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Not all breakups break us

The morning I met Sarah, I was dying. I ordered a cafe latte from the cafe on campus because that’s what she made. To compensate, I didn’t eat anything until late that evening. Fortunately it had been made with skimmed milk and not whole, so I was able to have dinner.

With a pandemic raging around me and anorexia screaming inside me, I needed Sarah. She was light personified – golden brown eyes, drop earrings, stars on her T-shirt, a dimple in one cheek. She texted me after our second date to tell me I was “gentle” et “cute”.

I decided to believe her because I knew I would die if I didn’t.

Room in my life again

I didn’t get better all of a sudden. We met in the spring and the summer was long. I continued to run 8 kilometers every day. I stuck to my vegetarianism. I did sit-ups every night before going to bed.

But Sarah kept telling me that I was beautiful, smart and funny. She kept assuring me that she wouldn’t mind if I gained weight. She gently convinced me to enter the healing pool where she had been doing laps for a year. In the fall, I had assembled a team of several professionals. By winter, I had regained a normal weight. The following spring, I felt fine. What struck me the most during this healing process was how much space there was in my life. I had spent years being terrified of taking up too much physical space in the world but once I started living in a body that was the size it wanted, the emptiness stretched out in all directions. .

Eating disorders consume your whole life. I spent every waking moment thinking about food, body, and exercise. When the voice of my anorexia died down, I was able to think about what I wanted. I was able to fill this empty space with dreams. The possibilities intoxicated me.

At the same time, I was very much in love with Sarah. He’s the most fiercely nice person I’ve ever met. She got up early almost every Sunday to go see me sing at church. She worked in a nursing home in her free time. She made a shell necklace for my mother. She made me crochet mittens when I told her my hands were cold in the winter. She remembered everything I said to her. She always put me first.

A healed new me

My healing culminated in a production of Camelot by Lerner and Loewe in which I played Lancelot, the strongest knight in the land. I slaughtered hordes of men on stage, the queen fell in love with me. Any audience would have laughed

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