From discontinuity to happiness

Last night, two worlds collided.

I went to hear C, my old fiddle teacher, play at a local pizzeria. Back when I was still playing the fiddle, I saw C weekly. He was my mentor and my friend. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw him before last night or the circumstances in which we parted ways, but it was at least 7 years ago. When I became heavily anorexic, I just severed myself from the music world--the world that had been my home. I didn't tell anyone why I stopped doing music; to be honest, I was so deep in my disorder that I didn't even think to give an explanation. I had thought that C had no idea what had happened to me.

When I got home from the concert, I told my mom how it had gone and that I didn't think C had any idea that I had been anorexic. She said that she had told him herself. As she put it, he had been worried about my sudden hiatus and had asked her how I was doing. She told him the truth. I am glad that I don't have to. But, more than that, I am glad that he cared enough to ask.

I forget that people still remember the pre-anorexia Emma. I forget that she was loved. I was surprised that C remembered so many things I didn't--even specific songs we had played. He told me last night that he hopes I pick up the fiddle again. He said my talent is too great to waste. I was good--I know that objectively--but it still stuns me to hear it.

Up until now, I have felt that because I had a great talent and chose to ignore it and even try to erase it, I have to pay some kind of price. I have felt that I made my anorexic bed, and now I have to lie in it. I chose a life of discontinuity; of eras; and the era of the fiddle is gone and dead. I have to accept that I chose starvation over music. I am trying to understand now why I have felt that way.

Maybe, I'm thinking now, it's not too late. Maybe I can have it all again--the music, a group of friends, a place and a purpose. Maybe I don't have to suffer for anorexia anymore.

It's difficult and painful to try to reclaim something that I loved and that I had lost, and it is easy to get stymied in regret. But I want to try and be what I was, as well as what I have become.