Disarmed, I am

These are thoughts of a morning between my bulimia and my present being. About mindfulness and the power of being in the now.

It was still noon and I was already slipping through the hole. I knew how that was going to end that night. I wouldn't be able to stop myself.

The next day, I woke up with my eyes so swollen that I could hardly open them. My head throbbing from the inside and zero disposal to leave the bed. But yeah, by this point in my life I had already learned that the only way to get out of these moments of sorrow, starts exactly by doing something, whatever it might be.

So I turned around my lazy body and I flipped my legs out of the bed. I looked to the dog, sleeping on the floor, and I felt envious of that serenity. I sighed with indolence and then I turned around, again to the middle of the bed. I felt even more miserable while striving to open my eyes with pain, trying to focus the ceiling.

A few minutes later I made my second try, with the legs out of the bed, and facing the dog again. She turns her sweet eyes at me and starts wagging her tail. That made me smile.

I headed to the bathroom and glanced at the mirror to see the shame reflected on my face after an intense evening of repeated binge and vomit. I looked like a puffer fish with lustrous skin. My distended belly was full of air, my mouth dry and my gums extremely sensitive. At least, I didn’t hate myself anymore. It was more like a granny looking to her grandchild, after a fight with schoolmates, and saying “Oh dear, come! Let’s take care of you, wash your face and change those clothes, everything is OK now”.

Commiseration. Yet, not the feeling I was looking for.

Just before getting into the shower, I remembered something. I went to the fridge and took my gel mask (I only remember that it exists on these particular days) and returned to the bed. I put the mask on my puffy eyes hoping that some miracle could happen in 5 minutes. It didn’t. Deep breath…

I finally found the courage to get into the shower and wash off some of the heaviness of my oppressive existence that morning.

And for a brief moment, I came back to myself again, to that present moment.

I became the body that feels the warm touch of the water. I was the lungs filled with steamy air. I was a profound relaxation under the emptiness of the mind. That permanent burden… I felt all the never-ending dialogues that saturate my head going away.

I don’t know when I’m going to get lost again, maybe tonight. But it is good to be able to go back to that place of freedom once in a while.