I Grew Into It. It

If I Had Been A Different Sort Of Person, Maybe Less Impressionable, Less Intense, Less Fearful, Less Utterly Dependent Upon The Perceptions Of Others - Maybe Then I Would Not Have Bought The Cultural Party Line That Thinness Is The Be-all And End-all Of Goals. Maybe If My Family Had Not Been In Utter Chaos Most Of The Time, Maybe If My Parents Were A Little Better At Dealing With Their Own Lives Maybe If I'd Gotten Help Sooner, Or If I'd Gotten Different Help, Maybe If I Didn't So Fiercely Cherish My Secret, Or If I Were Not Such A Good Liar, Or Were Not Quite So Empty Inside... Maybe.

The Idea Of My Future Simultaneously Thrilled And Terrified Me, Like Standing At The Lip Of A Very Sheer Cliff- I Could Fly, Or Fall. I Didn't Know How To Fly, And I Didn't Want To Fall. So I Backed Away From The Cliff And Went In Search Of Something That Had A Clear, Solid Trajectory For Me To Follow, Like Hopscotch.

But In Some Ways, The Most Significant Choices One Makes In Life Are Done For Reasons That Are Not All That Dramatic, Not Earth-shaking At All; Often Enough, The Choices We Make Are, For Better Or For Worse, Made By Default.

And Yet You Are All That You Have, So You Must Be Enough. There Is No Other Way.

There Is, In Fact, An Incredible Freedom In Having Nothing Left To Lose.