People will tell you that money makes the world go round. This isn’t true. Food makes the world go round. Everything, our entire life, all of our schedule and day, is set on food. In the morning, you get up, and you eat. Halfway through the day, you interrupt everything you are doing, and eat. Then at night, your family sits together to talk, to laugh, to eat. You go on a date, you eat. You go to a party, you eat. You drive down the road; you see buildings built to sell you food. You see billboards proclaiming food, food food. Food saturates our society. Food saturates our body.
Being anorexic is like trying to run in the opposite direction of the world. In the morning, I have no set mark to start my day. At lunch, I look on as others eat. This food calls to me. Tempting. Then dinner comes, both an internal and external battle in something I know as World War Three. I long for food. The taste, the texture. The need to swallow something. And voices call out at me. Eat, eat. Eat for us. You need food. You are underweight. Eat. Some days in willing unrestraint, I eat. It stops my dizzy swaying. It calms my buzzing skin. Then later, my stomach swells, my hips bloat, the bones disappear. Lines race across my thighs. The scale rises. I am ugly. I am fat.
So for now, I can make this go away. I can be beautiful. I am sick, but this is all I know.
I do not eat breakfast. I will resist my lunch. I can throw up dinner and lie full on to their faces.
My lips turn blue, my hands trace of ice. My heartbeat is slowed, blood pressure dropping.
But I can be beautiful. And I can run this race.