nine years

Utah was 9 years ago. 9 years. Seems like forever when I put it that way. But it is so fresh, it very well may have been yesterday. I still dream about it, a lot. The dreams are not always good, in fact they never are.

Brian has asked me what it was like, but I cannot fully describe it. No one can. I ask my friends who were there with me and no one can explain it. There are too many things that need to be included to explain it, and when you try and explain all of them it is overwhelming to listen to and keep track of (imagine living it). Also, it loses something in translation. For now the answer always includes the disclaimer, you had to have lived it.

How can something that quite literally saved my life still give me nightmares??

My old therapist, since retired, is still on my speed dial. His home and cell numbers. I called him when all of my children were born.

I still fold my clothes 'structure' and get all upset if the bed is not made right. I am also a freak about the first weekend of every month cleaning obsessively.

There has to be someway to describe what it was like. The parts that saved me and the parts that lost me. I can never find the words to express the feeling behind it. Overwhelmed doesn't cover it, scared doesn't cover it, lonely, all of it. But at the same time I felt safe. For the first time in years, I felt safe, sometimes.

I still have an eating disorder. I still have depression, I always will. That is sad. I still freak when I think I eat too much, when my jeans are a little tighter than yesterday... It is exhausting to worry so much about food and weight. Yet I understand on an intellectual level that it is just food and if I gain weight it is just weight, but that thought makes me itch.

Prozac and xanax are my life lines. Sure it sucks knowing that something in your brain is broken and you can't feel what you are supposed to feel and these tiny little pills turn me from crabby pants to someone much more livable. I am glad I have them, but I hate needing them.

9 years and I still am not over what happened out there. Am I supposed to let it go? Can I? Do I want to?

No, I don't want to. The experience was so much. So much everything, painful, happy, terrifying, by holding on to it I feel like it has the importance in my life that it deserves. It almost seems that it makes it real. Like the scars on my arms are not real enough.