There must be a mistake. Did you drive here? Are you dizzy? How could this be? I’m sending you to the ER. The doctor nervously removed the electrodes from my frail, skeletal chest. As a doctor, I have a moral obligation. I cannot allow you to go home in this state. Can your parents pick you up? I can’t have you driving right now. Her distress seemed like an overreaction. I didn’t need to go to the ER. I could drive myself. I wasn’t dizzy. I felt fine. Or, at least that’s what I thought. Her alarm, her nervousness, her anxiety a result from the number printed by the EKG reading: 34 beats per minute.
The number didn’t frighten me. I just have a naturally low heart rate. This isn’t a big deal. Frantically, the doctor called the local ER to ask them for a bed, my parents to explain the situation and her colleague to receive some advice on this dire situation. With every step, the questions she asked me echoed through the small dark room; I couldn’t answer them. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to listen to the question. I couldn’t finish a thought. What have you eaten today? Well, I had um… um… well… um… breakfast. What was the question again? How are you feeling? Are you dizzy? I mean, no. I like… don’t… well… no… yeah… I don’t know.
Everything felt normal. Everything felt fine. I wasn’t dizzy. I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out. I felt normal. It seemed so normal, the strange dream-like experience I had of the world. It seemed so natural for Death’s chilling fingers to be laced between mine. My eating disorder brought me comfort, a sense of belonging, a feeling that someone might want me. Yet, the blood pumping through my iced veins was the only indication that I was alive anymore. No emotion, no thoughts, no experiences. I was blissfully ignorant to the truth: I was dying. That’s how close I was to death, but I consider myself lucky -- I survived. After a 2-year long waltz with my eating disorder, my tango with death, I’ve never been more depressed, but a year and a half after that day at the doctor, I’ve never been more proud to be myself, to be me, to be the real Rachel.
I almost died. I should have died, But, I didn’t. Despite my inability to complete sentences due to lack of concentration, despite the frail and breakable nature of my body, despite the stinging and ripping pain of my muscles eating away at themselves, despite the fact that my organs were shutting down and my heart rate was that of a comatose patient, despite all of days and moments and seconds I wished to die, I lived. I survived, and I finally came to, after over a year in a fog, a flavor so wonderful and true that it raced across my tongue: the taste of life—a taste so beautiful, so amazing, that the tender, cold, clasp of death no longer seemed so comforting. I realized that life, as scary as it is, is the greatest way to live.
I lost a year of my life to the fog of anorexia. There is a year of my life that’s simply missing. Brain too starved to retain anything, my memories are scattered and incomplete. Trying to remember something about this time of my life is like trying to remember something that happened after a drunken night; It’s hazy, incomplete, and slurred. I lost a year of my prime. A year full of stories and silly college adventures for most was filled with a haze of nothingness for me. It’s like waking up from a dream and wondering if that happened or not. I felt like I was watching a television show of my life instead of living it. That’s the only way I can explain it, like watching a television show of my life. Not really present, just watching.
I lived that way -- no, I suffered that way for over a year. A year of my life simply doesn’t exist and, I’ll tell you, it’s more than terrifying to wake up one day to realize you’ve been asleep for a year. I refuse to lose another moment of life. I want to feel everything to the fullest extent. I want to experience all life has to offer. I want to simply be in this moment, in this world. I want to wake up one day (in heaven, or wherever we go when we die) and know that I lived my life to the fullest, that I sincerely, genuinely, and simply lived.
Sometimes we forget that life is so precious, so incredible, and so delicate that we take it for granted; I know I did. Life appears to be endless, but death has the powerful ability to put things into perspective. Life isn’t forever. It isn’t even that long. So, why aren’t we out there living it?
Do something that brings you joy. Do something that you’re proud of. Do nothing at all. Do something for others; do something that will change their life. Do something that makes every day worth living. Watch the sun set. Read a good book. Talk to your friends. Dance too much. Write your story. Learn something new. Listen to music. Master an instrument. Play sports, video games, drinking games. Do something that you love each and every day. Because if you love your life, it has a tendency to love you back.
