I want to be my Valentines!

After a 45 minute swim this morning, I am working from home, which is incredible in itself. I never used to be able to be alone and not immediately view it as an opportunity to stuff my face and inevitably throw it up.

Whenever I saw a free couple of hours, I would start planning my binge. Buy, prepare and eat until I could barely move. Then, as if there were no other option, I would make myself sick. That would happen, before, after, in between meetings, heck, during meetings, and oftentimes also before my roommate or boyfriend (now husband) would come home. Looking back at my bulimia, I would mostly act out when I was alone. No surprise here, isolation is one of the main traits of addiction and my shame around my behaviour meant I wanted to be alone.

I have calculated it once - 12 years of bulimia, throwing up at least once every day, some days up to 6x, in the past few years every other day. I reckon, I must have puked well over 4000 times in my life! Seriously, I have no idea how I functioned.

Back to today, I am working from home, I have a food plan in my head and am actually looking forward to my lunch and dinner. I would be kidding myself and would be lying if I said that food isn't still a huge part of my daily thinking and is an obsession. I am working on letting that go, surrendering to finding my balance. It's one day at a time.

To the title of the actual post - It's Valentine's Day and I'm a V-Day grump. It's not that I don't believe in love or in the expression of love, I just disagree with setting a specific day to do so. I'd much rather receive heartfelt "I love you's" throughout the year. Nonetheless, coincidentally we are having dinner and theatre tickets for tonight. Hah, I will so very much enjoy it.

But the best part of today: I love myself enough to be kind and not stuff myself and not throw up and to enjoy my life. Enjoy the small things - going for a walk at lunch time to get one of the best coffees in London, feeling the sun on my face and feeling warm and at peace and whole. Unconditional love for myself- that's my goal.