The legacy of family

"I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is more than living, for it is being conscious of living." Anne Morrow Lindburgh


So many memories have been dancing at the edges of my brain this week. I am being pushed to remember and think about the past, and I'm not sure I like it. Old songs and pictures and writing memoir essays have opened the Pandora's box that I have struggled all my life to keep firmly shut and locked.

So why does the past feel so close, so much more real than today?...Growing up in a volatile family; misplaced Southerners who never completely adapted to life in the cold North, but moved here in search of better opportunities...Traveling down to visit my maternal grandmother, married seven, eight times, and yet dying alone in Section 8 housing...Visits to Kentucky and my grandfather and step-grandmother; happy, and yet Grandpa still dreaming of his beautiful, yet troubled first wife, my grandmother, until the day he died...My father's family; his mother, part Cherokee but passing as white; his father, first an alcoholic and then a die-hard member of a snake-handling church in the hills of Kentucky...my mother dropping out of high school after the eleventh grade, my father only making it through the eighth grade...

And the family's legacy reverberates through the next generations...I look at the picture of my beautiful grandmother, who struggled as she aged and her stunning beauty faded...I glance at the picture of my other grandmother, whom I never knew, and can see the Cherokee in her long, dark hair and eyes, haunted and tired, wearing a dress made out of sack cloth...I wonder about all these people, related to me and yet distant and disconnected from my life. Does any of this really effect who I am as a person?

Then there's my own life....As I wrap up my graduate nonfiction writing class, I think about the things I've written, the truths I've unveiled and the truths I couldn't bring myself to write about because some things are still too painful to put into words. My struggles with anorexia and its impact on my marriage...my husband leaving because, I believe, he couldn't take it anymore...my hopes and dreams for reconciliation, shattered...traveling down to Florida in one last ditch effort to save my marriage and failing...and yet...

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say... except that I am confused and my mind is swirling with all the mistakes I've made in my life, wondering where did I go wrong and how to move forward...wondering about the possibilities and if I can start over...and find a measure of peace and happiness in my life.

I am not alone

Hope is the dream of a soul awake. ~ French proverb


I am not alone. Christ surrounds me every minute with His love and grace. I am forever grateful for His mercy during these times of struggle and change.

I am learning to live again. Being alone for long periods of time have shown me that I have only been half alive for years. Why?

Sickness, a disintegrating marriage, a slew of changes and losses during the past five years....first, the loss of myself as I became entangled with the illogical illness of anorexia. Then frantic attempts to become what I felt David wanted as I slowly recovered and grew stronger both in body and mind, and yet he drew further and further away. Leaving my career as a journalist to attend graduate school, and the subsequent adjustments to academia and trying to fit in to that world.

I am learning to trust that my intelligence and strength will see me through wherever God takes me. I never thought my marriage would end, but it has and I accept that and continue to move forward. I have hope for the future, and its infinite possibilities. I know I will never be alone no matter what happens, and to finally feel Christ's presence so fully is a joy that is indescribable.

Not that it has been easy. I have cried many times during the past three months, and prayed for God to lift the depression and anxiety as I contemplate unraveling fifteen years of dreams and hopes. As I look around my house and the tangle of possessions — David's paintings, my books; a life built that now must be torn down — I sometimes feel overwhelmed. I want to just give everything away, pack my clothes, and go somewhere were I am not known as David's wife or a former reporter or a recovering anorexic or all the other roles I have filled that I now must leave behind...A place where I can be free.

I am not alone. Christ is with me throughout all this. He is with me when I wake up in the middle of the night, still confused about all that has happened in the past year. He is with me each time I must tell one more person about the break-up of my marriage, that David is never coming back to Michigan and he has left it to me to tell all of our friends. He is with me when I still sometimes ask myself if I am a failure, if something is wrong with me and if I am an awful person who drove away her husband because she was so stupid to develop anorexia in her forties. I don't always believe these things of myself; they are just unbidden thoughts.

Christ was with me when I decided on December 28, 2010 that I would overcome anorexia and live a full life, one filled with joy and happiness. He was with me when I kept eating and gaining weight, and when I struggled with that and had to tell myself that health and freedom were worth the pain of recovery. I have told myself I will not settle for anything less than full freedom from anorexia. I become more free every day, and anorexia is beginning to seem like a distant memory.

I am not alone.

It is time to move on...

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin


It is time for me to move forward in life. In each one of our lives reality shifts and changes. Nothing remains static. I can face the future with hope and courage, or I can face it with fear. I choose the first, and to accept that the dreams and hopes that I might have held at one time are no more.


For I do not want my life to shrink, become nothing more than waiting and dreaming for what will not happen. It has been three months — to the day — that David left, and there will be no reconciliation. Nothing can change that.


So I can choose to cry and rail against God or fate or whatever you want to call it. Or I can choose to move forward. The life I lead really depends upon me. I am now healthy and I am free. I feel strong in my recovery from anorexia, and thus those fears are not there anymore. I am proud of myself and I am fine with my body. I rarely think about being thinner or restricting or all the other things that came with the illness.


I am not saying things are perfect. Once in a while, I will get glimpse into the mirror or pull out the scale and weigh myself and I will feel an old, familiar twinge from days past. I just push it aside and think about what I stand to lose.


Life.


This might not be the life that I originally dreamed of when I started focusing on gaining weight and health three months ago. But as I wrote, realities change and you either accept it and move on or become bitter and stuck forever.


I think about the possibilities. I could move to Ireland after I finish graduate school. Or move south, away from Michigan's cold winters. I could do just about anything. I have far more blessings than many people. I am intelligent and educated. I have a variety of experiences in different fields. I have been told — although I still struggle to believe this about myself — that I am strong and courageous and beautiful.


Beautiful. There is such power in that word. Of course I like it when people say I am beautiful. Who doesn't? But I want to tell them to dig a little deeper, that perhaps real beauty can be found within people, including me. For I never again want to be trapped by anorexia, and part of me is afraid that one simple word is part of the trap.


You would be beautiful if only you were thinner...

This is one of the many thoughts I had before I became healthier. What nonsense! I can look at the pictures and see that at my thinnest, I was far from beautiful. I was emaciated and looked old and drained.


I would rather be thought of as strong and courageous and kind. These are the traits that open my world and allow others to be in it.


I am ready...It is scary because so much of the future is unknown. But in the end, isn't that really true of all of us? Can any one of us really say with complete certainty that this person or that job will be in our life tomorrow? Christ has taught me to not trust the things of this earth, for surely they will rust and decay and finally, disappear.


Make no mistake. I still believe in love and romance and the possibilities that exist. I am not bitter nor do I have a hatred of all men because of what David did. I am sometimes still angry and feel abandoned by him. But I am slowly moving through the stages of grief, and I am finally beginning to accept what has happened.


I am becoming myself, and I don't plan to lose that ever again.


And now, I step forward into the unknown...


"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phillippians 4:13

Rant

For the love of God, I need a break. I feel as if everything is crashing down upon me and I am going to be buried and suffocating under the deluge.
I want to run away from all these responsibilities. The house. The bills. The damn cat and her litter box. The betta fish that barely moves and yet requires clean distilled water in his tank each week. My graduate studies in which I can barely stir an interest in — do I really care about multigenre or segmented essays? My anxieties and depression. The still-cold Michigan weather and the fact that I still see SNOW on the damn ground. The fact that in fact, I am alone. The loneliness and fear that this is all my life will be EVER.
Did I mention the bills? I am afraid to check the mail, because oops, there's another bill.
I can't wait for spring, to get out there and shoot a few dozen arrows at some choice imaginary targets.
The one good thing — I haven't stopped eating. The last thing I need is to starve and feel like crap again. No way. Not ever.
Okay, my rant is over. (So I can't remain Pollyanna positive all the time. The title of this post was stolen from another blog written by someone who sounds more overwhelmed than I do.)

This Crazy Love

I know it might seem as if I have fallen off the face of the earth. It's just that a few things changed and I've needed some time to adjust . . .

David has decided to stay in Florida for now. I was heartbroken, and drove down there to see him. It was a good thing because we reconnected and for the most part, had a lovely and intimate time together. It was a bad thing because it makes me miss him worse than ever.

But it did create hope within him to see me looking healthy. Hope he did not have before.

This I know: we still love each other very much. We plan to continue to talk regularly and work on reconciling. The door is still open and neither one of us is ready to close it. We also will definitely be married at least until I am done with graduate school because he wants me to finish and said he would support me through it.

But I told him I won't wait forever. I want a life partner, someone by my side who will be there through the good and bad times. I am sometimes terrified we won't come back together and I will be alone for life. I don't think I can bear that thought, especially after the five days spent with him in Florida.

So I am very confused right now. I long for my husband and I don't know how any of this will turn out. It feels very crazy at times to me. I also have cried a lot of tears and this morning (almost) felt like giving up. But I won't because no matter what, the way to a better and happy life is to be healthy. Diving back into anorexia would only kill me.

And that is what I have been up to the past week . . . Now I need to find the strength to endure a long-distance marriage, and continue to recover from anorexia and complete graduate school. I've allowed myself today to just rest and do nothing. By the weekend, I must start my work again.

I still believe all of this will have a happy ending. But I know I have to trust in God and have faith.

Believe and it will be true . . .