Sometimes we take leaps of faith, and sometimes we take tiny steps. Even the tiniest step can require a lot of courage. Like climbing out of denial and admitting my real need for help. Like trusting someone who said I wouldn’t die from eating a bowl of pasta, and taking another bite. Like reaching for a pen or a yoga mat when what I really wanted to do was reach for a cookie. Like searching for a smile in my heart when my mind was busy screaming about how sad and serious I should be.
Because the truth is, while bulimia is a devastating illness I would wish upon no one, it has taught me about the fragility of life and the vital need for compassion. Today, I’m quick to love and throw my arms around any girl who has ever stared at a puddle of her own vomit and questioned the point of her life. Or who has ever let a Photoshopped image on a glossy magazine preach to her about her own self-worth, her own beauty. Or who has ever been afraid to face the pain and suffering, within and outside of herself.Today, I’m quick to love.
So many nights, I stared out at the inky black ocean, believing that if I could only learn how to eat again and keep my hands out of my throat, that would be enough. I prayed hard and desperately to God and the sun and the moon and the ocean and the universe and every shelter dog I’d ever met, as if they were all genies, that I wouldn’t ask for anything more.But perhaps God isn’t a collection of genies, and perhaps it’s okay to hope for more than relief. To hope big. To hope for Sunny’s limitless capacity to love.
When I was around Sunny, there was no time to dream about some easier, prettier, more comprehensible, less fucked-up existence. Now was all we had: Sunny lifting her eyes to meet mine. Cupping water in my own hands to rinse the blood off her head. Sunny’s tongue on my nose, her tail thudding on my leg. The reach of my hand across her spine. The words of comfort and rage and fear and sadness and hope that I spoke only in her presence.
So many stories lived behind my eyes. I carried the people I hurt, the lies I told, my sick relationship with food, wherever I went. My mind was rarely grounded in the moment. My past was heavy and constant; my thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. But when I was with the shelter dogs, I didn’t have anything to hide. Sometimes what existed behind my eyes fell away. I wasn’t bulimic or unlovable or fat or a liar. I was a part of life again. I was an observer, and to more than just the dark cyclical patterns of the mind—here was the strong, sturdy presence of another—the breath moving in and out of Angel’s chest, the beating of her heart, the force of life moving through her and through me.