taking it off my shoulders

in waking up this morning i felt somehow lighter than i have in a while. not physically, but emotionally. i walked into the bathroom to shower and thought to myself, i'm just not going to deal with it today. the big "it". that's to say: all the bullshit associated with my eating disorder and feeling like shit about myself and hating myself for everything that passes my lips.

so i didn't.

somehow, i ate breakfast, packed a lunch and ate that (when i was hungry), bought a little snack in between lunch and dinner, and even went out to dinner and ate past 8pm, which has been a cut off point for me for a long time. (no food past 8 o'clock = losing weight. right.)

i didn't count calories, or berate myself for having tea with whole milk in it or for being hungry after lunch or anything. it wasn't a perfect day, i'll admit. thoughts crossed my mind that weren't of the most positive spin, but this was probably the best day i've had in a while.

no binge, and honestly, no urge to binge. i'm not sure what was different, but i think it was all in the way i started my day. saying to myself that i just wasn't going to deal with it. i handed my problems over to someone else. i'm not a religious person. i don't really believe in God with a Capital G, or even in a (singular) higher power, but i do believe in energy and a universe with the amazing ability to shoulder and channel energy. so maybe i just channeled my energy in a way that someone else could should it. who knows.

don't get me wrong. i still came home and looked at my stomach and thought fleetingly that it's too fat. i still wonder how much i should be eating in order to maintain my weight the way it is because i'm friggin paranoid of gaining weight. i will still binge in the future. i will slip and "mess up" and take one step back for every two steps forward. but i will still take those steps forward even after falling back, or falling down, or being trampled on. (oh, the metaphors!)

something i've realized lately is that this isn't something that's been in my life for 10 years and then will just disappear. i will deal with disordered eating and distorted body image probably for the rest of my life. i guess i'm just trying to get to the point where it's liveable and doesn't handicap me so much i can't function. right now i live in fear of food. i'm constantly terrified of eating, of needing to eat, of having to plan what i will eat. and i'm just working to get to the point where eating isn't such an unpleasant act. maybe even a fun one. who knows, crazier things have been known to happen, right?