I stare at the food on my plate.  I mentally count the calories.  I calculate the carbs.  I push my food around to make it look like I’ve eaten more than I have.  I look around the room.  No one notices.  Later that night, I will eat an entire frozen pizza and two pints of ice cream. I’ll take laxatives to push the food through my system quicker. My stomach hurts. I’m cramping and curled into a ball. Somehow… I relish in the pain. That means the calories are leaving my body.  This cycle will begin in my early teen … Continue reading What’s On My Plate: My F*cked Up Relationship With Food

Honeysuckle was blooming. The sweet perfume hanging in the air, as we sat on our porch on one of our slow, Southern nights. It was May, but Spring had bypassed and we felt the heaviness of Summer in each breathe. From our perch on the veranda, we saw the children play. There was a faint orange blaze as the Sun was preparing her rest and far off was that very first star in the sky at dusk. The children ran, played and squealed in excitement. Running up to us with their hands closed ever so gently… In between their sweet … Continue reading Fireflies

There I was, listening to a distraught friend. She cried into the phone. I felt myself giving her suggestions for assistance and relieved at having a direction to turn to, she thanked me and we ended our call. I found it peculiar to be thanked for information I had merely searched for online. After all, who was I to thank? I was this fraud, simply waiting on the days in which my loved ones would find out I was not the intelligent woman they knew. I’d excelled in school because things came easily and I only graduated college because I … Continue reading Feeling Like A Fraud