I have got my ages out of sync.
In this stopping – and starting – of life, I seem to have mixed up the pivotal phases and got all confused. I didn’t realise that we operated on so many planes: part of me has stalled in 1993 whilst other bits have zoomed off ahead, and we’re not yet on the same page.
I had assumed that time was a constant. I’m not so sure anymore.
The drawn out eating disordered days were disguising the passing of months and years and life events that I have missed out on – irretrievably – because there are certain stages, for certain things; and it’s harder when you’re going against the flow –
So, I’m finding that the self discovery stuff that most people went through fifteen years ago is still stuck, like a needle grinding in a groove; and, in the absence of the experimentation, and the learning, and the trial-and-error stuff that you can only really get away with when your age ends in a –teen, there are still lots of big unanswered questions about who I am and where I’m going.
And, I’ve realised that the laying down your foundations and finding your bearings that seems to take place in your 20s still feels a long way off; because, I slept right through the stage where people were starting to look for their soul mates; and, I was busy staring at my eating disordered horizon whilst my peers were off building careers and futures and dreams behind me.
So, now, I’m running in what feels like a losing race, and I’m constantly playing catch up for the things that I am not sure I will be able to catch up with –
Like drunken nights out and the knowledge that vodka and wine do not mix. Or flirting across college classrooms and a string of romances. And those first big steps up the career ladder that should have happened years ago -
To compound the disjoint, I have raced ahead in some ways.
With more than two lifetimes worth of therapeutic insight, I feel far older than my years; and, it seems, at times, that in my journey into – and out of – eating disorder land, I’ve skipped over the lighter side of life stuff. To top it all off, I have managed to simultaneously stall my biological bodyclock and, with the bones of someone twice my age, accelerate the aging process –
I have not worked out a solution yet.
I am trying, where possible, to avoid the catch up game; because I think that I might have lost too much ground. Eating disorders have the nasty habit of striking at that crucial child – to adult – phase, where the potential for destruction is particularly high.
And, I am hoping that, over time, and because I’m going forward now – instead of backwards – the years will balance themselves out and, at some point, I’ll converge –
Because at the moment, I feel a little out of sync –
And I’d really like to be on the same page as the rest of the world.
Tags: Growing Up, self discovery
