Relapse. Restore. Reborn.

He was going to propose to me this weekend, had we been together and had I gone on vacation with him. 

Wrap your mind around that. 

I can't. Not yet. 

Someone wanted to spend the rest of their life with me.

I'm at the age where this is no longer something you just talk about with your friends, giggling at a sleepover. 

It's something you long for. 

He kept telling me this was out of the blue and so fast and it's like I had either been thinking about it for a long time or it was a spur of the moment deal. 

It felt spur of the moment. One night I just came home and said we're done. 

I know that many of you don't believe in God and I know I talk about Him a lot these days, but knowing I dodged this bullet makes me all the more grateful that we aren't alone in this life if we don't want to be. 

Life is changing for me. 

I know there are several of you who have been with me from post one to this point and I can only hope that you've seen a change in my heart and life. 

Stagnation scares me. 

So let's look back. 

This is a picture of me at Methone in Greece. One of the girls on the trip took it of me and I didn't know. 

I would have to say this is a defining moment in my life, immortalized. 

You see, when I started college it was with both my parents. Things had always been rocky as I've said before.

Dad was controlling, mom was manic depressive and suicidal and very, very insecure. 

People pleasers, she and I. 

Constant fighting, constant manipulation, emotions were too much. 

I came to college thinking I had escaped that old life. 

My sophomore year of college was one of the absolute worse, by far. 

My mom tried to commit suicide on Christmas day, Tony was using every day, my parents were burning the last bridges of hope in their relationship, and I was just somewhere in the middle. 

Alone. 

By spring semester I was beyond depressed. I would come home from my night job at 4 am and then would watch the sun come up. 

I don't really know what I would do. Dream of leaving. (I had always wanted to go to Greece.) 

Sometimes I would cry. 

Watch Netflix.

Surf the internet. 

Then I would go to bed and skip class. How I passed with B's, I don't know. There were a few C's but I'm surprised I didn't tank myself more. 

My junior year we were supposed to go to a study abroad fair in the student union for extra credit if we checked out my TA's Spain booth. 

I don't know why, but I stopped by the Greece one. 

On a whim I signed up. 

My teacher said it was full but did I want to be on the list in case and I thought it couldn't hurt. 

There was part of me that felt like I might as well not because no one gives up a trip to Greece so easily. 

I felt a nudge in my heart so I sent the email saying yes. 

Within five minutes he said someone backed out. I was in. 

From there, it was a series of blessings. 

Someone I barely knew gave me the $500 fee I didn't have with the requirement that I help someone else in need someday. 

I raised over $2000 and my friend loaned me the remaining money with what she received from going to Afghanistan. She never had me pay back $1200 because she felt she was doing fine and wanted to bless me with that gift. 

When the picture was taken I was thanking God because quite honestly, I didn't feel like I had control over anything in my life and nothing good would come from it. 

Trust is a tough thing to learn. 

I heard a still, small voice say that everything would be okay. I can't explain it without sounding crazy. You just know it's God. 

I made terrible choices over the summer and thought, yah, right. Everything is a mess. 

Went to school, cycled the usual self-hate, making a relationship work that didn't, and felt the nothingness creep over me. 

Relapse. 

Restore. 

Reborn. 

I never thought I would break up with Tony. It was always something I just talked about and never believed I would do it. 

It will ache sometimes, but it's as though I haven't been taking a breath in years and now I am. 

I was so hollow. I just can't put it into words. 

It leaves me sitting in this chair so in awe that I was such a shell.

A lot of you feel it now. 

It's terrible, that nothingness. 

Long nights and aching hunger you'll never satisfy. 

For life, for food, for love. 

I was so scared to take a step. Terrified. 

It's like there was nothing and I was nothing and it was all so pointless and empty, but I had to keep going because there was a void I had to desperately try and fill. 

God watched me shuffle around the rooms of my heart moving stuff and He offered to help me get rid of things and offered to do things and I just kept telling Him no. 

"I love You, but I don't need your help right now." 

I moved things around threw things and experiences away to the extent that all I had left was a mattress on the floor and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. 

I always thought I would end up married to Tony because, well, time had elapsed and I was accepting that wherever I went in my life it would be hard and it would hurt.

Sometimes, as much as it doesn't make sense, when that's all you know, it's what you cling to. 

I decided to choose life last week. I sank to my knees and said it out loud. 

Tears streaming down my cheeks. 

The poison is leaving a little bit every day. 

Maybe this won't be an eating disorder blog anymore. 

Maybe it will.

I'll still struggle. 

One good day doesn't mean I'll not skip a meal, not purge the ice cream, or feel like I'm hot in my bikini. 

I promise I'll still be the same girl you've stuck around to read about all this time. 

I'll still be searching for beauty, diving into the ugliness of humanity, dreaming, writing, crying, being. 

I promise I'll still care if you will. 

I just can't go back, and that's what's beautiful. 

"This is what it feels like"