Walking through the snow towards the canteen the other night, a flash of moving light to the east caught my eye. I swiftly glanced upwards, and a tingle passed over my skin. A shooting star, leaping down from the heavens, descending towards the earth in a tiny orb of silver radiance.
But that was only the start of the show. As I watched, transfixed, allowing what I had just seen to sink into my consciousness, I suddenly realised that the whole sky was aglow. Given the clearness of the night sky that particular evening, the Northern Lights were given the opportunity to manifest their full sublimity. Pulsing riverlets of soft, glowing colours – aqua green, predominantly; interspersed with rose pink and mauvey-purple – snaked themselves across the sky’s infinite expanses, some of them fading and diminishing as I watched, others growing stronger, throbbing like the artery of a quickening heartbeat. It was minus thirty, but at that moment I was totally oblivious to the cold. All other perceptions fell away and retreated from me as I stood absorbed in my spectating of this wonder.
My experience last night stirred many different sentiments in my breast. Awe at the natural beauty existent in nature, in this frozen wilderness so far from my home in which the aesthetic was palpably present despite its raw harshness. appreciation of the moment of being here and now; terror, at the recognition of my own smallness and insignificance as a human being, in the face of nature’s omnipotence. But also there was a feeling of enormous and powerful transition. Standing there, I could physically feel the potency of the change unfolding in the skies above me.
It turned my thoughts toward myself, my own life; toward the changes that had occurred within the own sphere of my existence, this year. In 2017, my life path had passed through so many new and unfamiliar landscapes; had taken me to places in which I had I had been challenged and tested and forced to confront my deepest and most paralysing of fears. There had been moments of sheer terror, of discomfort, of deafening and crippling anxiety. There had been times when it seemed all my hope had receded, like the final few dregs of water in a sun-baked desert. There had been times when I had told myself that I could not physically go on.
But 2017 has been a year of a change. And just like those dancing lights in that breathtaking northern sky, these changes have ultimately, been as exquisite as they have been terrifying.
And I, ultimately and crucially, have been altered and fundamentally changed as a result of all these struggles.
And now I know it is time for me to look forwards towards the new year, and reflect upon the other ways in which I can nurture positive progress and personal change. To look back on the year that seems to have slipped by me now so quickly, like darting troat in a stream. And in doing so to recognise what I have achieved and what I have overcome, and to use that recognition of my own strength to power me forwards now in my ongoing journey up the long and steep mountain.
And that is of what my posts over the new year are going to consist. Looking back and looking forwards. Acknowledging the changes I have already made and reflecting upon the ways in which further changes need to be made.
2018 has the potential to be just like the beautiful Aurora. Bright and beautiful and full of glowing colour. And changing. Ever changing. And this time I know I am ready. I am ready to embrace the change. 💗
2017 💚
I do apologise if some of the details of this are inaccurate…I will have to scoop deep into my memories in order to write these posts 😉 and though in many ways last Janaury seems less than a heartbeat ago…simultaneously, it seems like a whole millennium has passed since then. And so much has changed and varied since that very month!
Anyway, time to focus on the task in hand. 💕💕
January
The new year often marks a new beginning for many; a time of potential renewal and change, of new beginnings and fresh starts.
And since Janaury 2017 represented the beginning of what was my eleventh year with my eating disorder, it was with some great earnestness that I regarded the new year and its associations of renewal. And perhaps with some urgency. A new year meant I was another year older. Another year closer to hitting that crucial 30s mark; when peak bone mass would be achieved. Seven years remained for me to get my period and make my own oestrogen, and enable my irreversibly brittle bones to stengthen themselves as much as was possible. For once I hit that tirty mark, there would be no other chances.
Following my relapse in September, I found myself in that familiar state of ambivalence once again. There was that part of me which longed to recover, and was trying to make me turn onto the path of recovery, to commit myself to the painful and difficult process of gaining weight once again. And then there was that part of me which recoiled from doing so. And everytime I made a half-hearted attempt at grasping the reins and taking control of my recovery once again, it wouldn’t be long before I found myself wavering, losing grip, and then dropping them onto the ground once again.
But in the early days of 2017 I could feel something builidng up inside me again. Something I had been lacking for what seemed like such a long time.
That being that raw, vehement determination to beat anorexia; and find that beautiful place in which I could blossom like a new bluebell in a meadow. 💗
