Photographs

"When you think of lawyers you just think we're all out for your money."
"Well....... kind of."
"Exactly, but there are good ones."
"And what do people think of psych majors?"
"That you're all girls with daddy issues."
I laughed because God knows nearly everyone in the lecture hall probably had some traumatic or difficult life experience that spurred them on to caring for the weak and downtrodden.
Including me.
Come all ye heavy laden and we shall see if your insurance can afford you rest.

Seems like a long time ago I was looking at my mom's pale face across the table in the behavioral unit of the hospital.
She gave herself a bottle of pills for Christmas.
And I wasn't sure if the texts she gave me were real or not.
"Dad, I think something's wrong." I quietly said to him while were at his mom's.
He was so upset with her, I remember that.
Grandma sobbed that if I didn't hurry and get to the house that she was disowning me
Shakily trying to get gas
Snow crunching under my feet
While my ex was home using.
"Stop!!!!!" I screamed into the silence of the car
White puff of air exploding from my mouth.
Racing the 20 miles to my house.
But I never cried.
Expressing emotion was never something I allowed.

That was the Christmas where I ate too much and played hours of Nazi Zombies on Call of Duty.
It lives in my memory as the living room of his house basked in the soft glow of the TV
Always dark.
Always cold.
Looking down the dark hall towards the bedroom,
Opening the drawer to reveal one less spoon,
Sitting on the edge of the shower with my head in my hands,
Him saying he was trying to stop, but filing in shame to the bathroom to use again.
"You're breathing too loud." "You're walking too hard." "Someone's outside, that car drove by already."
In the end, only the last statement was the accurate one.
He was arrested in April.
"Get away, run away, fly away."
Friends telling me to leave him
But the nights I did threaten it, I was back in bed by midnight.

********************

I never remembered anorexia as a summer month affliction.
Rather, it began to inhale frosty breaths from between snowflakes of seasonally depressed mania.
Of course, there were the days like those when I would lay on the uneven couch cushions,
Sinking into the crack like chasm
Wearing my pale pink tank top,
Worn but faithful shorts,
No make up
Hair in a thin, messy bunned ponytail.
The glass bowl I came to always use could fit in your palm
Large enough to hold a little
Small enough to contain the guilt
and was as full as I packed it with strawberry marble ice cream
Smoothing the top with the back of my spoon,
Getting the surface just right with a smooth layer before licking it off the concaved back of my silver spoon.
Looking at the pair of hip bones holding elastic up above my lower stomach,
Shivering in the air conditioning and thin skin.
This was my one indulgence.
Finishing the bowl, I would get up from the couch, absently placing the bowl in the sink,
Maybe my mom fussing about putting it in the dishwasher.
Glancing back with glassed eyes, I would wave dismissively,
"I will."
Just so tired.
Feeling unsettled by the steel chill settled in my bones.
Cold.
Before sliding open the glass door to our porch.
The air was hot, dry, slight wind.
I made my way through the tall grasses
Fingers softly skimming the tops
Maybe I was reassuring them that I was still alive...
Out to my horse who munched lazily just inside the fence
Feeling his velvet nose search my hand for more,
Feeling dead inside.

                                          ********************

My dad and I never got along.
Always arguing.
"Church and politics" I say when I remark on the only things my dad and I could discuss civilly.
Funny, those are the two things normal people can never seem to talk about.
He had been a wild child, drinking, doing drugs, promiscuous.
Grandpa had been a physically and mentally abusive alcoholic throughout his life and my dad's life reflected that.
Then, by the power of Jesus, Dad was a changed man.
I believe He heals, but when we run from our vices, we often times run into the arms of something else.
I sat in a church pew before my legs could touch the floor
Growing up on a steady diet of fire and brimstone.
Pentecostal by birth.
We were always present at every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening service.
Mom taught Sunday school, Dad was studying to be a pastor.
His testimony something hope inspiring.
And I frequently looked at the floor through my swinging legs, time seeming to drag on.
Mom loved music and our church played a generous amount.
She didn't play and she didn't sing especially well or especially bad, but she would sway with the words, eyes closed, blissful smile on her lips.
Escaping my father's abusiveness for that moment.
Jesus often expects us to take the first faith spurred leap out of our situation.
That leap took twenty years.
Sometimes she would pull me in front of her and make me dance with her, clapping my hands as I laughed.
I still think she's beautiful, even when she's feeling weak.
Other kids played the tambourines, hands of the adults in the air.
And I knew He was there, really there, for the first time during a worship service.

But as these stories go, there was an ugly side we all expect of the perfect church going family.
They would scream at one another, make up, then fight again.
Paste the smile on as we walked in the sanctuary doors.
I never liked that.
Seemed to me that's what church was for, letting others love
Letting them help.
Independence suited my little family more.
Someone once told me that being a father is so important because that's the first impression of God we have as a child.
God loved me.
I knew that.
He just had a lot of rigid rules and sometimes I had to be afraid because my actions could ultimately result in hell.
"You don't have to be perfect to be loved by God."
I still remember my mom saying that in Sunday school to us kids.
It didn't matter then because when you're 7 you don't care about perfect, not like when you're 23.

Dad didn't want me to be so involved in things.
Too many sports, too much 4-H, piano lessons on Wednesdays, couldn't stay at friends' houses, had to be home before some early time.
My mom fought him all the way.
Said I needed these things because I was the type of active kid that would get in trouble if left to my own devices.
I'm sure she would have been right.
I looked up into the stands or into the rows of chairs at every event and would see my mom and my grandparents, but no dad.
He was busy providing for us or he was tired from providing.
He didn't support the biased coaches.
He had a sermon he had to prepare for.

                                             ********************

"No child should have to tell themselves to get over the fact that their parent doesn't care."
Tears streaming down my cheeks.
Being the typical tattooed and pierced girl with "daddy issues."
Sometimes I still check the ridges of my spine
Along the hollow of my collar bones
Checking for emptiness.
They send little girls and boys out into the world
Telling them to grow up
When they were inhibited, stunted, growing in weeds under a sun that's too bright.
I flip the text book pages endlessly in my counseling program.
Reading about being aware of our own needs and the client's needs
Learning to not fix, but to listen and promote healing.
Not to control the situation,
Just to promote healing.
Listening to the gentle urges of our professors to seek counseling ourselves when we need it
To make peace with the wrongs and tie up the loose ends.
We can't throw out the life preserve when it's still around ourselves.
Under the fluorescents they remind us that things get worse before they get better.
"Change is hard."
That and an uphill battle on a mountain sometimes.
I keep working to resolve to resolve.
Change is necessary, I know.
It's just that sometimes I remember the past like looking at photographs.....

Alive

"The shortest distance between two points is the line from me to you." 

I laughed. Really laughed.
And I cried. Really cried.
In different clothes but always naked.
Feeling the sun on my shoulders
Picking an orange off a tree as we walked.
Escaping the winter
Looking for that premature spring
Between us.

I find comfort in the way he can predict me with near flawless skill.
He seems to know me better than I know myself.
I always romanticize this thing, whatever it is.
Couldn't grasp the aftermath of Christmas break.
It had been so raw and candid, the words we chose.
Struggling over each syllable.
The funny thing about the truth is that it gets easier,
As freeing as Jesus promised it would be.
Though I never seemed to be good at doing what they suggested.
For my own good.
Let me burn in my own conquest.

It's amazing to me, the way life ebbs and flows.
Where was I this time last year?
Trying to make something work that was broken long before I ended things.
Doubting and hating
Trying to tear away the skin
Like there would be something more underneath.
Last night my professor told us that it's amazing, the amount of things a person can cope with.
It's strange to think that just one year ago I was different, at a lower place.
People.
They have a large impact on our lives.
Relationships over and under
Lapping
At the sand and stone that make up our very foundations.
And some
Rebuild with mortar.

I learned a lot, watching signs pass on the freeway.
It's a scary thing, when you let someone inside.
I once read that it was important, the way a father treated his wife in front of his child.
She would learn how she was meant to be treated by the way he loved her mother.
Sadly, relationships are lacking and little girls are crawling into bed with devils at 2 am,
Wishing they were pretty as they slide off bra straps and dresses covering self-conscious thighs.
My father taught me that money is more important than people
And that it's not okay to be emotional,
That if you're struggling you should feel ashamed.
A woman should remain as cold on the interior as her exterior.
Thank you, father. That's one of the qualities that he loves me for.
For the cool exterior, anyway.
Although he asks for me to learn to be soft again.
Over break he took it in stride, letting me speak with words that didn't always make sense,
Learning to express the emotions I had long held in.

I don't care anymore because for once, I'm so fucking happy.
We ate double bacon cheese burgers
Delicious freedom.
Across the table from one another, turning the burger over and over in my hands,
Not because I was afraid of it, but because I needed to figure out the angle of my attack.
So juicy, taking big bites, laughing at the ketchup on my face.
We'd been driving all day,
Getting out to kiss at the edge of the Grand Canyon
Wind whipping
Exhilarating possibility of the fall
But we already had.
Alive.
We got out to run breathless through a field and explore.
Air colder in my lungs
Cheeks rosy
Alive.
I sat at my chair as a new master's student.
Nervous and excited, knowing that I was leaving behind the bad
Pioneering the good
And prying my fingers off my comfort zone.
Alive.

It's a process,
Beautiful, painful, introspective and retrospective
Changing with kaleidoscope intensity.
Look away,
Dive deeper.
Healing, healing.

I think,
I think I'm learning what it means to be truly happy.
And I'm so alive.

Water

"Here's the truth, about everything. I lied about one major thing to you up until now. We were always going to take this semester off, then see how we felt at the end of the semester and see if we could do long distance. I didn't tell you that."
"I knew."
"We did break up before I left. I was not with her."
"You were in a way."
"Sorta, yes. However, I didn't do anything with her. I told her about you, she told me about a guy she met."
"I knew I was second. I'm not stupid."
"You were first, always."
"Come on. Seriously."
"From the bottom of my heart."
"I'm not stupid."
Yes I am.
"With every ounce of honesty I have."
"And then you went home."
"I loved you more than all."
"And?"
"I told her it was over."
"Why? Why me?"
"Because you were like me. As fucked up and wrecked as me. And you got parts of me that I never even showed other people. So you listen to me, you were always first. We went to lunch, I told her I didn't want distance, told her you were coming to town, said I would be respectful, but I was through. I formulated this plan for when you came here, if everything worked out. Maybe it's fucked up, I'll admit that, but I had planned to give you this chance. When I saw you come over, with rosy tinted eyes, and I said, "Have you been crying?" and you said "Yes, that's a possibility," you teared up again. But you held it in, and I knew you were the strong exterior, soft interior that I craved all my life. I knew it. So I made this plan to give you the situation again and see if you wold hold true or crack. I set it up, dropped hints, said "Don't do anything until you come here, okay?" Stuff like that to give you a chance."
"That's not fair. You made it seem like I had to be a China doll and you could be wild."
"I know it seemed that way. It's all about seeming that way to test you because I'm fucked up in the head and I manipulate. I wanted to see you, by yourself, how do you react?"
"I react like a person that was hurt."
"You have to be strong and do what you think is right, no matter who is watching. I need someone with strong morals, and so do you. We have trust issues and we need to have that comfort in our partner or it will never work."

It was trial and error strung through good intentions and hurt.
When the mania of finals had faded I was left to watch the snow fall out my window,
My heart miles away in the dessert.
How was I going to move on?
How was I going to run into him when I was in town to see my friends?
When he said we could make this work, it was like an electrical jolt to my heart.
There's not always romantic words for love,
Or I just don't know them.
We're the same, I know that, bound by the scandals and temptations of our hearts.
Mixed with bold cowardice and conventional reactions to selfishness.
I've seen what's inside,
Told me his secrets.
And found that there is something diabolically
Seductive
About that which lives inside us.
The ugliness, parasitic indulgence living
Breathing
Writhing under the skin.
Catatonic leaves resting at the bottom, those good intentions.
I bit the apple because the wildness of my captivity is just
Too
Entrancing.
Can you look away from what might be your own demise?
I know with certainty that for this moment, we are unable to separate
Coming back over and over
Again.
And I'm not sure if it's because we can't pry ourselves from the mirror that we embody for each other.

"We're like water from two different glasses that we poured into a pitcher. It gets mixed up and you can't tell which is from either glass. When you pour it back into the cups, it takes from both. That's how it will be if it doesn't work."
I leaned into his side, arm around me, making swirls on his arm.
"We'll never be the same. I know that."

We are just two monsters
Staying up late
Huddled by the light
Together
Thinking we can change.

Burns

"I fought who I am inside

Until I wanted, I wanted to die

Instead of finding balance I found hatred

Consumed by failures and ignoring my own strengths 

With no lungs to breath 

I had almost lost everything." 

It burned so fucking much.
I squinted my eyes and threw what I had into the lateral raises,
My trainer stepping in to spot me for the last four.
"10... come on, two more, 11.... 12! Nice!"
I went to my knees immediately, hanging my shoulders, trying to alleviate the burn.
"The pieces are so pretty when you're all put together. It's a shame when they fall apart."
His words echoed in my mind
Searing.
I hadn't fallen apart, trust me, I've been unstable before
And it wasn't this time.
Just hurt.

We had talked
But it always ended in an argument.
He was done; I'm not what he's looking for.
I messed up, that much I'm positive of.
How can I be so selfish sometimes?
He gave me his heart and trust and I wasn't careful with it.
Never seemed to be able to be careful with anyone's
Busy hiding my own away.
Move on Eve. Move on.
God knows how many times I had begged myself to be normal.
Always too aloof and unemotional
Or falling apart at the seams.
"I want you to make me hurt. I don't want to be able to walk tomorrow."

Hurt it did.
Everything
I walked like a geriatric giraffe to the bathroom,
Wincing as the sweet soreness
Grew and burned away the stiffness.
Christmas Eve I had let the emotion take hold
Of the bar.
"Alright, we're going to do body weight bridges. Let's try to get 10."
I sat on the floor and rolled it towards me,
160 pounds forced to the sky.
Thrusting my hips up easily for the first five,
I began to struggle at six.
At nine I was gritting me teeth, but I wasn't giving up.
"I can do 12." I forced out.
It was a weak 12, but 12 none the less.

It seemed like I was always forcing myself to do something:
Starving, eating, crying, being happy, learning, doing, growing, changing, moving on.
Could it ever be enough?
Why was I always too much?

"Okay, this is the last set. You're only doing one rep."
"Why?"
"Well, dead lifts are very taxing on the central nervous system. You're using everything."
"How much?"
"You're looking at 140. It's going to be heavy."
I went into a crouch, placing my hands shoulder length apart,
Supimating my grip to take on the load.
Standing suddenly, knees slightly bent, wiggling my hips and breathing deeply in.
Exhale, completing the routine I had found myself accidentally doing before I began a set of dead lifts.
I crouched into position and breathed out as I tried to lift up.
Nothing.
Frustrated, I walked away for a second.
"Gotta concentrate. It's in here." He pointed to his temple.
I nodded, hands on my knees, staring down the cold metal on the floor.
"The hardest part is overcoming the ground."
A small grin played at my lips.
With a sudden stroke of still confidence, I looked up at him.
"It's not that heavy." I said,
Sure smile
And I knew in my heart that it wasn't.
Burst of exhale, bar sliding up my shins, over my knee, thrusting my hips out.
My legs took the burden, forcing it up in defiance of the struggle,
Letting it slowly down,
Thunking the ground in a loud display of triumph.
My trainer high fived me, I, basking in my success.

Those pieces haven't always been put together.
I can't tell you how many times I've sat in the corner of my bathroom floor crying.
I can't tell you how many times I've yelled into the silence of my cold car
Bundled to keep out the cold that seeps into your spirit.
I had been up and I had been down.
Seen and felt a lot of pain and yet also known joy.
I had held on far too long to some people
Broken trust
And not tried hard enough for others.
Being manipulative when angry was too much of an art for me
With words that cut and tore.
They trusted me.
I was never good at being honest with a boyfriend.
Made excuses for why I couldn't move forward.
The plight of being human.

I can't talk about my feelings because I hate them.
So I talk about the gym because I became emotionally dependent on it.
Feeling my chin, pulling at my stomach and cheeks,
Trying not to believe that I got fat.
I'm 160 pounds.
There was a day when that number made me cringe and pull at myself
Trying to find the zipper.
Now I'm more solid than I've ever been.
Muscular.
I remember when the holidays were something so scary and now I'm shoveling in plates of food.
More concerned if it's clean or not than the number of calories going in.
Fuel.
Worried about losing gains than losing.
We figured that my basal metabolic rate for a day, the amount of calories I need just laying horizontally awake, is 1500.
In order to maintain this muscle I need to eat 2462 calories a day.
That's 205 grams of protein
307 grams of carbs
and 46 grams of fat
In one day.
The capabilities of being a human astound me.
I've lived on 300 calories in one day, plus exercise
And on the other spectrum I've lifted my body weight.
The flexibility and perseverance of being human.

"I mourn the days that I wasted 

Trying to change what has been set 

Fighting against myself

Before I tear, tear out my eyes

I'll just admit they're part of me." 

"I hope you know I don't want it to be like this. I just think I'm doing the right thing. I am fighting for what I think is right. And I'm fighting so fucking hard."
"I know. I just want everything to be okay. I wasn't careful with your heart and I'm so sorry. I was afraid you were going to break mine an I broke it on my own."
"Sorry I overreacted."
"Thanks. It's okay. I'm sorry I can be so insensitive."
"I do love you. And I don't just say that."
"I know you do. You wouldn't be letting me stay in your life if you didn't. I've realized that this is not at all how you usually do things. And I love you. I mean that."
I wish I could hold on to him,
But you never grow if you're always lifting the same amount.

Milestones

It was ten after eight and we were running a little late.
"Just pull over here! We have to run!"
My best friend hates being late.
Quickly I grabbed my cap and gown, discarded my coat, and bailed out of the car after her boyfriend.
So many faces making their way towards the arena and I held a piece of her gown in my fingers while trying to fix my hair around the awkward cap.
I had drank the night before and my stomach wasn't happy.
I had only drank one cup of coffee and my head wasn't happy.
We made our way over to the College of Arts and Sciences table and collected our number.
With last names different, we weren't sitting together, but she and I navigated our way to the bathroom and then our respective lines
Navigating much as we had done together in the last three years of college.

I sat amongst the others in a sea of black.
A little over 1000 of us total.
Faces of families blurred together in the endless mass.
There, in the far corner-mom, her boyfriend, grandma, grandpa, L., and his mom.
My six seats of pride.
I could feel them glowing as they scanned the bobbing caps for mine.
Our senator spoke, something about preferring to try and fail then never trying at all.
The day before my former boss had pulled me into a warm hug, telling me never to settle for anything.
I could only see a few rows ahead, girls trying to fix their hair under the awkward caps.
Guys hunched forward or sitting tall.
All of us waiting, about to set off into the world.
In that moment I wondered to myself how many of us would settle.
I wondered who would have a beautiful life an who would strive only to gain nothing.
Would we marry and have children and work in the field that our degrees were meant for?
How many of us would be professionals in our field and how many would work somewhere completely unrelated?
Would we died young or live old?
No matter the destination we all sat, hopeful, anxious, smiling, and frowning.
All of us about to embark on a journey.

At first I had felt that maybe it wasn't such an achievement.
I mean, many people go to college, but as the administration called for my college to receive our diplomas, I felt a little pride begin to warm and grow.
My row rose , and with slight nervous anticipation, I straightened my cap, smoothed my gown, and stepped forward to accept what would be the first step into the professional world.
Being an adult.
The faculty members congratulated me and I realized then that What I had done was worth of pride.
I had spent many a night awake until four and five in the morning fighting depression, had weathered a divorce and mom's attempted suicide, an unhealthy relationship with a boyfriend that had gone to prison, had endured anxiety attacks, a relapse of anorexia, lost and gained friends, made many a poor choice and spent plenty of drunken nights on a floor or two.
I had studied abroad in Greece, held many great leadership positions, worked while going to school, been accepted into graduate school, and decided to recover.
When I finally found my family once we were dismissed I looked at my mother.
Gosh. She was so proud of me.
"Don't cry mom," I said as I took her in my arms and held her tight.
I don't think I've ever been so happy that I had made my family proud than the day I graduated valedictorian and the day I graduated college, about to move on to my masters.
The days that all that work and support was brought to fruition.
I couldn't have done it without them not by a long shot.
I didn't graduate with distinction but it didn't matter.

I'm really nervous, you know?
I've never done this whole growing up thing and I never believed I was going to recover from my ED or ever truly escape depression.
It's scary moving to a new place where I only have two acquaintances there and I don't fully know what to expect when I start my masters, but I'm hopeful.
Truly.
I wanted things to work with that guy and in the end I learned that our choices have consequences, ones that you can't always fix or change.
Things have been aching and I've felt the fatigue of finals week and changes seep in.
I'm really nervous but I'm hopeful,
And sometimes that's all you need to be.

Fibers

It started with a Guiness. 

I was never good at ordering for myself at bars, didn't ever really have any favorite beers.
So he picked for me.
He said that he'd never driven after drinking before, not even after one.
Or that he'd never just told someone he'd just met about his father dying.
That was when it was still warm outside
And the approaching fall made exploding colors of leaves and hearts.
"You're the kind of girl a guy leaves a door unlocked for."
That door was unlocked and his bed open for several weeks before I let myself loose.
Still stays unlocked and open
Even now.

        It started with some Blue Moon and Redd's
Homework spread on the bed and desk
looking at his broad back and the line of his tricep.
Lowering myself to his lap, where we still find me every day
Feeling his lips for the first time
The way I have his skin, his eyes, the way he talks and moves
accidentally
Memorized.
        And ends January 3rd.



"But not everything in the past is bad."
Coat zipped to my nose, white fog from my breath rolling over the edge.
"It was really good. 99% of it was great but the past is the past and I don't go back."
Last try.
"I would do anything it took to make it work..."
"I know you would, but I just don't."
"I understand."
The street lights of 3 am rolling by ice frosted windows.
The heart I drew still on the windshield corner.
I hope it stays there.
I hope he forgets to wash his blanket with the gold and red strands on his pillows,
Pieces of me
Folded into the creases of his comforter
When she comes into his room.
I hope the smell of my Japanese cherry blossom perfume still lingers when he turns over to sleep at night.
And maybe the bottles from that night he saved will still line his shelf

Until the end of the year.

Maybe he'll think of me.

Sometimes he would tell me about when he was on Warped Tour
And play some of the songs from his band.
Hearing the double base
Smiling as he air played his drums
Knowing I had sat on those legs
And his fingers had lingered, explored, held me.
Nights we had laid naked on his bed
And he played his guitar
Pulling the blanket up the my chin
Watching it snow.
Now I skip them on my shuffle
Because it hurts too much.

I don't know if I love him.
It's more like he's one of the fibers that I'm made of.
Please don't make this the end....
Bitter, flamed, heated anger at myself
If you could open up this cool exterior
You would find me
Writhing and twisting
Crying and disintegrating
Hopeless and hopeful
And empty
Too full
Too feeling.
Needing him but knowing I'm able to move on
Stop.
I hate that you won't let me make it right
Hate that I made it wrong.
Make it cold, seal it up, make me indifferent and accepting.
Make me feel like you.

He wants the world
Something I want too.
He'll do what it takes
And succeed.
Success is seductive to me.
His drive and attitude contagious.
What could have beens
I'm holding on to like certainties.
No one will ever contain him
He lives for himself
And shares with those he cares about.
Wants to see the world.
Will be rich enough to do all the things he plans.
Intriguing, painting a picture of a life of adventure I want.
He'll never be tamed but somehow he quiets and ignites.
I'll never find someone that does what he does to and for me again.
Never duplicating.
Maybe that's the beauty of these experiences.

Move on
Move on.
Starting graduate school in January.
Nervous about the loneliness of moving to a new place
And making new friends.
Planning on making my training more intense and focused since we won't be working out together
Trying to be more strict with my eating
Driven with my studies
And still moving forward with my growth.
I'll make a life of adventure,
I swear.

I hope
I hope
I hope that we'll collide now and then
Because it's a rare occasion when you meet one of the people that
You're made of
And they
You.
I hope.
Because until then
That siren in my heart
Will keep singing your song
Of fibers
And physicality
The one
You taught me.

23

I brought in my 23rd birthday with a cup of cheap diner coffee in one hand,
Pencil in the other
Scrambling to finish the collaboration of homework assignments
Piecing together questions I had missed
Looking for the English translations of my Spanish texts.
I'm not sure whether I'm melting or dying
But it's dead week.

It truly brought a smile to my face and heart when those of you that I'm friends with on Facebook or that I talk to on the phone sent me all kinds of love.
I started this blog on a downward swing of a relapse and I don't know what I had hoped to get out of this.
What I did get was much more than I had ever though possible.
I just know that I was really hurting, and while I still hurt for one reason or the other (often times my own fault) I have received more love and support than I ever thought possible.
There have been days I was was manic, sitting on my dorm room floor sobbing, writing, trying to feel and not feel, trying to make sense of life and myself.
Anywhere is better than that time though, and I couldn't have done it without everyone's gentle reminders to keep going.
There have been times I've been stern with some of you, but it's only because I care,
And there are times that you've allowed me to share in your joys and victories, big or small.
I started out at 162, was 129 by May, and I'm again 160 (I checked.)
But this time, this time I'm stronger, made of muscle and actual pride in myself and the work I put in to get here.
I finally broke out of my unhealthy relationship, I committed to recovery, mind and body.
I still have to work on bad habits like cheating, fearing commitment, and doubting myself.
Let's see where I am next year. :)

I wasn't sure where to go from here, if my blog was even worth reading, or if was even that good, but I would miss everyone too much and I like airing out my thoughts and heart now and then.
Why not stick around for another year?
Thank you everyone for hanging in there and thank you for your support.
Some of you have been my 2 am calls, pushing me to keep going and making sense of things when I struggled to understand and see how I and any of it was worth it.
You're all some of the best people I've ever "met."
God truly blessed me.


I think it's fun when I read more about the people behind the blog so I thought I would do a few things about me (courtesy of those ridiculous "ask me anything" lists) and maybe you guys can add a little about you.

1. Favorite food: ice cream and pulled pork
2. Favorite color: turquoise or green
3. Biggest turn on: confidence, intelligence, kindness
4. Biggest turn off: arrogance, being egotistical
5. What's your style?: I don't have one ha. but really, I like work out clothes or dresses. Hate jeans. It's all about being comfortable for me. Also, love tattoos and piercings.
6. Hobbies: lifting
7. What are you most proud of?: being accepted in my master's program, graduating college, committing to recovery
8. Favorite book: any books written by Ted Dekker
9. Favorite movie: Forrest Gump, LOTR trilogy, Seven, The Machinist
10. Favorite band: In Flames, As I Lay Dying, Avicii, Periphery, 10 Years (House and Metal are my two favorite genres)
11. Three words that describe you: Quirky, Sweet, Blunt
12. Favorite poem: anything by Emily Dickinson or Pablo Neruda
13. What's your most outstanding personality trait?: I'm very loyal to the people I care about, almost to a fault.

I'm usually never on time, I'm really laid back about things, I care a lot about people (sometimes to the point that I need to learn to care for myself), I love Spiderman and hate making plans. I'm from the Midwest and grew up in the country but I don't want to stay here. Just need more opportunities at life. I love to to travel and volunteer. I fear commitment but stay long after the relationship should have ended. I like to take long trips. When I get stressed out I nap (don't do that!). I loved studying Psychology, even though people say it's an easy major for people with daddy issues. Whatever. I prefer coffee over tea and I'm afraid of carbs even though I need them. My favorite flower is the orchid and my favorite drink is a margarita. I'm a night person and I hate sleeping past 9:30, 10 am. I love rain and hate winter.  I have five tattoos and twenty piercings. I make awesome pie and know how to work hard. Velvet makes my skin crawl and I can't be naked with my socks on. I'm bad at putting my laundry away but hate a dirty kitchen. I hate deadlines but need them, procrastinate, and want my next car to be a manual transmission.

So there's a little bit about the girl behind the blog.
I hope you're all doing well. Thank you again for the birthday wishes!
I graduate next weekend and so I'm sure I'll have lots of thoughts and worries. Plus, you'll need to see me all dignified in my cap and gown! :D