The Return

I went quiet for a while…Not a shocker for those that know me well. When things get tough, my instinct is to retreat, to hide, to become silent. It helps me regroup, re-energize and redesign my life. So, when things got really tough last March, I took a step back from a lot of things, this Blog being one of them.

And while, I have not been sharing too much over these past few months, it doesn’t mean they have not been Blog-worthy. Nope, I’ve been keeping busy – with work, friends, recovery, mommy stuff. Oh, and I have been ticking a few things off my bucket list.

I met Youpi, saw Notre-Dame-de-Paris, tried Korean bbq (finally!)…and I wrote a book. Yup…a 126-page book.

When I began writing The Day I Started Eating six months ago, I was on a recovery high. I’d hit rock bottom…for real this time…and had used that low point to propel me on a recovery path I had never seen. I was improving week to week, impressing myself, my medical team and others around me with my rate of progress. I was sure that I would be fully recovered by the time I finished and published the book and would become the poster child for “success”.

Well…I wrote the book. The rest didn’t quite pan out the way I had envisioned. Why? Well, the thing I had not accounted for in terms of my recovery plan was…life! I forgot that I didn’t live in a bubble – free from the unpredictable, from anxiety, from temptation. I forgot that I was not bullet-proof. And so I encountered challenges, I faltered, I improved. I took steps forward, back and sideways. Through it all, I kept writing.

I finished the first draft on Labor Day weekend. And then I started the humbling experience of the editing process. I say humbling because, of course, the first draft needed work…a lot of work; and I had to accept that it wasn’t a masterpiece. But, it was not re-drafting that made me pause. Rather, the thing that threw me was the fact that I had forgotten some of the lessons I had learned and shared in my tale.

Writing a book is hard. Writing a book about your recovery while you are still in the process…well…that may not have been the best idea I ever had. When re-reading the first draft, I had to acknowledge that I had regressed in a few areas during the months it took me to pen my story. In some cases, I wasn’t troubled by the “regression”. I used the editing process to simply re-energize around a key point I had already learned. But, in other cases, the gap between where I saw myself now versus where I was when I had written a particular chapter felt huge.

In these moments, I was discouraged and felt a bit like a fraud. Could I really publish a book about recovery when I did not feel recovered. I thought about putting the whole thing on hold…continue my journey, get even stronger, and then maybe move forward with book. I thought about abandoning the project altogether. But then a few things happened:

• First, my editors (you know who you are…) convinced me to keep going. They showed me that the book is authentic, the epilogue rings true and there was no fraud in sight. I am fully open about the fact that I remain in recovery rather than at the finish line.
• Second, I realized that putting everything on hold would not accomplish anything. The lessons I learned (even those I may have temporarily forgotten) were valuable and worthy of being shared. Telling my story is part of my recovery and delaying it would only delay an important part of my journey.
• Third, there are days when recovery seems so close I can feel it…literally feel it. Here’s an example. Most mornings, my alarm goes off and I kinda hold my breath as I wait to see how my stomach feels. There are only ever two options: sick and full from a normal dinner the night before or starving due to lighter eating the day before. This morning, I woke up and felt…nothing. Not excessively full and not starving. I smiled. “This,” I thought…”this is what recovery feels like.”

So the book is printed. The launch is November 7. And, I am doing my best to promote it . I won’t lie, I still have apprehensions about the whole thing. Some days, I think about cancelling the launch; others, I feel it is all I talk about and I am growing tired of the topic. But, I’ve never really been one to back away from a target. Sure, I may doubt it or consider abandoning it, but through it all, I never stray from the course. And I never slow down my Peiky speed.

See you soon November 7. For better or for worse, The Day I Started Eating is coming….