snag

Oh hi, Recovery. You are really, really tricky. Am I repeating myself? Well, you deserve to hear how difficult you are again. You are, as we would have said in the '90s, "hella hard." ED was easy. ED let me ignore my feelings and live in this numb space where I could disappear. Now I am beginning to feel and fill out and reappear. These happenings aren't much of a surprise, but they sure seemed more appealing on paper than in real life. Recovery doesn't always look like a cloudless spring day or a flawless butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Recovery is messy and confusing and littered with pitfalls.

So why do I do it? Why do I continue? I am still figuring that out. Today I am not entirely sure I have the energy to continue figuring it out why I continue. There is a whole lotta continuing going on here. And uncertainty. And if there's one thing of which I am certain, it is that I avoid the uncertain and snuggle up to the tried and true. ED was tried and true. ED is tried and true. Sure, it may be an outrageously dangerous and dismal way to exist, but it did offer the promise of security. A false sense of security? Yes. But I thought I said ED was tried and true? I did. Am I confusing myself even further? It's what I do best.

But maybe I can make recovery what I do best. For now. Maybe I can channel my Scottish stubbornness and desire to control into the recovery process. Maybe I can trick myself into believing that I enjoy the messiness, that it is some kind of "challenge" or adventure. Because it totally is. And it has to be totally worth it, right? I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to just go through the motions. I don't want to lose motivation.

I can only do so much each day. Give yourself a break, Meg. I ate breakfast. I ate a snack. I cried on the treadmill because I ate a snack, but I forced myself to "take it easy" on the treadmill. Which was hard. Which was really "hella hard." But I did it. And then I cried in the park after the gym because I ate a snack. And then I felt frustrated that I was spending so much mental energy on worrying about a banana and some wasabi peas. And then I came home and took a shower and made some tea and now I'm slowly calming down. I can only do so much.

This is insane. This is all so strange when I step back and look at my situation. I know it goes deeper than just a banana and wasabi peas. I know it goes deeper than "just food." Let me weed this out. Let me dig deeper and deeper and deeper. But first let me drink my tea before it gets cold.