"Today is a completely new day. If you can start your life over again at any moment, I am choosing this one riiiight...here. I ate a reasonable - nay, spectacular - breakfast this morning, didn't throw it up, and now am drinking water while I catch up on correspondence and deep-condition my hair."

I wrote that in my blog shortly after arriving home from treatment just over a year ago. It's little vibes of inspiration - that may on cynical days feel like verbal gravel - and appreciation for tiny victories as I reach them with increasing frequency that keeps momentum going.

Dovetailing off the ahem, recipie for momentum, I know I've personally taken so much from the motivation of the beautiful people who have stood with me as I've faced my demons. So much good can be done together.

Feeling: stalled. like I'm floundering between needs. like I could really disappoint myself or really make myself proud.

Urges: wow today has been full of more than I'd realized...um...to restrict, binge/purge, purge, over-exercise, pluck/have an overly-dramatic mental breakdown. again.

Behaviors: again, stuck to the plan. on the low side of everything, but feeling comfortable there to keep priority number one in check. lots of avoidance.

Challenged by: the cost-benefit analysis of yogurt + 3(H20) + banana + apple + hummus/celery = ??

Learned: Attitude changes everything. Karma is absolutely real. etc.

Positive: Attitude changes everything. Karma is absolutely real. I can be different; I'm generally vibing out good stuff.

Today is a completely new day. If you can start your life over again at any moment, I am choosing this one riiiight...here. I ate a reasonable - nay, spectacular - breakfast this morning, didn't throw it up, and now am drinking water while I catch up on correspondence and deep-condition my hair.

30 days til The Gorge, 30 days to change my life. If every day until Gorge time I can make nothing but positive, beneficial decisions, how much better off will I be? 30 days of eating well, moving my body, being honest, moisturizing, doing Kegels and heel raises while I brush my teeth (right after taking my Prozac).

Searching for lessons to lessen the pain.

This would be the episode in which Charlotte gets engaged to Harry, Burger breaks up with Carrie via Post-It, and Samantha fits into skinny jeans. I need to stop finding serendipitous paralells between my life and S&tC reruns. But while we're momentarily on the subject of grasping-at-straws W&GS pop-culture demo-study, how ridiculous is the new "Hail to the V" commercial? Wow.

...and then there's the flying trapeze episode. ...approximately 12 hours after Bridget (of the Bridget's Sexiest Beaches Bridgets) did the same thing. AND THEN THERE'S CHARLOTTE CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATING A "NATURAL[CANDID]" PHOTOSHOOT.

NO KISSING PICTURES: IT'S TACKY.

Feeling: anxious. excited. Terrified that this is yet another one of my definitive promises to myself that’s serves no purpose beyond justifying one “final” fuck-up. Not even…remotely hopeful that it might be? No, that sounds too negative. Um…excited, terrified, I don’t know…just…moreso just sleepy.

Urges: to body-check a lot. Especially after someone told me my cheeks looked puffy. [which borderline made me wanna kill myself/cry/go home “sick”/something really crazy and neurotic and BIG] I weighed myself a bunch today…which is something I haven’t done in awhile (pictures = far more interesting/manipulatable?) to reassurance seek. to avoid. to restrict. to binge/purge. purge. over-exercise. to misspell “exercise” like a retard.

Behaviors: I’m still trying to determine how to rank my cues and resists…what is my standard here: who am I trying to appease? I did not binge. I did not purge. I ate oatmeal for breakfast, had an apple before work, and just polished off a mad schlorp of garlic hummus w celery for dinner. I am pleased with my food choices, but realize I am pleased with those choices because they’re a “preferable” mutation of disordered. I feel like because I didn’t over-indulge, that somehow my day was more on the Win side of things…but, in reality every single thing I’ve done today has been directly or indirectly been guided by some food-related thought…so…I don’t know?

Challenged by: urges

Valued: Correspondence; it’s good to be back in circulation. My friends make me feel important and smart. And loved. And that’s pretty important.

Positive: I am starting. Last time was the last time.

Feeling: overly confident yet completely disgusting and overly exposed. conscious of my flaws but repentant, accepting, and appreciative. hungry. full. so full. silly. giddy. terrified.

Urges: to measure, photograph, compare, body-check, negative self-talk, purge, and restrict. the other 23 hours and 47 minutes of the day? Being as the day started with way too much sunlight pouring in, skipped quickly to a Farmer's Feed Scrambler with pillowy toast, extra mushrooms & onions, and TWO(!) sinfully salty pork products, then precluded work with sweaty, digestive calisthenics....it's been a banbookful.

Behaviors: less than there could've been...aka I can resist?

Challenged by: nagging insecurity...the shit-eth must inevitably hit-eth the fan-eth.

Valued/Learned: I can resist. I have the power to resist. I can change the course of my day at any moment.

Positive: every minute I was living instead of succumbing was better than the alternative.

Feeling: relaxed. settled in. like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

Urges: to waste a fantastic opportunity experiencing fantastic food in order to not feel physically disgusting. to purposely ruin good things in order to expedite the suspension of reality and inevitable scuttle-to-piece-together when it all inevitably implodes.

Behaviors: realistically...wow, nothing. Excellent.

Challenged by: possibilities.

Valued/Learned: goodness exists in a variety of contexts but it all goes to one collective.

Positive: I am starting to understand that collective.

Feeling: agitated and excited and kind of ready to jump out of my own skin. Nothing I seem to do tonight feels “right”…like I should be packing, balancing my checkbook, reading, writing, fixing my nails, figuring out all things school/career/miscellaneous “future”-related shit that I’d much rather put off by doing any number of other banal busywork. …slightly guilty knowing that I’m going to get buckwild on my day off at Door County as if I’ve really earned it or something.lol

Urges: every single one of em tonight. I tried to count my monies from the week and am ::thisclose:: to just saying “fuck it” and letting it accumulate in the empty Bubble Gum ice cream bucket I keep in the freezer. BECAUSE I CANNOT COUNT IT ACCURATELY(enough to stave off the supposed judgement of

Behaviors: I pretty much did everything I could to prevent myself from eating anything of substance today, which was only really challenging before I went to work at the restaurant. I considered a brunch buffet (conveniently located just beyond a Dollar Tree/bucket-for-a-buck store). I considered a bag full of Sugar Free Life-Savers (omgRIGHT??). I considered at least three.x2L Diet Dew. I ended up going with an apple and a swallofull of Banrock Station. Then he called and I felt romantically inspired to rush up despite looming threats of deadly heat lightning…but I turned around and got back home just in time to avoid everything. …and then I ate hummus, recharged, sucked down half a Parliament Light, and arrived in Egg Harbor with just enough time for a shot of Peppermint Schnapps and a few laps in the pool.

Challenged by: feeling too good to be true.

Valued/Learned: maybe this is too good, maybe it’s true…maybe it’s both?

Positive: it could be both.

Feeling: synergetic. Just “jinxed” Salma Hayek in Fool’s Rush In while she spiels on a cliff top in the Grand Canyon. Wow, a hot dog looks terrif right now. How the HELL did a little Mexican girl get one shipped piping hot from New York to Vegas in 1991??

Urges: to restrict [but I followed my breakfast plan] to binge/purge [but I followed my breakfast plan] to binge/purgerestrictrestrictrestrictbinge/purge [but I followed my breakfast plan and things just got easier throughout the day. No, not easier…things just continued after I followed my breakfast plan and didn’t get interrupted by fuck-ups.

Behaviors: body-checking…probably a lot. I’ve been eating without purging and dragging ass on slow nights @TTown – how could I not be a house? I definitely feel like one and am over-justifying, catastrophizing, and finding myself completely consumed by this feeling. I need to check. I really want to find my strings and compare circumfrances. Circumfranci. Circumfranyou. I also really want to order a hot dog from New York. And I’m thinking it would be wise to get my eating down to a consistent, reliable plan lest I really eff things up.

Challenged by: acknowledging hunger or interest in food in front of people. Feeling compelled to bounce on any and all social opportunities after an evening of feeling totally “off.”

Valued/Learned: my conversation, however staggered and un-polished, with Bill the Biker…who drank a pint of Johnny Blood and came back after a nap @the Holiday Inn for an elk burger and a glass of water. I want to be able to bike coast-to-coast across a country when I retire. …sooner would be great, but I I’d like to bank on being at a place in my life where I can do exactly that. Also, perspective is everything. …and is completely subjective. Duh.

Positive: tomorrow is my last day of work before DC :)