I had a series of revelatory thoughts while on a walk today. I tend to think of things in the Big (capital B) picture when I'm on walks - it is my time to reflect on the insignificance of all the troubles in my life, as they are dwarfed by the magnitude of the Universe. I shall try to recollect my thoughts here - for reading later, or merely because the act of writing is therapeutic.
I am in Colorado right now - one week into my stint as a Young Artist with Opera Colorado. Colorado happens to be my most favorite place in the world, but I found myself today feeling oddly lonesome on my day off. It's not all that odd actually - I am away from Brendon. But what I was feeling was a more existential melancholy. You see - I have spent my life in the grip of a series of obsessions. It is something inherent to my psyche I think. I have spoken to several people about the psychological connection between my current obsessive interest in my operatic career and my former bout of Anorexia that was characterized by an obsession with food. Though my current "obsession" is surely healthier, and I think I have it on a sustainable level, I cannot shake the feeling occasionally that it would be such a relief to cast off the burden of this need to fixate on something until it consumes my life.
When I was a young child, I was free of this. I spent my life up until 5th grade under the glorious veil of ignorance - days felt endless, opportunities boundless, and the future infinite. In the blink of an eye, I woke up. Peculiar though - "waking up" has always had metaphorical ties to some sort of Enlightenment, like that in Plato's "Den" - but in my case, I am inclined to wonder if I was not in fact more enlightened beforehand. Instead I awoke into the dim world of adulthood, where one becomes concerned with superficial frivolities such as one's appearance, or the way one is perceived by others. I was never, however, able to retreat fully into the dim, gray world to which adults subject themselves - perhaps I would be happier if I had? Then at least I could settle into a different ignorance - and ignorance in which one fusses over what outfits to wear and what dates to go on and then drinks oneself into a stupor on the weekend, marching blindly and complacently to the grave without hesitating long enough to feel anxious about the impermanence of it all.
Instead, I awoke into a sort of dusk-world, on the threshold between enlightenment and banality.
In the wake of my Anorexia, I often reflected on its beginning. What led me to that place? When did it start? I have already authored a separate essay that goes into great detail on the particular facets that I recal spurring me into this choice. Right now, however, I am considering one particular memory. It was the beginning of Summer, it was reasonably hot and quite muggy out, the sky was overcast, but not dark, and I was out for a walk around birch meadow field. This moment is etched into my mind because of what I was feeling - nothing at all. It was a very confusing feeling because up until that point, whenever I felt unhappy, it was a sort of active unhappiness. It stemmed from logical triggers in my life - from relationships, events, things that hurt but were real and tangible, and therefore could, at least in theory, be changed for the better. This, though - this feeling ate at my insides because it had no particular source or purpose. It left me confounded in a world that had somehow become quite meaningless while I wasn't paying attention. From that point on, I introduced meaning into my life. The first way was attempts at physically bettering myself. Improving my personal fitness was a solid goal toward which I could strive. But when that left me feeling hopeless, I turned to controlling my diet. I never thought I was fat - I just needed some piece of driftwood to cling to - some rule to give my life purpose. Maybe that's what some people get from religion.
The privilege reflected in this "malady" is not lost on me. I recognize that I am whining about an existential boredom that most people don't have the luxury of experiencing because they have to work hard just to get by, and survival, let alone comfort, is always a shining beacon of purpose. I feel guilty about this fact, and expect no pity for the situation I was in then, It was a spoiled thing to feel. But I felt it.
The day of my release from the hospital post-Anorexia began a period of rejoicing in my soul. By being given explicit orders to eat quite as much as I wanted and more, I let go of the grip that was holding my heart hostage, and spent the next weeks in utter delight and freedom - living genuinely and fully as I did when I was a child. But the mind always catches up. For years, the shadow of my eating disorder stalked me. Though I knew I was never going to go down that road again, it manifested itself in other ways. Though I sought to maintain a healthy weight, I did so while obsessively counting calories, and began obsessively exercising as well. I was in great shape, and this pursuit was, at least, done in a manner that was physically healthy for my body. But nonetheless, it ate at my psyche. I spent every day counting and working out and counting some more - how much wasted mental energy went into my arithmetic?
These habits I broke when I first met Brendon and Laura and reconnected with Jared at the start of my Senior year at IC.
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