Waiting

I was looking for something in my closet today and came across a folder from my high school AP Lit & Comp course. I loved the hell out of that class, for many reasons.  I have always been "a writer," pretty much ever since I achieved proficiency with a pencil around age 4.  Many of the essays and other assignments served as important outlets for me (I previously posted another writing from that class, "Just Like a Pill").  It was junior year, during a major relapse, and I wanted desperately to cry out but didn't know how.  My two methods of expression have always been writing and the ED, or some combination of the two.  I honestly don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had that class, because it stimulated a lot of important introspection at a time when I was dangerously entangled in the ED vortex.

Anyway, here is one of the poems I rediscovered this afternoon.  Judge it kindly, keep in mind this was about five years ago, when I was 17 years old.

Waiting

I am waiting for tomorrow

When the shadows will all brighten

I am waiting for tomorrow

When the crushing load will lighten

I am waiting for tomorrow

For chaos and stress to cease

I am waiting for tomorrow 

For that ever-elusive peace

I am waiting for tomorrow

When all wounds will mend and heal

I am waiting for tomorrow

When the gaping cracks in life will seal

I am waiting for tomorrow

For flowers to bloom and birds to sing

I am waiting for tomorrow

For the sun's rays and the illumination they will bring

I am waiting for tomorrow

But each morning brings a new today

I am waiting for tomorrow

But the present never seems to go away

~[Cammy], 5-11-04

It's painful to face that younger version of me, and to feel her pain all over again.  I still identify with those feelings, although I can see that I have gained wisdom and insight since then. (Although maybe those of you that knew me back then could argue that, ha). If I could go back and talk to that Cammy, the most important thing I could tell her is to quit waiting.  Nothing just arrives while we sit by passively.  Wishing for tomorrow takes the focus off of what you can be doing today.  Making changes, reaching out, reaching in, moving forward, it's all an active process.  Sometimes you just have to jump.  Yes, it's terrifying, and you may get stressed and hurt and scared.  But you're already stressed and hurt and scared, so what do you have to lose?

I am still guilty of this waiting game, just to a lesser degree.  It's easy to give to the pressure from the ED urges, to say that tomorrow, tomorrow is the day I'll change, tomorrow is the day I'll be more responsible to myself, but today it's too hard.  Then, just like always, each tomorrow "brings a new today," and I'm still running in the same disordered hamster wheel while the world goes by without me.

The five years since I wrote that, and even just the past year, has been a roller coaster ride.  I know I have made progress, and I know I have a ways to go.  Even though I am constantly riding through ups and downs, one thing I can say for myself is that I am finally--slowly but surely--learning how to stop waiting.