Dearest Reader,
Things are stirring these weeks. Under the surface still. As yet, unclear.
I’m neck deep in reworking a chapter on addiction in general and anorexia in particular. I’m neck deep in questioning what the fuck I’m doing with my life.
I mentioned last week that this place of writing happened to overlap being 47 and getting pictures taken for my business. I mentioned too that getting pictures taken is one of the most triggering things I know.
The day after, I came upon online comments about me…by someone who dislikes me (like, a lot).
When I say “came upon,” what I actually mean is that, against all good advice and all better knowing, I went digging. What I discovered left me sobbing for hours.
The comments were anonymous, of course (as such comments often are). Full of projection and assumptions. Empty of courage and compassion.
So, after many tears, I’m sitting with it. I’m practicing with it. I’m writing about it. I’m asking what it has to teach me. I’m doing what I need to take care. I’m weighing whether staying in certain situations is worth it.
Very possibly, it is not. When you’re in recovery, you learn that recovery comes first.
We all have lots to learn as humans. We’re all working with more than meets the eye. Please show up with kindness. Please realize you likely don’t know the half of it.
And, if it’s helpful, I invite you to seek solace from two places I’m leaning into this week.
First, the Serenity Prayer, by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971):
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Second, wisdom from A Course in Miracles:
In my defencelessness I am free.
I’ll place some of today’s rough, as yet unfinished writing below. It veers away from prescriptive nonfiction and into the weeds of high school.
Meanwhile, wishing you all you need,
Dana
For someone drowning in fear of too much within and without—for someone born into unpredictable, volatile surrounds mirrored in an unpredictable, volatile world—anything that promises control holds a hook. Obsessive-compulsive patterning, overwork and perfectionism, restriction and elimination of food and relationships. In addiction’s magic moment, those bring relief. In addition’s magic moment, those feel essential.
This is where I landed. It was the early nineties. I was in high school. There was another love with another boy who was different than the first Jeff but shared his first name.