FadeOut

I guess its 8:30am. Kids are shouting next door while as their frantic mother tries to get them in the car for school. I wake up alone in our queen size bed, not woken by the sounds but because of the time, programmed within my body like clockwork. Time to get up, put on my ugh boots and plan the day ahead.
I wish I could say that I look forward to a normal day. Clean the house, wash some clothes, have a shower. Meet a friend for lunch, read a book, take the dog for a walk. Go to work, do my shift with a smile, come home with a smile. Kiss my fiance, cook dinner together, snuggle up on the couch. Talk about our day and how satisfyingly normal it is.
Thats my imaginary life. This morning, like every morning I stress about how little I can achieve in one day. I think of phone calls I needed to make weeks ago, huge piles of laundry, forgotten friends, ignored emails. Then I'll worry about my heart, beating irregularly inside me. I want to fix it but I know that today I'll make it worse. I dont want to but, like clockwork, it will all unfold as usual.
Pushing it all aside I think about avoiding food today and having a negative calorie day. 'What happened to my control?' I used to have it all. More than the cool composure I have on display, I used to feel it in every thought and every movement I made. Not for a second would I let in those destructive thoughts that would cause my composure to crumble and my control to implode upon itself. Now I lose it every day and it shows. Every time I think I can be normal and have a meal I am overcome with an anxiety so intense I want to run from myself.
I talk to girls that enjoy this struggle and cling to anorexia as their identities. They tell me how miserable life is and how they need their eating disorder. I feel for them but wish they would use sense, just look at themselves and at reality. I feel for them but I am different. I know anorexia is not my identity just like I know that its the obsessing and guilt and self abuse that makes me and these other girls miserable. An eating disorders doesnt make me special, just sick and confused. I would do anything to free myself from it forever.

So today, like every day, I set out to be normal.