[Insert Epic Intro Music Here]

[harmlessgirl]

So...  I'm checking my hair in the mirror, smirking at my oh-so cute (twenty five year-old!!) face and my inexplicably hot bod because my idea of exercise is horking down an extra line of cocaine.  And - DUH! - I am smug as hell.  I am. a force. of nature.

Then, I blink.

Suddenly I'm thirty six.  I'm married (to a gorgeous man with a gorgeous personality and a gorgeous physique).  But, me?  I'm 202 pounds.  And, holy crapballs, I am m i s e r a b l e.  I'm a vaguely creepy, socially awkward shut in who literally doesn't leave the house more than, like, twice a month.  I have my groceries delivered; I hide until the delivery dude gets tired of knocking and abandons them at the door.  I HAVE MY EFFING BOOZE DELIVERED, FOR CRAP'S SAKE.  All because I'm so horrified by what I've done to myself (my spirit AND my body) that I don't want to face people.

I've never really done things on the up-and-up.  Fact is, I spent most of my adult life overstimulating myself to numbness, in every way I could find.  Eventually, you burn out.  After that, the only real alternatives you've got are to change your act or die. 

On Eastern Sunday of 2010, a few months before my wedding, my best friend - the craziest, most loving woman on Earth - decided to drink an entire bottle of vodka, swallow fistfuls of pills and drown herself in the bathtub.  She was thirty one. 

It should have been a wake-up call, and I guess it was, in a way.  But, at the time, I was so devastated I just shut down.  I was the Vegas dealer calling it quits:  -hand clap- "I'm out."  Most days, I vacillated between utter terror at the prospect of ending up like her and thinking, "Girl, you got it right."  Practically minutes after the wedding, I was snarfing down cheeseburgers, drinking like a fish and not budging other than to drive to and from the office.  Interacting with people became a burden, and I figured I'd been burdened enough, so I just stopped doing it.

Years pass.  Psychiatric visits ensue.  I start taking pretty much all the pills, but I don't feel any different. 

 

BUT - up side, ahoy! - a few months ago, something snapped.  I finally told my awful boss to shove it (mostly because I accepted an offer from another company, like, five minutes before the Shove It event occurred).  I got off the drugs.  I started working from home - which..."Yay!" but also "Err...I'm the Boo Radleyest" - and NOW I'm ready to start feeling like a human being again, inside and out.

My biggest fear is falling back into that all-or-nothing lifestyle.  Food?  What for?  Alcohol's got calories, so it counts as a meal!  Nobody REALLY needs more than 800 calories a day anyway, right?!  But I don't want the false euphoria; I don't want the lowest lows.  I don't want my energy to come from fistfuls of diet pills.  Most importantly, no matter what her reasons may have been, I don't want end up like my friend.  I don't want to waste the time I have here, and I sure as hell don't want to scar the shit out of my loved ones by destroying myself.

I want to know what it feels like to work with my body, instead of against it.  I want to know what it feels like to take ownership of this meat machine that is me.  I want health - real, legitimate health - for the first time in my life.

This is my beginning.  And I'm excited as hell to see where I'll end up.

[COYOTITO]

Like my grandma used to tell me, "Things can only be bad for so long and then they HAVE to turn around.". Good luck on the journey. You made it through what happened to your friend, so in a way you're already a badass. Breathe deeply, work hard, and be kind (though not necessarily easy) to yourself.