You Still Have All of Me.

The past couple of days have been a bit more anxiety-ridden than usual (perhaps payback for my better mood earlier in the week?), but I got through it and am hoping that my brain soon realizes that things are winding down. I have a few end-of-semester projects due at the start of December, but it's nothing too challenging; I'm even looking forward to a few of them. For my movement class we have to impersonate a live performance of any "rock star" (read: relatively well-known singer) of our choosing, through lip syncing -- impersonations have to be INCREDIBLY precise, down to muscle twitches and even the tiniest minutiae of our/their physicality. Last year I started working on Amy Winehouse, but this year I've switched gears entirely and am doing Tom Waits. He's a brilliant study. As excited as I am, I'm not working on that or any other project or paper this weekend, save for a couple scene rehearsals on Sunday and making sure I've got the lines memorized for filming on Tuesday. (That last one in particular will take no time at all, because God, intending for me to be an actress, blessed me with an uncanny gift for memorization and linguistic retention.) It's time for a mini-vacation.

AJ-cation!

Sounds too much like "education." We'll let it go.

Last night I went to a College Republican party that ended up being a very laid-back, albeit sizable, gathering. I was glad it didn't turn into a debaucherous drunken hook-up fest, because while those are fun (and more common than you'd think among College Republicans), I really wasn't in the mood. I did meet a cute guy, though, one whom I'd spotted at past meetings and decided to make the subject of a game I call "That One," otherwise known as "Am I Sure I'm Not a Sociopath?". (Answer: No.) Basically, whenever I want to play this internal game, I pick a guy (mentally point and exclaim, "that one!") whom I know will hold my interest for a time (both physically as well as personality-wise), and deign, through reading/manipulating body language and psychological idiosyncrasies, likes and dislikes, etc., to attract him to me. In the past, I've enjoyed at least a 90% average success rate with That One, but I hadn't played in a while. I wanted to make sure I still had it.

I've still got it.

Maybe some day when I don't have an eating disorder and can actually write connected, coherent sentences for a prolonged period of time, I will explain how to play That One. There is a science to it, a formula, and it can end up being quite a lengthy game (you can even play two rounds at once, as long as the social environment of one target does not overlap with that of the other). The longest round I ever played lasted about a year, from target identification to desired outcome. Well worth it.

Anyhow, so yeah, enjoyed a successful round of That One and now have tentative plans to go shooting with That One over Thanksgiving weekend. (You see why I have to play That One at College Republican gatherings?) And now I'm starting to worry that if this guy comes any further into my life aside from a few innocuous dates and hookups, I'll have to entangle myself in yet another web of lies -- something to the tune of "anorexia? What anorexia?", followed by an inevitable separation either before or after revealing, "oh, that anorexia."

I'm not expecting to make this guy my boyfriend or anything of the sort (although he is a cutie and pretty much a 9 out of 10 when it comes to compatibility and charm). I'm just saying that this is how relationships work when I'm so mired in my eating disorder. Believe me. I have experience in this realm.

Oh, and I still haven't entirely given up on B. By which I mean, for all of my pushing him away, I still love him terribly and want to be with him. I just know no good can come of us deepening our romantic involvement when I'm this ill.

Started a new pro-recovery exercise, one which I'm sure has been done before but that I "invented" for myself without hearing about it from others. Basically I realized the number of times that I've stonewalled any sort of progress by whining, "but I'll miss my sick body if I eat that/eat more/start eating/decide to recover." I also remembered the number of times that, while at a medically acceptable weight, I have indeed missed my sick body. So what I've started to do is ask myself, "why can't I miss having a healthy body?" and, by extension, "what about having a healthy body do I miss?"

My list could go on forever.

I miss my healthy body that let me run, jump, and skip -- and not only that, but let me enjoy running, jumping, and skipping for extended periods of time.

I miss my healthy body that was able to nourish a healthy mind... one free of panic attacks, low in generalized anxiety, obsessions, and capable of being really fucking sharp.

I miss my healthy body's genuine, healthy smile and sincere laughter. I miss the energy my healthy body had to laugh.

I miss the energy my healthy body had to do anything. Period.

I miss my healthy body's sleep schedule. The way I could fall asleep at a decent hour and stay asleep all night, and wake up refreshed the next morning.

I miss my singing voice.

I miss my healthy body's ability to concentrate.

I miss my healthy body's ability to be completely cognitively present, not half-asleep or out to a lunch I'm not really eating.

I miss my healthy body's sense of gratitude for the little things.

I miss my healthy body's sense of closeness to God.

I miss my healthy digestive tract, the one that didn't take forever to move anything processed or prepared through my system and didn't cause immense discomfort in the process.

I miss healthy shits.

I miss my healthy body's ability to stand for more than 10 minutes without worrying if my legs are going to give out from under me.

I miss my healthy body's immune system, damn it. I haven't had one of those since fourth grade. I get sick all the time. I haven't had a fever in years. I miss having fevers when I'm sick because fevers mean that my body is strong enough to fight whatever shit is going down.

I miss my healthy body's ability to savour food.

I miss my healthy body's libido.

I miss my healthy body's ability to sustain social contact and relationships and take pleasure in them.

Every time one of these thoughts strikes me I make sure to acknowledge it mentally... when I recover -- whenever the fuck I recover -- and start to miss being sick and starved, I'll need to remind myself of all of this.

Today it just makes me sad.

I miss my healthy body's ability to write decent blog entries.