Redux
by Zoeyjane
The past year, god. The past two, fucking hell. I didn’t think that so much would change about me. I didn’t know there really was a me.
I didn’t think that I would know what happiness meant, save for an absence of anger for few fleeting moments. Forgiveness was never a possibility. Accomplishment, a far-off daydream that would never come to fruition.
For me to revel in motherhood, self and possibility; to call myself a writer when people asked me what I do; to love people, despite that possibility that they might leave one day… none of that could have ever happened until I woke the fuck up and saw the morbid artwork I’d created as a protest to the hell that I was ensconced in.
It still rings in my ears that two years ago, a waistline as wide as mine is wouldn’t become okay. The lies I created for myself, that I could never enjoy food, creating it, presenting it to others. That simple recipes, chopped and whipped with my own hands, crafted from ingredients fresh and about to spoil could nourish my soul and my body.
I’ve become, quite literally, an altogether different entity from the one I was in the spring of 2008 and before. No longer is self-hate my motivator, and I don’t seek to destroy. Creation is the new deity, and I find it in small measures like the curling of my eyelashes in the bathroom mirror while I sing to Zoë.
Angst? What angst? I’m all over Zen, baby.
I’m tripping out on the twisty gravel I’ve traipsed over, and all of the sights along the way have blurred as I keep looking forward, into the horizon. For the first time in my life, there’s a constant in that orb around the next dozen bends:
I’m gonna be okay. I’ll be better than fine. I’ll be my own guiding star, and the comforts of home are everywhere, if I choose to repurpose their imagery.
