i'm sitting here in my ever-so-small kitchen spooning copious amounts of peanut butter and jelly straight from the jar onto the last of my challah bread.
and i'm thinking of a story that i want to tell you.
my story.
and let me be clear. this is not a story about ned. it is simply a story in which ned plays a part.
i'm not sure when it exactly it happened-- that i started counting. it began simply. one day, two days, three days and on. days without ned. i had a tally mark. on my chalkboard wall. on my chalkboard wall adjacent to my ever-so-small kitchen.
and each day--each tally mark--was this gift, this undeserved miracle, which i wrapped my sturdy, little fingers around and clung to.
and then something really remarkable happened. my fingers let go. and i looked down at my hands. and i saw the all-at-once careful and careless intersection of folds and lines and curves and i fell in love with them. i have twelve moles on my hands alone. twelve.
but i digress.
so my fingers let go. followed by my hands. followed by a part of myself which, as of yet, i cannot name.
and i stopped counting. i stopped measuring my days as free of ned. a day was just a day. what am i saying? a day was just a day? no, a day was...a day. free of ned or not, the day was the miracle.
i don't know the last time i binged. i couldn't tell you. i do know that last friday night i ate too much chocolate. and i loved every minute of it.
ned isn't gone. there is still so much to do. to change. to experience. to live through and survive.
i got this lovely email from a young woman who said, "i just want to be thin." and i thought, yes, me too. of course, me too. but i want to be thin plus ten million other things. and you see, that's an eating disorder in a nutshell. the desire to be thin eclipses everything else. it eats up (pun intended) the entire pie chart. and so in getting better, one must identify everything else (the + 10 million things) that one is or wants. my list is small, but growing. and so my ned section of the pie chart is diminishing. rapidly.
i have spent my life enveloped in stories. in making them up and in making them come true. in acting school our first year acting teacher always said, you are enough. meaning--you don't have to try so hard, don't act--just be. and i thought i knew what that meant. i though i could do that.
but it is only now, that for the first time i believe that my story is enoughthat i understand. for the first time i don't need to make up or make one come true anything. for the first time i believe in my own story. my story is enough. and put in those words, it makes all the sense in the world.