Starting Over. Again.

I’ve been debating my return to this blog for awhile now. Since I stopped some nine months ago, life has changed rather dramatically: I have a new job that I’m passionate about, a beautiful new home, and I’m more content than ever with my social life. On the other hand, I’ve dealt with a family member’s health scare, removed a so-very-toxic relationship from my life, started and stopped therapy for an eating disorder, and, oh yeah, gained back about 50 pounds.

Fifty. Five-oh. 50 pounds. 

That’s been more than a little difficult to accept. But besides grimacing as my pants became harder and harder to pull on, or watching my face and stomach become rounder and rounder, I didn’t quite realize how this slide back into disease was destroying literally everything I’d built over the past few years. All my confidence, my happiness, my ability to feel comfortable in my own skin, moving through the world…gone. I’m back to Old Amanda: struggling to make eye-contact, obsessing about my looks, tired, frustrated, and worst of all, meek.

I don’t like this girl. I, in fact, despise her and wish her dead. And what kills me is that I thought I had destroyed her. I thought that, even though my weight loss was stagnant, that I was in treatment for an eating disorder, that I was so far from where I wanted to be…I thought she was gone.

I am left here to start over, feeling like the past three years have been a waste. And now I’m firmly in my 30’s and just as far from where I want to be as ever.

I guess the one saving grace in all of this, the one thing I remain proud of, is the fact that I’m not giving up. I know how strong I once was, how happy and completely in love with my life I was, and I know I can get there again. Because there is no other option and because I deeply, deeply miss it.

“Remember why you started.” And now, let’s finish.