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March 26, 2007

Hello...

Two summers ago, I wore skirts and t-shirts almost every day, and I went out and read in the sun and went to free concerts and Lauren and I drove around the lakes and our neighborhood with the windows down and the music loud, and we got ice cream from our favorite place and ate out in the courtyard and got together with our friends and bought cookbooks and cooked new things and visited with my family often. I also smiled a lot, even though I cried a lot too. I was scared about what was going to happen in my life but I had a plan and I was excited and nervous.

Last summer, I wore pajamas all the time, I cancelled plans every time I made them, and I didn't leave the house. I stopped talking to my friends and my family, couldn't stand my arms to be bare, and barely smiled.

Now it's nine months later, summer is almost here again, and I'm headed for Summer 2006: The Sequel.

I don't want to blame the change on our year in Oberlin. That change was in me. It was because I'm not taking care of myself. It was because my plans for my future sort of crashed around me, but it was also because I let myself be lonely and didn't push through my fears. It's also because I gained back all the weight lost and then some, and I feel self conscious and gross and don't want to be seen and feel uncomfortable in my own body. And it's been almost a year, and I'm doomed for a repeat.

Today it's 76 degrees and sunny and I feel the urge to be outside reading. I don't even know the last time I felt that urge. It makes me feel hopeful, that if I start right now I can change fast enough to make this summer remind me why I love summer so damn much. But it also makes me want to cry, because I just don't know if I can.

But I can tell you this--a part of me misses being alive, and I need to do whatever I can to cling to that part of me, because the rest of me, however much it is the majority, has been winning for too long.

Posted to Mental Health at 01:53 PM | Comments (1)