Wasted

Last summer, I was working on my Masters Program.

I was sitting in class shaking my legs up and down trying to burn calories.

My nails were turning purple and my hands were trembling.

I was at my lowest weight and I was fixated on getting lower.

I couldn’t concentrate because I had not reached my goal so I just walked out of class.

It wasn't a conscious decision to quit school.

"I had a routine, I was in control."

Instead of going to class, I walked around the campus determined to go faster and longer than the day before.

I would only pause when I felt my breath short and my limbs grow limp.

No matter where I was, I pushed myself and walked to the library, up the three flight of stairs, to the eating disorders section.

That summer, I read almost every book on the subject. "I wasn't like them." I wasn't to the point of being Wasted, ready to be Gaining or trapped in a Golden Cage.

Summer ended and it didn't face me that I dressed in layers because I couldn't keep warm or that I had flunked out.

“I had lost weight and that's all that matter.”

Months later, my boss sent me to an all day seminar. I sat in the college auditorium and started remembering about last summer.

I walked out in the middle of the presentation. I walked around the campus for hours.

This time it was different than before. I wasn’t thinking about burning calories or having any ed related thoughts.

I had flunked out.

It was like the veil had been lifted from my eyes. I went into an empty stall and just cried.

I had reached bottom and somehow I had pushed everything that happened last summer to the furthest corner of my mind.