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All these attempts at building something new to write makes my mind wander.

I know there are more people in this world in much more pain than I am. I know how it is to live inside the prison of your own head.

I do not like to wax poetics about the misery of it. I am a horrible poet anyway. I just think allowing yourself to stew in your own misery accomplishes nothing. Some may get some pretty words out of it, but at what cost?

We all have vices to make the days more bearable, but I do not see the point in spending yet another night completely gone, your head not even attached to your body anymore. Whenever I've hit bottom (it's true, it's happened a few times), I confess I turned to substances so that I did not have to feel.

My vice as and I suppose, continues to be, food. Not surprising since I am a woman, and we have more of a tendency to eat emotionally. I used to hate food as much as I loved it. I loved it because it gave me a rush; it would fill me up and sedate me when nothing else would. I hated it because of the fact that it felt like the one true thing I could count on. It felt like the only tangible thing in my life that would never judge me, humiliate me or criticize me. It was just always there for me, waiting at me to feed the self-loathing machine I had created inside myself.

I have finally come to a point where I do not depend on food, and I do not hate it. I love it, but I can say no to it finally. It does not have a grip on me, it is not my only source of comfort.

I have been reckless in my life. I have done things that I am not proud of, things that nothing I do can erase from my psyche. There are things that I have seen that could stamp out the humanity in me if I had allowed it.

There would always come a time when I stopped it.

I do not understand what it would be like to not have that voice in your head telling you, "Wake up you fool! Stop being so stupid."

I also do not understand how one cannot take the simple beauties this life has to offer as a sign things will be OK.

Maybe it's because I felt God's presence the day my daughter was born. The very first time she drew in breath, I could feel it reverberate throughout my body. It plucked me like a violin string, and I had helped start the beginning of another cycle of life. With so much pain, so much energy I had to draw from reserves that were unknown until then, I was transformed.

The hunger that I had always felt was sated, the hollow in my heart filled, and I was complete.

Learn more about this author, Katy Andrews.
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