From the Hottest Fire, Comes the Strongest Steel

Let me fill in some gaps.

Everything has been so strained and emotional lately that I haven't had time to talk about my life - not my head - my life.
It's just been depressing, emotional, despondent post after post without a word on what has been actually going on around me - outside my swirling mind. So I need to tell you what has been happening.

I didn't do my exams. In fact, I didn't do a day of revision.
So, nearly two weeks ago, at 9am, as everyone else in my class opened up their first exam paper, I was sitting waiting for my first interview. 

I'd had enough. I couldn't do it. Weak. Yes. I was weak - I had no intention of fighting or trying. I was too exhausted by everything. I had stopped caring about myself and my life.

Alex had been doing his exams for the two weeks before this, I was on 'revision leave', and I was sitting at home, dying. No really, really, just dying. I let it be. Yes, I let it be. Sit and rot. Do nothing except watch yourself die.

But something took pity on me.
God

The ghost of my father

Some unknown benign spirit
Luck
Coincidence
I don't know...

but I've been given a chance;
Something has given me a lifeline that I probably don't deserve. And despite everything, I woke up and took it with both hands.


Let me explain.

I took a gamble. Someone recommended me to a graduate recruitment company. So I sent a CV. And on that Monday morning, as my exams began, I had my first interview...and on Friday afternoon, twelve days later, as exams ended, I got my job offer.

I got my job offer.
I stuck two fingers up at law school and law and took my original degree in English Literature and excellent CV to people who cared...

I should have done it when I graduated this time last year, but I wasn't ready - I was too ill, I was too fragile, too desperate - still a giddy teenager in so many ways.

But you know, I've got Alex now - and you are all so right - his love is too strong and potent for me to ignore it, no matter how loud Ana screams at me. He gives me something... a desire I suppose - a desire to live, a desire to thrive, a desire to be someone for him to be proud of...
I went in to all those interviews and became another person - outgoing, confident, punchy, intelligent, hungry, tough and ambitious - and I did it - I beat the competition - I got it - something amazing - the opportunity to turn my whole life around - the opportunity I had dreamed of as an ambitiously hungry child - to be something great, something successful - to be something.
"Yes, I like her - a gutsy girl".
At first I felt like a fake.
But then, with every interview, every time they asked me back, every time I got great feedback, I began to believe... and then, finally, after the final interview, she came back with a smile and a job offer. You know why? Because I am all those things I felt I had to pretend to be in my interviews; outgoing, confident, punchy, intelligent, hungry, tough and ambitious. Whatever this eating disorder has destroyed, it has given me something more: From the Hottest Fire, Comes the Strongest Steel: All the hell, all the pain, all the torment - it all kept strengthening the sinew holding me together, making me want life and happiness and success more than anything.
And I start on Tuesday. Something. I owe it to something out there - for giving me this amazing opportunity - for not letting me rot.


I start on Tuesday.
In the centre of the great City of London
amongst the towering investment banks and roaring double decker red buses
I will go to work every day
mentored by one of the most successful women in her industry
"I want to offer you the job. You're going to come with me to meet heads of international finance. I was the top biller in my last company, and I'm going to teach you everything to make you the top biller here."
I went straight to Alex's place and cried tears of joy over the glass of champagne he poured for me.
"I have the two things I wanted... I can't believe it, Alex, I finally have the two things I wanted more than anything for so long - I have you, an incredible man by my side, and also, I've been given the opportunity for a successful career. They were the two things I wanted at the start of the year. And I actually have them."
It never occurred to me, that I wanted to be thin and beautiful. It didn't even come to mind that I didn't have the one thing I had been killing myself for for so long. I was too happy and too safe for those terrible things to even haunt my mind.



But now it's up to me.
I cannot fuck this up.
For the first time in years, my father would be proud of me right now, and I am not going to let him down ever again, for all he ever wanted, was for me to be successful.
I am not going to let Alex down, for he gave me so much love and support.
I am not going to let my employer down, for she had the faith to hire me and believe in my ability.
I am not going to let my mum down, for she has born her pain for so many years.

And I am not going to let myself down. For I am good enough for this.
I am good enough for life.


To all the Ophelia's out there... I know that more often than not, living is more painful than all the torment of drowning. But I believe, more than anything, that living must be worth it, and that still, I can have it all, I can be a super woman, I can be thin and strong and successful...

As God is my witness...

...