Do you ever have those days when you realize just how blessed you are? You’ve known it all along, but for some reason, you’re reminded anew? The last few days have been like that.
Last year at about this time, Gloria was practically babysitting me because it wasn’t a good idea for me to be on my own, Joyce was trying to send me to some clinic in Michigan, and I was miserable. In short, I was not in a good place.
What a difference 12 months can make.
PTL.
Daddy took me shopping for my birthday one night this week. I asked for new winter boots, and so he took me to a local mall. We 
spent two wandering the shopping center, on a quest for the perfect pair of boots. Black, with a tiny bit of heel. Something that looked stylish, that I could wear without being embarrassed, and that Howie wouldn’t yell at me for.
I never found them.
Still, I had a really great time. It’s very rare that I get to spend much one-on-one time with my dad. I loved having him to myself for a few hours. Linking arms with him. Having him guide me around the mall. Asking his opinion about things. Laughing with him. Being daddy’s little girl.
Those two hours were one of my best birthday gifts.
“Would you trade it for something else?” Joyce asked me.
The eating disorder, she had meant. I was sitting in her office, feeling slightly miserable because I’d spent the majority of last week struggling with awful thoughts about my body image and gone to bed every evening wanting to throw up. I was royally ticked, too; obsessing over my weight and how I look seems stupid, and petty, and vain. And, in all honesty, after nearly 6 months of the eating disorder not being much of an issue, I was upset that all my thoughts about it had suddenly popped back up.
Joyce says that, most likely, it’ll always be an issue for me. Body image will always be one of those pots that are on the back burner of my personal stove. For a long time, my automatic response to stress and anxiety will be a desire to make myself get sick or starve myself. Which sort of sucks.
“Would you trade it for something else?” my therapist asked me. “Given the choice, would you trade the eating disorder and all the struggles you’ve got with body image, and perfectionism, and all of that for something like alcoholism? Or cancer? Or schizophrenia?”
No. I wouldn’t. Not ever. And I guess this is because, at the very least, the eating disorder is familiar.
Funny how that works. Do you think that anyone, given a similar choice, would choose their familiar pain?
My sister got a puppy.
Me: After looking at David’s pictures of the dog, I’ve decided it’s probably a very good thing that I’ve yet to actually see your puppy… I may steal him whenever I actually meet him. He makes me want a puppy. And I don’t even like dogs, aside from Sasha and Angel.
Racheal: well let me fix this desire for you… he woke me up like every half hour or so by biting my face, he keeps pottying on my bed and floor, he cries when i shower, and he ate some of his ball so he keeps throwing up nothing. he’s a monster.
Me: My desire = no more. Thanks!
Samson
After spending an hour on Sunday, supervising kids in the Pre-K room at church…
Rachel: I don’t want babies anymore.
Me: Me either!
Doing heights and weights on the kids with the school nurse at clinical last Thursday, one of the 8th graders weighed 118 lbs. He was of average height and healthy looking. He came in laughing, and seemingly happy.
When I was at my worst, right before I spent six weeks in a partial-hospitalization program, I weighed 124 lbs.
I was 5’9” tall, 19 years old, and I weighed about as much as an eighth grader.
I’m starting to realize just how sick I was.
A bunch of us went to Applebee’s last night. Half-price appetizers and amazing desserts. 
We were borderline obnoxious, I bet. Crowded around our table, talking loudly. Using expressive hand motions. Anything that anyone said seemed funny, and we laughed over nothing and everything. We were light, and giddy, and forgot for three hours about professors and assignments and clinical requirements. I imagine that that’s sort of what it must feel like to be drunk. Nothing mattered but the six of us, seated around that table.
I forget – often, I’ll admit – that all of this is a part of what college is supposed to be as well. The stuff that goes on in the classroom is only half of what makes you grow.
Five minutes into my day of working with the school nurse – right about the time I followed her into the hallway to discover a student on the floor, being physically restrained by three teachers – I started to question where I’d been sent for my clinical rotation this morning. Note to self: the next time I’m unsure of what goes on at a placement site, I should Google it before I leave for clinical in the morning. Holy cow.
Today’s placement was a school for children with emotional and behavioral problems. The majority of the students had mental health disorders. Originally in the public schools, the students were all shipped off to this alternative school when they became too much to handle. They are the students who are prone to violent outbursts when they get angry or frustrated. They are the third graders who will suddenly launch into streams of curse words which I’ve never even dreamed of saying. They’re the students who bite, hit and kick, both faculty and other students. Some of them will break their own hands, punching cement walls in their anger. They’re the students who frequently do the unexpected.
But they’re all just kids. As the day wore on, I began to realize this. Underneath all the hurt and the anger and the psych issues, they were still all just kids. Dying for attention. Desperately wanting someone to care about them. Longing to matter.
A lot of them, honestly, were some of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met.
Lord, help me just to love people. Amen.
I joined the Ecology Club. 
In part, I joined because I’m sick of my entire life on campus seeming to revolve around the Nursing Department. Mostly, however, I joined because Dr. LaCelle is one of the faculty advisors for the club. Trust me – if you knew how adorable Dr. LaCelle is, you would join the Eco Club too.
Anyway. This morning was our first official get-together of the semester. We met at 9 a.m. to clean up trash along a strip of roadway that the college has adopted. Aside from Dr. LaCelle and the other faculty advisor, I was the only one who showed up. Oh, the irony.
Decked out in our neon-colored vests and heavy work gloves (I drew the line at wearing a hard helmet – For real), the three of us spent two hours bagging trash and improving the aesthetic beauty of CR- # Something-Or-Other. And I realized that I live in a bubble.
I’m up to my mid-thighs in weeds, and Dr. LaCelle and his counterpart are amiably discussing the world’s energy crisis. They’re talking about things like carbon emissions, ethanol, and all the untapped energy that could be utilized if someone would just be smart enough to harvest oil from algae. It’s literally a foreign language. I don’t contribute to the conversation, because I honestly have no idea what they’re talking about.
The point of all of this, I suppose, really has nothing to do with the Ecology Club, Dr. LaCelle, algae, or hard helmets. It is really just to say that I worry I’m entirely too self-absorbed. I don’t follow the news. I’m not interested in politics. If something doesn’t directly affect me through school, my job, my church, my family or my friends, I am usually completely unaware of it.
I realize that, developmentally, it’s semi-appropriate for teenagers to be extremely self-focused. The thing is… I’m not a teenager any more. So how do I start to grow up in this area?
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