I’m thankful that I came to the following conclusion before Christmas. The past five days have been non-stop fun and adventures and celebrations. We’ve had my grandmother in town for Christmas, I’ve had a birthday, and then Christmas was upon us! I found some determination to enjoy the holidays though, and I am so grateful that I did. I truly had a wonderful seventeenth birthday on Monday, and an equally wonderful Christmas yesterday. What conclusion did I come to though? Simply read on:

I have no other decent options, I have to recover.

The decision was left for me to make- whether to recover or not- but the decision never felt like it was really mine. No one around me would ever really let me have my eating disorder, not like I want to. Trying to please both everyone around me and my eating disorder was killing me. Being in the middle, well, a person can only do that for so long. I could keep trying, but I would keep failing.

They say that if you’re not recovering from your eating disorder, you’re dying from it. This has maybe finally clicked in my head, but my journal explains my realization better than I could now.

…Something flipped inside though, just recently, when I crawled into bed. I’m hoping it’ll last.

Ana will never give me what I want. Even if I drop down to X pounds, I won’t be happy. I’ll only be chronically ill and knocking on death’s door. She won’t allow me to help others. She won’t make me perfect. She won’t allow me to raise awareness or speak out. She won’t make me any more worthy of a loving husband. She won’t make me an amazing mother. She won’t help me have a successful career. She’ll give me thin, but she’ll take everything else. If God can love my body, why can’t I learn to do the same? As much as I want to be thin, I can’t be. I might as well fight to love myself as I am, that being the case. Why are X pounds not enough? Why is one year not enough? Because nothing will ever be enough.

I’ve known all of this all along. I’ve never believed it though. Even now, I can’t say that the belief is firm, but it’s all sunk in more than it ever has before.

There are so many things I want to do in life. Things like raising awareness about eating disorders. Things like eventually speaking openly about mine amongst everyone I know and not just those closest to me. Things like honing my abilities as a flutist. Things like continuing to learn how to dance, even though I only began this past semester. Things like becoming a better writer. Things like being successful in school. Things like going to college. Things like falling in love, and feeling worthy of the man I marry. Things like starting a career, and loving what I do. Things like having kids. Things like being a good example for my daughters- and teaching them that there’s nothing wrong with their bodies, and that they are allowed to and should love themselves. Things like adopting a few special needs children. Things like going to Africa on mission trips. Things like visiting all fifty states. Things like traveling abroad. Things like having grandkids. Things that people who are really living do.

I know I may still be in high school, but I can’t wait for so many of life’s experiences that will come in the future. An eating disorder though? It doesn’t usually figure into the picture. Eating disorders are confining things. Many things listed above would never become reality with Ana still a part of my life, which leaves me one option: recovery.

This doesn’t mean it’ll all be downhill from here. The opposite, in fact, is what it means. I’m only just beginning to climb a new mountain. God is on my side though, and attitude changes everything. So, stick around. Things are only just starting to get good. I can’t predict the future. I cannot say what the upcoming new year will bring. It’s going to be an adventure though, and I’m going to learn how to overcome it all just as a fierce warrior on the front lines would overcome oncoming enemies.