I Miss......

I'm thinking a lot about London today and my old life and how I used to be. It’s not what I am meant to be doing, because yet again its dwelling on the past, but there is so much I miss right now.

I miss being able to pop to Oxford Street on wondering around, I miss random trips to the V&A museum and National Portrait Gallery, I miss being able to be happy about the most random things and ringing my mum about the funniest things I notice when I’m around London. In excitement about something happening on the South Bank. I miss earning money and spending it without feeling guilty. I miss going to Selfridges food hall to look for delicious treats and to spoil myself and friends and not counting the calories in jelly beans.

I miss wondering around Brent Cross and Westfield and dreaming about what I’d buy, but now I wonder round town wondering how many calories I burnt and what I am NOT going to eat. I miss the buzz of excitement I got when I realised I didn’t need to use a map to find my way around the underground. I miss how grown up I felt. I miss it being the norm to go to the pub on press night for a few Malibu’s and just order nuts and crisps with the boys, because I wanted them and it was a ritual! I miss how I was confident to walk to Kings Cross or hail a cab home at midnight. To my OWN home. I miss how I relied on NO ONE I could sort everything out myself, paid my rent, I brought my shopping, food I liked. I ruled my life.

I was INDEPENDENT. 

I had a career, I had my life and I had my friends. I didn’t mind going for days without speaking to my parents or months without coming home. I decided what I did and when I did it. I didn’t need to answer questions or feel guilty for not getting dressed on my days off and sitting around. I miss how exciting everything felt. I miss telling my parents things, rather than asking them. I miss having lots to talk about and to be proud of and even more I miss having things to look forward to. I miss randomly to gigs , finding new bands or wondering around Soho and China Town on a Saturday night.

Most of all I miss me. I miss my drive, my determination and my inability to accept second best. I miss my creativity, my excitement for art, architecture and design, for writing and for publishing. I miss my excitement for noticing little things around London, like finding Pudding Lane’ or buildings I had never noticed before and then my thirst to find out more about them.

During all these memories I know I enjoyed them, but I know I also felt I could be better, I could be skinnier, I could be more in control, I could be closer to perfect. I could have earned more, ate less, live in a nicer flat, have a better boyfriend. But I suppose I was so distracted by all these amazing things, and anorexia didn't have the upper hand that I could push these thoughts aside and get distracted by life and little amazing things. I distracted myself from myself to keep strong. 

“I might be fat, but I can go to Selfridges at Christmas and feel warm inside sipping a gingerbread latte (with cream) and being happy because I love shopping or I might not be perfect but I love to people watch and dream sitting in Starbucks with a good book” I was either busy enjoying or stressing about life and didn't give Ana chance to butt in too much, although she was there her thoughts did NOT CONSUME my life like now. I suppose the problem was always going to be when living like this caught up with me. This year it has. 

Ana has taken all this from me and given me noting in return, other than a stupid number on the scales and an unhealthy need for control. She hasn’t even given me the perfect body or the confidence she promised for all that time. She definitely hasn’t given me the ability to appreciate life or made me anymore likely to fall in love. She has managed to twist the once positive parts of my personality and made them in to her best weapons against me. I need to get these back. I need to use my determination, my control, my drive, in my favour not hers. I know I do.

If I am EVER going to have ANY independence ever again, if I am EVER going to live MY life again I need to. I want to feel excited again about stupid things, to relax, to be random and silly with friends without the inner monologue from Ana stopping me being me. I want to be independent again; I want to be able to ring my friends with good news, with exciting things to tell them and without having to feel like it’s an effort to concentrate on what they are saying. I don’t want to feel like I have to moan, but I do. I want to make plans to see friends without feeling like it’s an effort.

I think today I am starting to realise just how much of my life, my soul, my personality I have given to Ana in my quest to be perfect and fix everything with my weight and body, how much I have given to have this ‘control’ and how much I have sacrificed to be thin.

Truth is I have lost everything and that alone make me feel unarmed and weak and pathetic in this fight. How was I stupid enough to give all that up? For Ana? I need to find a way to get my weapons back to help fight Ana and get my life back. And to stop that bitch using my own strengths against me.