The social post of Thurs

Three posts for today:

1 "The social post"

2 "The food post"

3 "The education post"

How did my life suddenly become full and a lot less lonely? I am very grateful for the change, but it seems like it came out of nowhere. Ever since living in CA, I've been stressed, my confidence was crumbling, and I was pretty darn lonely. And it just seems like suddenly, I have a life. Suddenly, I have connections here. Suddenly, if I were to die, people would notice. Life just keeps going, I keep having things to do, people keep reaching out and being connected with me.... and I am happy like this. It's hard to keep an ED and have a full and connected life. The thing is, to "successfully" have an ED, you really do have to deny yourself some life.. you have to live unpresently and more isolatedly than necessary. So you choose: life or ED. And I keep choosing life. I chose ED for a couple of days, which made me stop enjoying the social connection. But I wasn't happy this way. It's way better to just choose life.

I was looking forward to finally having a day with nothing social to do after work. I was going to come home, blog, watch the olympics, cook dinner, and just chill. And, 20 min before work got off, my phone rang. My good friend Nicole: "Hey, Hip. You coming over tonight?" Thursday. Grey's Anatomy. I love my hip, my Nicole. I do enjoy Grey's Anatomy. I am convincing myself I want to be at home, but why? What would I do at home? So, I went to Nicole's tonight, and I'm so glad I did. I am so grateful for our friendship. I can't even explain it. It's not tiring to do social things with Nicole because, when I'm next to her, I'm home and so is she. Her boyfriend was over, and, when I walked in, Jose said, "Nicole, you better put on your pants." Nicole started laughing and said, "Um, baby, you do realize this is Laura, right?" Then Nicole and I both started laughing, telling Jose about how when we lived together, the first thing we always did when we walked in the door was take our pants off - lol. So, Nicole and I just sat on the couch, heads resting on each others' heads. I don't know how to explain it, but when I hang out with her, it feels like I'm not "on," I'm not "hanigng out," I'm just with a best friend.

I mean, life is suddenly connected. How did this happen? I have nothing to complain about. Here are all the good things about my life right now:

• I have a full-time job
• Yesterday, I met 2 new people and went to dinner with 2 friends
• I have a mom who lives by example - she has such an incredible attitude that has come to her in mid-life... a wonderful way of looking at life. Yesterday she got a horrible hair cut... you know when you get a horrible hair cut and you just want to cry?... well, she told herself she was just going to laugh about it. She called me, telling me how horrible it was, and she laughed about it. I commended her for this.
• My family is kind of brady-bunch-ish, I admit it, and I'm grateful. They recently came to visit me for a while.
• I have 2 wonderful friends in NY (Hi, R) who will be coming out to CA this spring, so I get to see them.
• Tuesday night, I had dinner with a friend.
• This weekend, a friend is coming to visit (Hi, A).
• This weekend, that friend and 2 other friends are going out to brunch.
• This weekend, another friend contacted me to see if I want to go hiking.
• This weekend, another friend wanted to see if I wanted to paint pottery with her.

Do you think these invitations for social connection always existed, but I just felt so badly about myself and my body that I wasn't open to them? Or do you think these are all new "friendship leads?" I don't know.. I suppose a bit of both. But it is definitely true that I was not open to making a full-life for the last few years, but now I am not only open to it, but I'm trying....