I was on the phone with my closest friend (who is ironically approximately 1000 miles away from me at all times) yesterday and caught myself uttering the sentence: “I feel so safe here.”

This is a concept I’ve dreamt of. Both in fantasy and nightmare– because I think often times they are the same thing. Comfort can be quite uncomfortable in a culture that equates serenity with stagnation.

We hope and pray for some sort of security in our lives; and yet when we find it (or it finds us) we don’t know what to do with our hands. In my case, I don’t know what to do with my feet.

I became a runner in my adult life. I stopped a few years ago because the pain in my hips was less bearable than the ache to move fast. At the time, I blamed my injury on poor training and lack of athletic knowledge (which were both true) but the real reason my body was falling apart was because it was tearing down itself.

It was shrinking.

In muscle. In thought. In self. Like a snake squeezing its own skin.

I thought I could run 15 miles on Los Angeles concrete and not eat more than 1200 calories a day. 1100. 1000 if I could get to it. The achievement system in my head refused to compute that less ≠ more. More miles in less time wasn’t getting me further; it was stopping me faster.

All I ever wanted to be was smaller. Until smaller meant less speed; the one thing I started running for in the first place. Speed felt like freedom. When in fact, I abused it until it meant captivity. The perimeters of rules I created around my body met with the gratification of a shrinking waist line was intoxicating. Like the endorphins that pumped through my veins when running. The most cruel oxymoron: Less fat. Less carbs. More sweat somehow wired my brain to believe that joy came from this formula of control. And yet; the small moments of false victory brought me deep-seeded health issues I’m still dealing with to this day.

I’m grateful for recovery and the professionals that have aided me along the way, but the doing and un-doing of a lifelong eating disorder is an every day battle. Because the problem is never in your body.

Or mind. Or mirror.

The problem is in your heart.

What you believe about who you are affects every part of you. What you value most is what you worship. And we all worship something.

Achievement.

Money.

Control.

This core value bleeds into every part of your life. It affects your relationships, your job and most importantly your health.

It’s been two and half years since I was hospitalized and it wasn’t until yesterday that I realized: I have never felt safe and out of control at once.

In a place that is very, very far from the land of the “free” or home of the brave,

I’ve never felt freer. I’ve never felt braver.

I eat what I want, move how I want, say what I want… (Mostly because no one can understand me)

And for the first time in my life, it feels like being understood is outside of words. Feeling kept is outside of expression found in my achievements on screens and shoelaces.

I somehow found myself running along a pink clouded path for the first time in two and half years. As air left my lungs, I could breathe again.

It’s funny how a foreign place can bring you a freedom only found in your own two feet.