Loving Ana

This week was bitter-sweet:  I had to say goodbye to the motley crew of recovering addicts, bi-polars and depressives at the out-patient therapy group I've been attending for the past 6 weeks in order to free up my schedule for the out-patient eating disorder group I'm starting next week.  I'm a very busy gal, what can I say.

At our final group, Anger Management (one of my faves), we were asked to write a Letter of Closure to someone toward whom we had unresolved anger.  While my mom is my usual go-to gal for this exercise, I was feeling generous and decided to give her a pass since we had just worked through some mega-goo at (another) family therapy session a few days prior.  Instead, I thought it fitting, given the program I was about to enter, to write to my eating disorder, personified - see what voice surfaced, what feelings emerged, what I could let go of in that space in preparation to enter the next one.  I named her Ana, and it became clear as the words started to form, that she was my lover with whom I have been having an affair, on and off, for 15 years.  And I, with pain and grief and deep longing still in my heart, was writing to her, to finally say goodbye.

Dear Ana, 

It's time for you to go.  You've been my dear friend, my confidante, my only support at times for years, but it's time for us to say goodbye.  See, it's taken me a very long time to also see how manipulative you are.  You want me all to yourself.  Your love has conditions - it says, don't tell anyone about our affair, hold me in secrecy, when people ask, lie to them, pretend like nothing's going on, put on that happy, smiling face you're so good at creating, be the actress you are, I am the part that you were born to play.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming you entirely.  I participated willingly in this dance.  I welcomed you, seduced you, kept us a secret for so long.  I pretended like I had everything under control, like you were helping me to control everything when, really, everything inside and around me was falling apart. 

I want to hate you for fucking up my life so much.  But I don't.  I hold myself responsible and accountable for the part I played.  It takes two to tango, after all.  But you need to go.  I'm done sneaking around, lying, manipulating the truth, skating the line in every relationship I have to keep us, you and me, together.   

I'd be lying if I said I'm not scared to let you go.  I'm terrified, in fact.  I don't know what me without you looks like.  But I do know that me with you is crumbling my whole foundation - my friends, my family - it's literally eating me away from the inside out - and that reality right now is scarier than losing you. 

I'm so happy you kept finding your way back to me all these years.  My old love, familiar and embracing, I can close my eyes and fall back into you, trusting that you'll catch me, enter me slowly and comfortably, take the lead.  Thank you for your companionship, the way you've held me together for 15 years, when so many things have been slowly eroding.  I love you. 

But it's time for you to go.  I don't need you anymore.  I choose hope.  I choose to keep repeating:  I am complete, I am whole, I am loved, I am healed. 

Over and over again.  Until it sticks.  Until it's finally digested.