Big news

Joseph got the job! Ryann is moving back to Michigan by December!!!!
I can't even believe it?!
The luck to get an engineering job in Michigan right now? Seriously? AWESOME!

I'm now the secretary of OU's chapter of Golden Key Internation Honor Society. Ha.
I got home and told dad and he said "why would you volunteer for that?"
Gee, thanks dad.


I had a biochem exam this morning.
It wasn't good.
I'm not happy with myself right now.

I need to go to work.
But I want to curl up under my feather comforter and read Eclipse instead.


I'm going to the morgue tomorrow with the MLS society!
awesome.
i'm excited even though this is my 3rd time going.
crummy thing is- i have to leave my house by 6am.
Yuck.

Honestly, I'm not morbid!

what i have checked out from the library right now:

-Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers
-Body of work : meditations on mortality from the human anatomy lab
-Postmortem
-Death's acre : inside the legendary forensic lab the Body Farm where the dead do tell tales




i wonder what the librarians think of me...

body farm

the body farm is a place where they study the decomposition of humans.
its at the university of tennessee.

and i want to work there.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/science/health-human-body-sci/human-body/body-farm-sci.html

calmer

i'm doing a lot better than i was yesterday morning.
wine making was fun. and kims party was fun.

i ran into an old friend, mike, today after Mass. talked tohim for a long time. it was good to catch up.
went to work, got A LOT done. so i feel a lot better about that.

tess and i decided not to go to hte library today. we're going to study on our own and meet up before the exam tuesday morning instead.
so i'm home now and just have to study.
so it's good.

just talked to katie for the first time in forever.
a lot of shitty stuff is happening with her right now, but she sounds like she's handling it well. it was good to hear from her.

i'm going to go read a chapter of eclipse (it came in the mail yesterday!!!) then shower, then study and have nathan come over.


i'm finally not as stressed out as i was.
i still feel like i'm going 100 miles an hour, though.

no time for myself

i'm stressing out big time right now.
i need way more hours in a day.
i need today to not be winemaking and kims bonefire.

i need to study. i need to go to work. for a long time.

i was going to go to work yesterday right after dissection. i figured i could leave early.
me and natalie were the only ones there. out of the 20ish of us, only we showed up. so we did the entire dissection on both cadavers by ourselves. which was fun. i got to talk to natalie a lot and she showed me some good techniques to use and how to dissect out veins and arteries and whatnot, so it was neat. but i didn't end up getting to work until almost 7, and they close at 8. so you can imagine how productive THAT was.
then i had to come home and make a batch of cookies for mom. so inbetween batches i studied biochem, but every 15 minutes i had to get up and switch it and ugh.
so i was done around 11.

so then today i wake up and get out of the shower and mom asks me to help her clean. UGH. so i do then i try to study but now i have to go get ready becuase i have to go pick up nathan at his house since i'm doing all of the driving today in case he drinks too much.

drinking is annoying.

but whatever.

so i studied all of 45 minutes this morning.

people are coming over at 11 to make wine.
this is an all day thing.
then kims bonfire tonight.

then tomorrow i'll probably drag myself out of bed to go to 7am mass, go straight to work for 4 or 5 hours, come home, study, go to the library, study with Tess, MAYBE go to the gym- unlikely, then go home and study with nathan.


anyway. i need to go get ready.
i'm freaking out.
i dont have enough time to fit in work and all of this studying.
i thought i could work all day on tuesday, but i have a Goldey Key meeting from 4-5, which means i can't possibly get to work until 530 at the earliest, which is NOT enough time. and i can't go wednesday morning because i'm going to the morgue again with the MLS society.

- breathes-

i need life to stop for one day so that i can get caught up.

i need people to stop needing things of me so that i can do what i need to do.


i need more hours in a day or more days in the week.
something.
anything.

jumping on the bandwagon

1. What time did you get up this morning?
8am

2. Diamonds or pearls?
not a huge fan of either. i guess diamonds, but nothing over the top. i'm very very simple when it comes to that.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Wall-e with my mom.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
House, and all of the medical/tramua/er shows.

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?
enough exchanges to get me though until lunch.

7. What food do you dislike?
now that i realized i'm lactose intolerant (hence the majority of my stomach pain), i dislike cheese and milk. i won't eat olives, mustard or ketchup.

8. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
saosin.

9. What kind of car do you drive?
saturn

10. Favorite sandwich?
ham.

11. What characteristics do you despise?
lying and laziness

12. Favorite piece of clothing?
any one of my hoodies

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
ireland.

14. Are you an organized person?
yes. looking at my room, it wouldn't seem like it, but it's an organized mess at the moment. i can't function if things aren't in order.

15. Where would you retire to?
can i graduate first? i dont think i'd move, though. i want to stay near my family, so whereever i end up relocating is where i'll stay.

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday?
i guess my 21st, not because i got wasted and partied all night (i couldn't even imagine doing that), but because everyone was home and they threw a surprise birthday party for me.

17. What are you going to do when you finish this?
i'm waiting for Nathan to get off of work (at 10) so i can talk to him and figure out what we're doing tomorrow. then i'm reading New Moon until I fall asleep. I took rozerem an hour ago, so it won't be long.

18. Furthest place you are sending this?
no where

19. Person you expect to send it back first?
?

20. When is your birthday?
9-9-86

21. Morning person or a night person?
i guess night, since i can't sleep.

22. What is your shoe size?
9

23. Pets?
none anymore

24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us?
my niece is reading at the 2nd grade level... and she's only 4!!!

25. What did you want to be when you were little?
a marine biologist, a physical therapist, NASA, a nun, a history teacher, a taxi driver, working at fretter (because "fretter is better!"), cardiologist, medical technition, pathologist

26. How are you today?
okay. overwhelmed with biochem, and feeling anxious about school and being behind at work due to my cold.

27. What is your favorite flower?
daisies and sunflowers.

28. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
nothing major in the near future. i'm looking forward to my graduation day, which is may 1, 2010. i also am looking forward to nathan and my wedding day... sometime in two summers.

29. What are you listening to right now?
nothing

30. What was the last thing you ate?
brusslesprouts.

31. Do you wish on stars?
no

32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
burgandy

33. How is the weather right now?
about 60. no wind.

34. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
nathan

35. Favorite soft drink?
haven't drank any in a long time. i used to drink diet pepsi, but only because of the caffeine, not because i liked it.

36. Favorite restaurant?
tomato head in knoxville tennessee is really good.

37. Hair color?
red brown.

38. What was your favorite toy as a child?
my doll from germany, Inga.

39. Summer or Winter?
fall.

41. Chocolate or Vanilla?
depends on what it is.

42. Coffee or tea?
coffee. i don't drink very much anymore.

43. Do you want your friends to email you back?
sure

44. When was the last time you cried?
last tuesday? maybe more recent than that, but tuesday for sure.

45. What is under your bed?
a box of textbooks, half of my trundle bed (i have it sticking out sideways so i can sit on it).

46. What did you do last night?
was in lab, got to pipette (my favorite thing ever). tried to study but ended up talking w. mom for a couple hours.

48. Salty or sweet?
salty. i always crave salt.

49. How many keys on your key ring?
3. my car, the house and work.

50. How many years at your current job?
almost 3.

51. Favorite day of the week?
fridays? i dont know.

52. Do you make friends easily?
I make acquaintances easily. Friends are harder to come by.

53. How many people will you send this to?
N/A

54. How many will respond?


55. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends?
yeah

Cutting back

Stupid cold. Knocked me on my butt all of Sunday and pretty much Monday. Today I'm doing better. No fever and my nose isn't as drippy. I didn't take sudefed, so I'm not so spaced out that I can't think or shouldn't drive (even though I had to drive yesterday... that was interesting).
I had these big plans to study biochem all weekend. That went out the window.
I studied today after class with Tess, Brandon, Casey and Dan. That helped.
Biochem is hard. and really confusing. and from the sound of it- his tests aren't easy.
I'm pretty nervous.

I wanted to go the gym today after studying with them. I had my clothes and stuff for it... but I drove past it instead. Unheard of, before. But I"m not fully over this cold, and I have so much to do. If I get enough done today, and recover more from being sick, then tomorrow and Thursday I'll be able to get in good workouts. So... I have to remind myself that it's okay.

Tonight is part one of winemaking. Saturday is the pressing. I love winemaking, but I kind of want this week to study, not worry about winemaking. I'll probably go to work tonight instead of helping out and hanging out with the gang. I don't have time right now.
I'm dreadfully behind at work, too, because I had planned on working Sunday and Monday- but those days I was on the couch do nothing but staring at nothing. I couldn't even focus enough to read Twilight- which is saying a lot. Going to work was out of the question.
So now I have to squeeze that in sometime this week, too.

I'm not stressed, though.
right?

i'm glad i dropped pathology.
i mean- i'm still angry about it, but i would be even more behind in things and freaking out even more.
at least now, i know it's doable, it'll just be a lot of time involved.
with patho- i dont know how i could do it.

Sick

I don't know where I got this cold from.
No one I know is sick.
I thought it was allergies. But now it's obvious that it isn't.
I didn't feel sick at all yesterday. Just my nose was runny, but it was clear, and i was outside for awhile, and it's allergy season, so I didn't think anything of it.
Overnight it turned green and gross and my throat started hurting worse and I got a fever and the whole works.
Out of nowhere. no one here is sick.
I don't think I picked up a bacteria from lab last week.
I should look up the incubation times on all of the bacteria we work with...
wouldn't that be great?

I don't want a bandaid

so that exam yesterday was stupidly easy. i was done in 15 minutes and took another 5 to go through the whole thing again to check my answers. it was so general and broad. i did not have to study as much as i did. huh, funny- i thought a 400 level microbio class would be... a challenge? i'm glad that it was easy- i confident i got an A, but i'm mad that it was easy. it means my extra effort didn't even count for anything. someone who rolled out of bed late could have looked over the notes briefly and done just fine. i know that knowledge isn't a waste- but at the cost of my sanity...?
at least i know microbio won't be as insane as i thought. i'm sure it'll get more difficult as we progress, but her tests aren't horrible.

biochem, on the other hand...

ugh. that class makes me want to curl up and cry. so i'll avoid that topic for now.


had yoga again tonight. i felt really good afterwards. really loose and open and i didn't feel sad today. i felt free, almost.

i think i'm lactose intolerant again.
i went back and forth with it when i was younger. then for so long i didn't eat much of... anything, but hardly any dairy, and then when i did start eating, my stomach was so messed up in general, i couldn't tell if anything in particular made it worse. but today at lunch, i ate my sandwich and was fine, then had string cheese and my stomach bothered me all afternoon after that. it's not the first time i've noticed that happening. cottage cheese doesn't seem to bother me- it never did before- and i've heard that's easier to digest and doesn't give many lactose intolerant people trouble, so that isn't anything to go by. and i still don't drink milk- aside from the smallest of splash i'm willing to put on my cereal just to get it wet. so that isn' tmuch to go by either.

it seems weird to me, though, that i'd go back and forth with the lactose intolerance. you'd think that i either was, or wasn't.
but since middle school, it was always off and on.
i'm going to avoid cheese for awhile and see if i notice a change.
i wonder if i should avoid cottage cheese, too, just in case... but that's such an easy way to get my protein exchanges in, it's a shame to get rid of that option.


oh!
nathan's sister, bethany, finally cut and dyed my hair last night!! it's just below my shoulders, with lots of layers, and it's a dark reddish brown. i love it! it's so much shorter than i thought she'd take it, and it's weird to not have long hair going half way down my back, but i really like how it turned out.


i took rozerem tonight, since i have to wake up at 6am. i didn't take anything last night and was awake until 4am.
i'm getting really really annoyed with having to take meds to sleep.
i'm tired of taking meds. i really am.
i wish i could get off them all.
but seriously- this sleep thing has got to get resolved.
something has to be able to fix me.
i want it fixed- not just treated and covered up.
how come everything that's wrong with me isn't curable... just treatable.
i dont want to be on treatment until i die.
i'm determined to get off meds sooner or later.
i'll need to when i have kids.
that scares me..

anyway, the point of that ramble was to say that the rozerem is kicking in, and so i'm off to bed.

Ready or not

got up this morning at 8 and studied until 1030. got ready to go, went to yoga. had a good practice (lynne's class!).
after yoga, i decided not to workout and study at the same time, like i had planned. i figured i'd have a half-ass workout and half-ass studying that way. i went to the library and studied more and had lunch. no workout today. which sucks.
the exam is in an hour. i needed a break.
it's not that it's difficult, it's just a lot of memorizing. i should have studied more when Casey was home. but between that and my downshift of mood that week/weekend, that didn't happen. so of course, here i am, scrambling to catch up in time.
i won't let myself do this again.
i hate feeling unprepared.

this always happens though- i doubt my readiness for an exam, and then end up being fine.
but just because it's happened in the past, doesn't mean that it will happen again today. i can't say "i always pull it off" and relax about it, because then i won't pull it off.
the problem with this is, i never know actually how much i needed to study and how much extra time and stress i waste on it.
how do i ever know when it's enough?
will i remember that aminoglycosides irreversibly attach to the 30s subunit on the ribosome and cause it to missread the mRNA or stop the reading all together, and that it works on gram negative rods? will i remember nalidix acid works on gram negive bacteria, or that levifloxacin works on gram pos. aerobes? or that vancomycin is a large glycopeptide that is too large to work on gram negitives because of their LPS (lipopolysaccharide), but works on gram positives because they dont have LPS?
do i only remember this because that was the last thing i looked at?
will i remember in an hour?



anyway.
i left yoga feeling... sad.
i can't explain it.
i guess i don't have time to explain it. i have to leave the library in 40 minutes.
it's bacteria time.

exam time

ok. so i'm glad that i still see susan. there's a point, now.
i cried a lot in there today, towards the end.
mom had left a voicemail while i was in there, so i called her back as i was driving to work.
she asked if i was getting sick or had allergies because i sounded 'plugged up'. i told her the truth- that i was crying. that i'm struggling.
amazing, eh?
i'll write more on that later. i don't feel like doing that right now.

so i had biochem this morning. went the gym (and studied while on the arc trainer), session w. susan, work.
after dinner i started studying microbio again. took a break to reread twilight- allowed myself one chapter. went back to studying. watched the new House, and continued to study. read another twilight chapter. studied.
i'm studied out, and i'm calling it quits for tonight.
i'm too tired for anything to sink in, at this point.
i'll get up early and study before yoga, study at the gym, and study while eating lunch. then take the exam at 3:15.
i've never had this professor before, so i don't know what to expect from her exams.
and there is A LOT of material. One chapter alone has a lot of detail- a lot about different bacteria, and different antimicrobials/ antibiotics, and which work on what type and doesn't work on others. gram pos, gram neg, broad spectrum, acid-fast. etc. and which antibiotics damage cell wall synthesis, or protein synthesis, or nucleic synthesis, or other such things.
and that is only ONE chapter of the EIGHT that will be on the exam tomorrow.
granted, a couple are easy, like the intro chapters, but still.
i hate exams.

took benadryll tonight. took it last night, too. i don't want to risk getting used to rozerem (even though they claim that isn't possible), so i thought i'd switch it up. i dont want to take it every night anyway, and i haven't been, but i didn't want to take it tonight, either.

my dad is on facebook. that amuses me.

I might as well go upstairs and read twilight until i fall asleep. nathan isn't online, so there isn't much point in me staying online once i'm done writing.

When

I'm so tired of working so hard for what seems like nothing.

I wonder how long I can handle this for.

When will I finally say "screw it, their way isn't working" and go back to my way?

Will I?

I don't know how much more I can take.

Escaping

Ugh. This again. 3:30am. and I have to wake up in 4 hours.
I'm noticing a pattern, though. I should bring this up w. dr heniki next time I see her.
Which reminds me- I need to make an appointment after canceling the one I had on Friday.

I hate 3:30am.
I already finished New Moon. I could start rereading Twilight...
I have a better idea... I could FALL ASLEEP.

I'm tired. But my mind won't turn off.
If only I were manic, then I could be productive with my time awake.
Unfortunatly, I'm not lucky enough for that to happen.
Why do my meds do such a good job at keeping mania away, but not depression?
That hardly seems fair.

I feel pretty pathetic- how upset dropping a class makes me.
It's a class that I don't even need.
Am I seriously that nerdy?
It's just that it's a class I wanted and looked forward to.
It's just disappointing.
I'll get over it.

I need to get interested in biochem.
I can't let myself fall behind.
Maybe when my mood swings back up a little.
If my prediction is correct, this should only last a couple more days.
I'm trying not to think about that, though- I don't want a placebo effect or anything.

There's a lady at the gym that isn't... healthy.
It's easy to see in other people, what I see in myself.

I'm running out of things to say.
I guess I could try to go to bed again.

Tomorrow I'm going to lab for a couple hours, even though I'm not schedule to TA.
They'll be short-staffed, I'm sure. I don't mind helping out.
If it's slow, I'll study in the office until Nathan's done in lab.

I read New Moon in a day and a half.
Funny, i have other books to read, but they don't suck me in like this series does.
I've needed a good series to get into again.
It used to be Dragonlance. Before that- Harry Potter.
I should read Dragonlance again.
Steph still has my book, I think. The first one in the series.
I should order that from the library.
It'll be good- I won't get as sucked in as I did the first time, since I'll remember what happens. But I need a book to read when I can't study and can't sit still and do anything else.
I need that fantasy world to escape into when I need a time-out in life.

What I need is the ability to fall asleep.

numb

i hope this passes.

soon.

weird

i don't feel sick, but i don't feel right.

i'm too tired. i'm too out of it.
maybe it's my moods.
but my energy crashed before my mood did.
so that doesn't seem to fit.

whatever it is, i need to figure out how to focus and study.
i have too much to do.

i need to figure out how to exercise while feeling this way, too.

Decisions

i don't know what to do.

or rather, as mom just put it, in my heart I know what to do- i just don't want to admit it to myself and actually do it.

i don't want to drop pathology.
i really don't.
i've been looking forward to this class.
i was so fricking excited when i got to sign up for it.

i like the class. i like the prof., and everything is fascinating to me.
but, there is a lot of material.

microbio is semi interesting and a lot of material
and biochem is... not fun and even more material.

plus i found out yesterday that i have to write a 10pg paper for microbio and i have a group presentation in my issues in healthcare class coming up.

i don't know.

mom said i should drop it- for my mental and physical health.
nathan said i should drop it- for a lot of reasons.

inside i feel like a 2 year old throwing a tantrum.
I DON'T WANT TO DROP IT!!!

i always feel like such a failure if i drop a class. i feel like i'm wasting time if i'm only taking 12 credits. why should i only do the bare minimum if i could do more?
i already had to drop TAing last winter. i dropped physics over the summer.
this is killing me.

i don't know if or when i'll have another chance to take pathology.
i'm requried to take biochem and micro, so those aren't options to drop.

positives of dropping:
more time to study for biochem, micro, write the paper, meet w. my group
will be able to go to 2 more yoga classes if my workload allows.. giving me 3-4 instead of only 1-2 days/ week... and i really need yoga right now.
i wont have a patho exam and biochem exam within a day of eachother (same prof- all of his exams are at the same time..)
more time to go to work.
more time to sleep.
more time to spend with nathan and other friends.
less stress mentally, so the risk of relapsing would be reduced.

i know, i know.

I'm just not ready to admit it, yet. because the decision i think i have to make isn't the decision i want to make.

i hate feeling defeated.
i hate being too weak to handle things.
i hate giving in.

More of the same.

today i was just as tired as i had been. just by walking up the stairs to the 3rd floor for lab, or up the stairs at the rec- my legs felt like they were on fire. so tired. yoga wasn't bad today. my legs felt tired in camel, but that it. we didn't hold too many lunging poses, though, so maybe that's why. i got on the arc trainer after that, and had it on a super low resistance and could barely do anything. my legs were screaming at me with fatigue. this is the shitty painful tired i used to have all of the time. i hate it.

of course, when i finally have permission to exercise more... my body isn't letting me.


microbio lab tonight wasn't bad. we looked at all of the slides we stained on monday and determined if they were gram pos. or neg., and what type of bacteria they were. out of 11 slides, we figured out 9 of them. 2 we couldn't see anything. they might have washed away while we stained them? (they weren't the slides i stained, thankfully- we have 'pods' of four people that work together on this). we have Jessica, Nicole, Amanda and me. they're all seniors (real seniors- i'm just a 4th year out of 5 psudo-senior) and had more experience w. microscopes than i had (which was practically nothing), so that helped me in learning how to use them properly.

Yesterday, Casey gave me her twilight books she read on the airplane.
i'm 200 pages in already.
i could have read for microbio, but twilight is mindless reading. and i'm too tired for anything other than that right now.

i hope i'm more awake tomorrow.
this is getting annoying.

drained

i have been so incredibly tired all day today. and the last few days.
i was ready to go to bed around 4pm, but everyone was over so that wasn't exactly an option.
i layed on the couch for a long time with my eyes closed just listening to the conversations.

my birthday was good.
i got a few really nerdy things, like an anatomy puzzle and a glow in the dark 12 inch tall skeleton that you put together. plus nathan gave me my favorite laundry detergent (wisk, original scent)! i can't wait to do laundry now.



i wish i didn't have to set my alarm in the morning. i feel like i could sleep for days.

Too critical

I need to start writing more.

I think I've stopped writing so much because a lot of days, I don't have much to write about except for what I happened to do that day. And somehow writing that isn't good enough for me. I have to stop being so critical of what I write. There is no right or wrong when it comes to a journal. This is my space to write whatever I want to write. If it's entries full of mundane things, then fine.
So I've decided to try to write something everyday, even if it's meaningless events of the day, just to get back in the habit of writing again. Either here, my livejournal, or my paper journals. Just... something. i used to write pages and pages everyday. my online journals- i'd have up to 6 entries a day. now... i'm lucky if it's once a week.

I have it in my head that my journals and what I write has to be perfect.
how is that even possible?
so no wonder I have hardly been writing.

perfectionism leads to procrastination leads to paralysis.

so true.


So today.
Had medical biochem this morning. It isn't too bad so far. It will get bad soon, though.
went the gym. but felt really off. i couldn't put a good effort into anything i was doing. i hate when that happens.
when i got home, mom asked if i was feeling alright because I look really pale.
"i'm always pale"
"no, more pale that normal. you look white."

I don't know.
My body never fully feels fine, so it's hard to tell when i'm getting sick.

Lisa emailed me and asked if I'd want to increase my exercise. she told me how much i could increase it without having to increase food intake.
awesome.
i hope it helps.
i hope i feel well enough to actually do it.
i emailed her back and asked her how long it should take for my body to trust me that i won't start starving again.
i'm trying to be patient but this is getting annoying.
July 6th. I haven't restricted since then.
So... what's the deal?


i should go upstairs and study a little before everyone gets here.
once they do, studying will go out the window.
i kind of hate my birthday.

Trust

Classes today were fun.
Normally labs stress me out, but this one isn't bad at all. None of our lab days are graded- only our exams- which in a way kind of sucks, but it takes the pressure off during lab days and lets me actually relax and learn instead of worrying about doing everything perfectly for a grade.

Last week, I took a bacteria sample from the floor of the lab, but the dish today was clear. Apparently we have really clean floors at school.

Casey's home!
Her and mom are watching Matlock. Dad's still in his class.
My books finally came today, so I kind of want to go upstairs and study. But I don't need to do anything for tomorrow, and it's been a long day, so I don't think I will.

I'm not sure if I'll have a chance to tomorrow, though. A lot of people will be over for birthday festivities... o.O

Haven't let my frustrations derail my eating.
I figure messing up now will only delay progress even more.
Which is the last thing I want or need, at this point.
I just... have to trust.

Failure

I wish that I had the same clarity that I had yesterday.
I don't.
But that's natural, I suppose.
I just get frustrated with this whole process. I wish I could say, "okay, I'm recovered" and POOF! my body is back to normal.
It's hard to keep going when you don't see any progress. I'm on a weight loss meal plan? Umm... I wouldn't have thought that. The numbers all make sense. It should work.
What's hard is that I know what would work. I know what did work. Less than 200 calories. and then run for miles. everyday. it works. the efforts i put in back then... they worked.

it's sad that i can miss that. miss blacking out. miss being dizzy. miss having my stomach constantly growling at me. miss being painfully exhusted. miss being shakey and foggy and yet somehow always alert and on top of things. miss having bruises all over from having no padding on my body. miss counting my ribs-- seeing each one. miss needing clothes from the girls department. miss having my hair fall out and have lanugo grow all over.
great fun that was. a real blast.
hardly. but somehow I thrived on that. i got kick ass grades that semester and dealt with that stupid david fiasco and I somehow did it all on not eating.
i lived on air, water, and caffeine. and it was such a rush.
i got smaller and smaller, and it drove me to keep going.
feeling empty felt safe. feeling full was foreign to me. i hated it. if i was full, then i wanted it out. i was painfully aware of every calorie each bite contained, and i had to be. or else i didn't feel safe.

i was asked if i was happy back then. and really- i honestly was. i felt comfortable and secure. i felt okay in my body. i knew i was thin- i just didn't think i was thin enough. life was predictable. i knew that when i woke up, i'd feel hungry. i knew that i'd make coffee and drink that and leave for school. i knew that i'd be hungry in class. and that after class i'd go to the gym to run. i knew that i'd be dizzy. i knew that i'd have to hide the fact i wasn't eating. i knew that i'd be tired. i knew that i had things to study and papers to write. i knew that i'd go to bed and be hungry. and i knew that if i did everything right, then the scale would tell me a smaller number than the day before.
it all made sense.


now?
i don't know.

i guess i'm healthier and stronger. my mind isn't foggy.
but this isn't predictable. i don't feel right in my body anymore. i want to claw at my own skin and escape.

it's the whole recovery process... the refeeding and stomach problems. the body image problems. the fact that my body doesn't respond like it should to a meal plan.

time.
i know it takes time.

i know that i can't say "oops, i have osteopenia and fractures from that? sorry, my bad!" and have it simply disappear because i want it to.



i'm just getting tired of not seeing my work pay off at the end of the day.
i know i'm stronger and healthier, but in the ED world- strength and health were always negative things.
being healthy meant not being thin. recovery meant failing. strength was being able to live on air and water and still run 10 miles. perseverence was getting four 4.0s and a 3.9 while starving.

and those thoughts haven't completely disappeared yet.


i still feel like a failure for doing so well in recovery.

clarity

I met with Lisa today. I was weighed, but didn't ask to know. Especially since I've probably gained muscle since last time I saw her since I've been lifting weights and started practicing yoga regularly. But... knowing it's muscle doesn't change the fact I won't like it if the number has gone up. So I'd just rather not even know right now.
I've been doing pretty well with eating. I'm proud of myself. i've come a really long way.

sometimes, i still get jealous of all of the skinny girls i see, but have to remind myself that every one is different. every body is formed differently. and everyone has their own story. my body is the way it is because of the ED. that's the simple truth of the matter. i can't change that fact. i don't know why their bodies are the way they are. maybe they have issues of their own. or maybe they are like Ryann and it's natural. maybe they're just very healthy and active and haven't damaged their bodies with an ED, and so actually look athetic.
i hope i look athetic again one day.

in the mean time, i have to accept where i am at. i have to be thankful for the body that i have and treat it well so that it lasts a long time.
i have to respect it. and admire it for what it can do for me. It can get me into basic and crazy yoga poses. and each day it can go further into a pose. it can get stronger. it's flexible and can gain flexibility. it doesn't confine me to stillness; i can move and walk and soon- run and dance. With it's fingers, I can make music. with it's voice, i can sing, and i can talk, and i can make myself heard. it lets me help people. It provides me a brain with which i can learn and excell in school and in a future career.

through my body, i can love and be loved.
With my body, i can learn, i can feel, i can help, i can laugh, i can cry, i can grow, i can heal, i can praise God, i can connect with my mind, i can breathe, i can love, i can live.

all of these things do not depend on the size of my body.

but they do require health, nutrition and self-respect.

and that i can control.