Hello, internet world. I never thought I'd be the girl who "blogs", but I am feeling pretty damn inspired tonight. I want this blog for myself and anyone who may be interested in reading whatever the hell I have to ramble about. I titled this blog "Beauty in the Breakdown" because that is what best describes what has happened to me over the last few years. I am now an open book and have been "broken open" as I had an amazing woman tell me once.
I am biting the bullet and will write about what inspires me, pisses me off, and about where I have been and where I am going. My thoughts on issues I have faced, what I think is beautiful and inspiring, news articles (since I am an absolute news junkie), health issues and political ramblings... who I am in a nutshell.
I hope to talk and open the dialogue about the issues I have been faced with since graduating high school - health issues, wellness, recovering from the disease of compulsive overeating and bulimia, and moving on from the scars I felt I was destined to live with and opening the dialogue concerning my own experience, strength and hope. Moving on and creating my OWN life - or learning to live. There is beauty in the breakdown, and the ugly can be truly inspiring for us. It's interesting that just a few years ago I was intent on wanting to be picture perfect, yet now I'm a completely open book. So what is my biggest issue? What led me to being in a 12 step program for an eating disorder at 22 years old, yet being the happiest I have ever been? I lost myself to this addiction (among many other things) over the last few years, and although I was devastated that I wasn't where I should be in college, I have grown enormously from my personal trials since 2007. Now I believe I am getting to know who I am without a shadow of a doubt, and what a blessing that is. Here is a passage from an amazing book that led me to look at myself a little closer:
"We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers. We carry the old world of guilt - center of families, keeper of relationships, caretaker of friends - with the new world ambition - rich, independent, powerful. We are the daughters of feminists who said 'You can be anything' and we heard 'You have to be everything.' ... We grow hungrier and hungrier with no clue what we are hungry for. The holes inside of us grow bigger and bigger... A starving daughter lies at the center of each perfect girl. The face we show to the world is one of beauty, maturity, determination, strength, willpower, and ultimately, accomplishment. But beneath the facade is a daughter - starving for attention and recognition, starving to justify her own existence.
The starving daughter within us annoys us, slows us down, embarrasses us. She is the one who doubts our ability to handle a full-time job and full-time school. She gets scared, lonely, homesick. She drinks too much, cries too much, is nostalgic and sappy. When neglected, she seeks comfort in cookies, coffee ice cream, warm bread - transgressions that make the perfect girl in us angry.
Young women struggle with this duality. The perfect girl in each drives forward, the starving daughter digs in her heels. The perfect girl wants excellence, the starving daughter calm and nurturance. The perfect girl takes on the world, the starving daughter shrinks from it. It is a power struggle between two forces, and at the center, almost every time, is an innocent body."
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