A few months ago, I felt for the first time that I didn't want to live in my body, and for the first time - in saying that - I wasn't emphasizing my body, I was emphasizing "in." I didn't want to live in my body.

This doesn't make a great deal of sense, when I think about it. I've spent the past two years trying to be ok with my reflection in the mirror, playing with my appearance, challenging my perception, learning to feel good about what I can do in my body, so I don't stay so focused on how it looks. I have an eating disorder, so how it looks to me tends to be pretty distorted anyway...

And for a long time, I was ok with this. I was ok with shaping the wardrobe and hairstyles of the girl in the mirror to better reflect the girl I'm becoming. I was ok with learning to dance (when no one's watching) and ride a bike again - learning to feel good about the post-aerobic exhaustion that had nothing to do with hypergymnasia, that left me sprawled on the couch with a large glass of water and a smile - visions of calories far from my head. These lessons - that my body is strong, that my body is capable, that my body keeps me aware of my limits - have been good ones, but still ticking away in the back of my brain is the awareness that when it comes to who I am "body" is still lowest on the totem pole. (Spirit, heart, mind, body...) It's not about shame so much anymore; it's rare that I hate this body of mine, but over the course of my recovery, my body is something I've learned to "tolerate." Loving what I could do in my body eventually replaced obsesing over my appearance. Focusing on the beauty inside supposedly made the imperfections I saw in my reflection less important. I'm not sure why it's been this way. It's true that a part of my disease - the eating disorder - attacks my body, and so in recovery, I've spent most of my time shielding against that attack, not learning how to live through the form itself. This disease also attacked my mind, though. I've said a thousand times that the power of my eating disorder would have been almost nil, if it could not so easily convince me of its logic. It attacked my mind with false interpretations of the world, horrible misunderstandings of myself, and endless justifications for the pain I suffered (at its hand - not that I was allowed to know that then.) In recovery, my mind has been a somewhat invaluable tool. I've been able to replace the apparent logic of an eating disorder with truer forms, ones that sustain where the ed dismantled and destroyed. I'm learning, slowly, how to use my mind to my advantage, how to trust and take pride in its processes, and how to feel that, when speaking or writing intellectually, I'm truly expressing *myself.* Why isn't it the same with my body? Why is my body still something I shyly work around - its occasional signals or benefits downplayed before I start to think about it (think about my body!) again? At best, I'm told, "your body is the temple which houses your spirit." I'm supposed to accept my body, not on its on terms, but on the terms of what it protects. I'm told that the good parts of me - my heart, spirit, personality - live *in* my body. They don't include my body. The gifts are inside, and my body- basically- is the packaging.

The more I think about it, the more insane it seems (and the more insane it feels, to my skin, to my muscles, to my nerves and bones.) I've had a tough few days remembering a friend lost to this disease, and as I've been crying for her, I continuously think she's "gone" only to remember experiences that suggest (and times I've strongly believed) otherwise. I start to restate then, and realize, she's physically gone. Her body is gone. And the loss of that, even if it's just that, has been so devastating. I can't touch her now. I can't see her move. I can't brush against her or watch the shadows move around her as she plays in light. Her spirit (top of my personal totem pole) is still strong, still present, and yet, I can *forget* that in the intensity of mourning her body. Why? How is it possible that the same aspect of self I'm learning to "tolerate" could be that powerful? And why aren't I shooting for a higher goal, if that's the case? If this body is a gift, why am I not trying to learn that? Not just a gift of relative health or physical ability, but a gift equally important to the other dimensions of self which I cherish... If I can understand that someone I love is still with me, and yet mourn the physical loss of her, why am I trying to "shrug off" my body. "Let it be enough that I don't hate it or attack it now. It's not possible I could have anything more."

It always brings me back to a night, at least a year ago now, when my brother and I were in the kitchen, where glass doors lead onto the patio, and at night (if the shades haven't been closed) glow like mirrors. I was having a hard day and complained to him about how I looked in the window. He joked a little and the grabbed my arms, stationed my form in front of his, and told me to tell him what was wrong. I started pointing at my reflection to help him understand, and he said, "It's just a reflection. It's distorted. It's all distorted. That's now how you really look." I turned to him in shock, the same kind I felt when I first heard my voice on a recording and discovered the difference between what I hear and how I sound. I knew that my perception was distorted, but my brother said the mirrors were distorted, too, and suddenly there was a reality in all of this. I wanted to play with my reflection and learn about this body, this different body- the one that felt and pushed and managed things. I wanted to communicate with it - fully fluent body language - instead of through it.

I mourn my friend because I can't see her, touch her, share the dimension of what it meant to have her body here. I grow restless in my isolation because I can't lay my head on a friend's shoulder, curl into someone, hug them longer than social mores would allow. I'm becoming more and more ok with the reflection of my body in the mirror, but understand now that it's just a reflection. I can't even see myself from all sides, in that tiny piece of glass, let alone expect it to reflect the realities of my body - the way my skin feels in the sun, the way my hair curls like a smile in the rain, or the way my muscles taste my bed at night with a thick "mmmmmmmmmmm-aaaaaaaahhhh...." So maybe I needed to go slowly, step by single step, learning to not-hate, be-indifferent-to, tolerate, semi-accept my body; now I aim for higher goals. I want to speak with it as I've learned to speak with my voice. I want to feel with it as I've learned to feel with my heart. I want to pray with it, as I do with my spirit, and work with it as I have my mind. We're going to be partners, my body and I, and hopefully we're going to merge. I don't expect it will be easy, or that I won't occasionally need to step back and just focus on not viewing myself like a leper. I know how entirely devoid of straight-lines progress is. But this desire is one I've tucked into the back of my mind, my heart, and my spirit. And I think someday, I may do more than tolerate the part of me that even my most spirit-oriented friends would grieve if it were gone. I've begun to learn, through pain, how much a body means. I want to learn that same lesson now through joy.

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