I’m a big fan of honesty now. especially since meeting and getting to know someone who’s done (what I thought was) the impossible– knowing everything about me, in complete honesty and openness and all, and still liking, even kind of adoring me– it’s become easier to be myself, nothing held back. I felt stifled by my own preconceptions, my own insecurities (a recurrent theme in people living in developed countries these days), my disbelief that people really care or want to know the truth. so I repeat phrases like “I’ll be honest: …” as if it’s something different. but it’s not different anymore– in fact, when was it ever? when did I really, truly lie?

the answer is not often (at least, not consciously). I started over in this journal because I wanted to lose everything. (there’s something about losing everything that etches, simply, life. but that’s for another day.) because I wanted to learn again. how to write, really write. to be honest but also regain that tone. a characteristic tone. “maybe none of us are original, but that doesn’t mean we’re not meaningful.”

the difference between “honest” and “candid”. that’s what I mean by “I’ll be honest”: let’s be blunt.

here we go…

I’ve eaten mainly mandarins, chocolate, red bean mochi, a little rice with vegetables, and nothing else, and I’ve thought a lot about food today. I took advantage of See’s Candies samples and bought some new groceries from Trader Joe’s, fantasizing about the future almond butter and jam sandwich I’ve dreamed of that will be smeared on slices of cinnamon raisin swirl bread. and though I’m more than satisfied, even more than full (satisfied with yummy food in my tummy is my goal), I do not bear any animosity toward myself for my choices today.

it was never this easy before.

something happened in the start of August the night before I left for Shanghai– I stopped binge eating. since then, I have not gone through a single day during which I gorged myself on unhealthy food I didn’t really, at my core, want to eat, at the end of which, and for days following, I would hate myself for. feel disgusting about. that would sometimes precipitate weeklong self-despising binges.

I used to hate myself. this is a concept nothing new to adolescents; we all experience it at one time or another (or, if we’re lucky to have grown up well-adjusted and really quite happy, then… we don’t).

a couple of people have commented that I have lost weight. I have, and to be blunt, I probably will lose more, once I become healthier (and longer down my road of recovery). I do not want to be skinny to fit anyone else’s ideal– I want to be healthy, and I want to be me in my most natural shape. I’m losing the weight I gained during the darkest times of my life, and gaining back what I lost: the ability to feel. the ability to love. the ability to live.

body image is a tricky thing.

since I was 11 years old and barely 100 pounds a certain two people have commented negatively on my weight, warning me that I was “getting fat(ter)”. and so I did– “feel fat“, that is. also known as feeling like you aren’t good enough; feeling like you aren’t worth it; feeling worthless; feeling like because you don’t fit the so-called beauty ideal of society, you are nothing.

cue drama. the situational dramas I found myself in, over and over again, during high school, a little bit of suicidal intentions and a lot of depression– they all made a rather typical formula for whatever it is: an eating disorder.

after reading several books on eating disorders (mostly those on recovery) I still don’t really know what the phrase really means. but to me, it was laxatives, throwing up, destructive cycles of not eating for three days and then binging out of desperation in hunger for seven, forcing myself to keep food down and realizing I still ate gargantuan amounts to suppress any slightest bit of negative feeling. to me it was numbness. anyone see The Holiday? I couldn’t cry for a long time (like Cameron Diaz’s character). I couldn’t feel anything but starving hungry, sick overstuffed, and the blinding anesthetic of compulsion, obsession. I simply didn’t feel.

making the decision to keep everything I ingest in my body the way it’s supposed to be for food and eating… was a, to put it simply, really difficult decision. but eating disorders aren’t glamorous, they are no romance. they are skipping school to rush home to the bathroom because of the laxatives you just took. no beauty, just a body starved for stability and sustenance.

as a result, the binges– amounts of food several people take several days to eat, let alone one person in just a few hours– stayed in my body. made their destined way through my digestive system, and I grew.

the hardest thing was to not hate myself even more for this growth.

but I don’t mean to make this entry bleak, so I’ll skip out on the not-so-juicy details that I once wrote pages about in senior year in the spirit of the candidness of college application personal statements. so, fast forward.

how did I recover from an eating disorder? how did I go from a miserable, lonely, self-numbed, terribly insecure and self-perceived weak, “fat” girl– to me now, consistently happy and quite carefree, happier than I could have ever imagined a couple of years ago?

how did I recover? how am I recovering?

learning to love myself.

(oh, and eating exactly what I want when I’m hungry, never denying myself any food, and eating only when I’m actually hungry. food is always more delicious that way.)

as in one of my favorite stories by Miguel Ruiz in The Mastery of Love, we all must hold the stars of our own happiness in our own hands, not in anyone (or anything) else’s, and not in the idea that “being thin will make me loved”. it will not. it will not change your life, your personality, or how anyone but superficial people view you. and being loved will not make you happy either.

it’s amazing that we (I’m assuming you do too, if you have an access to a computer and internet) live in developed countries, yet we’re so miserable. many of us in the U.S. (and probably elsewhere too, but I can only speak for my experience right now) are taught by culture– inculcated and indoctrinated, more like– that if we have the “right” look, the “right” clothes, the “right” gas-guzzlers (ahem– cars), and the “right” stuff, we will be happy.

I’m sure most of you already have realized: no, we will not.

we will not be happy being thin. we will not be happy wearing designer clothes. we will not be happy wasting our money on things (often made by poor peasants in factories with toxic fumes, and with various toxins and environmental hazards as well), we will not be happy living the life that society, not our own heart, tells us is “perfect”.

and we won’t be happy binge eating, drinking, snorting or smoking anything to numb ourselves either.

here are (some of) the keys to happiness:
1. LOVE yourself. (this includes BEING yourself.)
2. LOVE others.
3. continue 1 and 2.
4. live your life.

who will read this far? who will stick with my often-long-winded writing through? either way, I wrote this for you. (and for me, too.)

I end with the most recent photo I have taken of delicious food:

돌솥 비빔밥 dolsot bibimbap
..mm, always delicious to me!

in actual goings-on news of the present, I am going to San Diego Wild Animal Park in seven hours! after I go to sleep… and wake up.
I am so… blessed.

read more:

1. emotional eating and every other addiction we use to “escape”
2. the 6 secrets to bouncing back after a binge
3. schwarzwälder kirschtorte