2am

He likes anorexic girls because they don't menstruate. It's a theory. Came to me in a serial-killer-on-the-loose dream. He hated menstruation. Like a trip into the dark ages, brown paper wrapping, hidden and undiscussed, certainly no sex during. I may have been borderline anorexic, I don't know for sure. I never thought of it as anorexic really. Sometimes I didn't eat for days. Sometimes we didn't have much food and I gave the boys my share. But I was never hungry. I only ate when I felt hunger, or when I felt like I would faint if I didn't. Mostly when I felt weak and couldn't function, because I never felt hungry.

I didn't think of it as purposefully starving myself. My face looks skeletal in some pictures, hollowed out, black holes around my eye sockets, teeth jutting from my chin. Dead woman walking. My hairdresser said she'd never seen such a skinny neck on someone before. I've never forgotten that, to this day encircling my neck with my fingers to see if it's normal or too skinny. My fingers touch. That's normal, isn't it? I went out to a birthday dinner with my family and many who hadn't seen me in a few months were shocked and appalled by my jutting bones. I didn't see it when I looked in the mirror. In the mirror I saw a fat girl, a girl who didn't need to eat. The last time I weighed myself, I weighed 108 pounds. I know I went lower. I can't imagine what that looked like. Is that the story the photos tell?

I may have been anorexic, but I never stopped menstruating. True it was hardly the hassle it's become, it came and went quickly and without incident. I've been thinking all the pain and ordeal of late is because I'm getting older, but the dream reminds me of ana and I see nothing was as it should have been then. I might not have thought of it as anorexic, but what else do you call voluntary starvation because you feel fat?

I sent Christmas cards this year. I mailed Christmas cards to everyone I had an address for--dozens of people--and I did it the first week of December like all the books say to do. It is the first time ever that I've had my head on straight enough to reach out to family and friends and just say, "Hey, Merry Christmas." I'm not brooding. I'm not worried. I'm not wondering why my life's in the shitter or where HE is or what comes next. I'm at peace. I have a pretty good idea of where I'm going and I'm excited by whatever happens. I'm okay. I mean really truly okay. I'm even looking forward to New Year's Eve. And I don't care that I won't have a special someone to hug and kiss and gaze into my eyes with all the promise of 2007. I've never looked forward to New Year's Eve more. Or the holidays in general. I want to visit. I want to connect. I want to celebrate--eat, drink and be merry. I want to laugh until the tears stream down my face. More than anything I want to laugh. I need to laugh.

It's been a long road, many bumps, some crashes into the ditch, but I'm here still and I'm happy and I've never felt more like I can handle anything that comes my way.

Mood: fine
Drinking: apple juice & coffee with skim
Listening To: OK, Mutemath
Hair: when did my hair get so feather-like soft?