothes fit, and it feels like moving back into my parents house.  I don't want to have to fit.  But I can't afford anything else.

My husband got life insurance for us.  At first he thought his life was the only one with monetary value.  Then he realized, if I died he would have to replace childcare, and that is not cheap.  So I had to get these tests done.  They took my blood pressure, drew blood, asked a bunch of questions.  I had to step on the scale.  I did it backwards as I've been doing for 10 years.
"Just don't tell me the number, okay?"
Usually medical professionals understand this request.  Surely they see eating disordered women all day long.  Some aware and some still fumbling in the dingy cage for the key.  They don't question me.
But this women was not a medical professional.
She looked at me like I'd just squatted and peed on her shoe.
"Well that's odd.  Really?  Why not?"
"I just do better without a number in my head."
"Well why wouldn't you want to know that?  There's nothing wrong with it"
"I know, it is a little funny.  It's just better for me that way."
"Well, okay then.  I won't tell you if that's how you want it."
Then she left the chart out.  I'm pretty sure it said 132.  Damn her.  I know my healthy weight is somewhere around 130, give or take 5 pounds.
At my most obsessive, I weighed 112 pounds.  That was the year I didn't menstruate.  For one whole year I had no period, and pretended not to know why.  I even went to the doctor and got a clean bill of health.  There is nothing apparently wrong with a 5' 3" woman weighing 112 pounds.  But I knew.  I always knew that I was starving.

Ten years ago, when I got pregnant with Sophie I stopped listening to the scale.  My thinking brain was not going to rob me of growing a baby.  I went to my first appointment at 12 weeks and I weighed 142.  I was shocked.  I thought I was doing so well.  How could I have gained 10 pounds already?  That's when I decided. The scale would not decide my well-being anymore.  That assessment would come from me.  I have held to it ever since.  Now I see it as a moment of Grace.  A tiny silence in which I heard truth for just long enough.  During that pregnancy I swam a mile in the glistening pool every other day.  I climbed mountains.  I rode bikes.  I played catch in the backyard with my husband. My muscles sang.  I labored without any drugs. When Sophie was born it was with full awareness and a huge roar.
So even though that woman left the chart out, and I saw what I already knew, I am still okay.

Busting ghosts

I pulled out the dreaded  box today.
I had stashed it underneath all the other boxes in the storage room.
But I knew it was there.
I needed a dress.   My friend is getting married today.
Every time I go to a wedding with Andrew I look at him and think,
"Yep, that was real...still is real."
I get tears in my eyes and lay my head on his shoulder.  He thinks I'm a dork.  I start asking him all these questions about how he feels and what he's thinking.  He just looks at me with a half-smile.   To him this is somebody else's wedding, not ours.  For me, every wedding echoes mine.  I wonder if they feel how I did.  In a way, I guess I still wonder how Andrew felt.
I absolutely meant it on the day we got married.
It is one of the only things I've done with my whole soul.  I love to rewind it and play it over and over, like that funny part on Ghostbusters where Venkman hits Ray on the head and says,
"I'm right in the MIDDLE of something, Ray!"

That moment -  in that movie - encapsulates my whole childhood.  The six of us would sit with the giant silver popcorn bowl.  Six hands simultaneously fishing for the butteriest pieces and watching Ghostbusters in the middle of a summer day.  We had this lima-bean green couch with lumpy cushions.  It also served as a trampoline when the movie got really good.

Anyway, so weddings are right up there with Ghostbusters, and I am going to one today.
I want to look good.
I want Andrew to look over at me and think, she is just as great now as she was 5 years ago.
So I got out the box of skinny clothes.
I didn't expect them to fit, but I needed a dress.  I was half asleep too.  I woke up at 5:45 this morning and excavated the thing out from the dust.
Now I am sitting here in a pair of jean shorts from the box, and they fit.
I do not feel accomplished.  I do not feel afraid.  I do not feel guilty or ashamed or triumphant.
I just feel dressed.  That's the odd thing about this recovery.  It simply is.  It is quiet.  I am making peace with my own humanity during a million moments when nobody's looking.
Clothes are just clothes.
Andrew is just Andrew.  I am just Sarah.  In a way, this is the best I can hope for.

Our wedding day 2008
 (He told me years later he wished I would have worn a white dress. We laughed . We both knew better than to expect me to do anything different.)

original light

Last night I sat on Andrew's lap.
"Am I crushing you?"
     "Not at all," he replied.
His arms held tighter than necessary.  'Stay right here.  Please.'
I curled up legs and nestled my nose into his neck.
Just sat there for a long time, and realized how rarely I am this docile.
We were on the porch surrounded by people, but they didn't come into focus.
Usually I am distracted from him.  There is always one more thing. We whirl in orbits around each other, never meeting.

I knew him for a solid year before we were together.

pre-wedding moment 2007

We tried to keep our distance, and we did.
I had to consciously tell myself,
"Do not put your arm around him and your head on his chest.  That would be weird."
His impulse was the same.
He says, "I had to sit on my hands to keep from reaching out and grabbing you."
A very real tether tied us.
It was nauseating for any person in the room.
My friend would say,
"I don't know what is between you two, but it is so thick you could cut it with a knife."

That's how it felt to me, a thing with such undeniable substance.  I didn't know what to do with it...where to put it?
It had so much mass, we put it at the center.  Right next to Grace or God or maybe they are the same thing.
I think maybe...
But just like any awakening, it has faded over time.  Possibility's brilliance has dulled into reality.

"A kind of light spread out from her.  And everything changed color.  And the world opened out.  And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome.  And I was not afraid anymore." ~John Steinbeck, East of Eden

He has told me, "I miss how you were in the beginning, before you had all these opinions and fight in you.  It seems like you have become more opinionated and difficult as time goes on."

At first the feminist in me raged at this comment.  I authored brilliant rants against him.
Now that I've sat with it a while, I find it is true.  He is missing the beauty of One Thing.

During the summer of 2006 there was only Andrew and Sarah.  We wake-boarded every weekend.  We took long naps in the afternoon, and walked to the nearest restaurant for dinner.  In the evening we'd go for a run together and sprint through the sprinklers.  We ate soft-serve frozen yogurt from Maverick and walked around town at our leisure.  We went on dates to ride mountain zip-lines.  We could lie belly to belly and see into each other.  I have never been so comfortable just staring at another person.  Sometimes I thought I should look away, but I knew I didn't have to and he didn't either...One Thing...

Now that original light has spread and dispersed.  It has become a family. a mortgage.  health insurance.  laundry.  toys.  grocery list.  over-time.  mini-van.  diapers.  Disney movies.  car repairs.  yard work.  training wheels.  storage space.  date night.  It is impossible to encapsulate that original light into "date night."

My eating disordered brain says, "Andrew liked it better when you were skinnier, sicker, more subservient.  You should eat less and go back to being her."
But I know that's not true.  I know we actually love each other, and he is just missing a simpler time.

We could not hoard this light if we tried.  It had to either move out into more life, or be snuffed out.
One morning after Beckam was born and we were both beyond exhausted, Andrew looked at me and asked,
"Why did we do this?  Why do people have kids?"
I erupted into tears,
"I don't know!  Don't ask me to explain timeless questions of human experience!  I don't know why!"

Maybe though, maybe I kind of know.  And maybe it has to do with honoring that original light we were given.  Because we certainly didn't create it.

Superman's ice house

I can feel my torso slimming and my breasts shrinking.
It is not by any drastic self-harm.
It is a natural part of the process.
My appetite is less.  My body is less.
I am no longer nursing, and my milk is gone.
It's time to get out my little bras again.
I don't want to though.  I want to give them away to a teenage girl.
They remind me of another time, and I don't want to go backwards.
I want to find new things to fit this 33 year-old self.
I crave clothes I can move in, live in and wear loosely.
I want to retain this substance, if not in my flesh, somehow...

I am becoming the functional woman I swore I'd never be.
My 25 year old self would look at women like me with pity.
"She used to be so edgy and now life has worn her down.  Look at her pushing that stroller in those tennis shoes. Not me.  I am not going to let that happen."
Now I understand, it is not giving up.
I realize those sharp edges to be a needless arrangement.
They are one more thing I get to shuck by the road side to walk lighter.

But when I'm scared, I want those identities back.
I want to gather the shards and erect a fortress like Superman's ice house.
I am going to Lake Powell in 3 weeks.
Bikinis.  All day every day.
Mine is hot pink.
The other one is hot orange...if that's possible.
I am not my bikini.
But I think I am.
It is easy to be loose in flip 'n' flops and a sundress.
In a bikini my awareness heightens.
And I am suddenly ashamed of the fact that my stomach has carried three babies inside of it.
Also of the fact that I will be surrounded by women younger than me.
Women who have never had their stomachs stretched to this point.

Sarah - step into this self.
Own those babies.
You do not need that fortress.
You have nothing to be ashamed of...not even that soft place.

These are those self-affirmations which never work.

I'm sure sometimes I will go back into that ice house.
I will think myself safe.
Then I'll look around and realize, I am alone.
I will walk back out.
I will just be Sarah.
This is the best I can hope for.

Not me at all...

actual me