A month too long

I just got back from Portugal, and I'm tired. Weight loss has happened. I'm now back down to 147 lbs, which feels positively surreal, but I'm happy about it. I'm back on the restricting train. I was abroad with my mum, her boyfriend, her son, my sister, and Caro. It was lovely. We swam, played tennis, went to the beach, and ate high-protein, nutritious European meals. There was no room for bingeing or useless overeating at night, because I was around someone all the time. Is it too soon to say I might be over bingeing? Because I haven't binged since before we left for LA, at the end of June, and that is a very long time for me.

With regret, I've also found myself drifting away from this blog. I am so out of touch with this world, I've forgotten how salubrious it can feel to get everything out in writing. I did write on holiday - pages and pages, although I'm not entirely sure if they mean anything, or say anything remotely important about what's been happening. I don't know if any old followers still read this journal, but if you are one of those long-time readers of mine, you'll remember who Rebecca was, in all her twisted glory. For the new ones, Rebecca was a friend I had back at school, and we had a very complex and intense friendship made almost impossible to maintain due to respective eating disorders, and the competition/destruction that arose between us because of them. Early 2012 we parted ways, right around the time I was in hospital, and none of us ever heard a word from her again.

When I was LA, I received a message from her. It was long and rambly and apologetic, and she went into excessive detail about how bad she felt about leaving, how she was off to McGill in August and needed to make amends before she left for good. I was shell-shocked, to say the least, We stroke up a conversation, and we ended up pouring out to each other. She suggested meeting up in the last week of July, and with a nervous excitement, I agreed it would be good to see each other. On the day, she stood me up, with no word since explaining what happened. It did exactly what Caro warned me would happen: it fucked me up inside. And I've been slightly fucked up ever since, especially since learning that she and Charlie are now incredibly close - a disheartening, off-kiltering, jitter-inducing nugget of information.

But moving on from that - I'm concentrating on the good things in my life. I love my family. I love them so, so much - and I love that my family keeps growing as the months go on. I'm off to uni at the end of September, which I am incredibly excited (and nervous) about, but I know it'll be a fantastic experience, and I'll finally be able to knuckle down to work at a subject I love, not to mention meet some new people. And, strangely, I feel like I have control of my weight for the first time in a while. I'm  thrilled not to be in the high 150s anymore. Looking back, I don't know how I let myself out of the house. And while 147 is a number I've always considered high, it feels very comforting to be back at this goalpost. Because I know that I've gone from 147 to 144 to 140 very easily in the past - the proof is in this blog. And I will do that again.

I'm definitely planning on updating more from now on. I'm doing 600 calories a day for now, and it helps to chart it up somewhere, to mark progress.

I don't know if anyone will read this, or be interested, seeing as I've been gone so long, and my past updates have been extremely sporadic. But it would be great to see if there are any of you still out there. If you are, let me know.

xxx