2025
a yearly roundup and recap
JANUARY
It’s almost midnight and Tommy and I are fighting. We’re in separate rooms and I hear my neighbors in the streets, 5…4…3…2…1!!! The clock strikes 12:00 am and we’re still fighting. Tommy kissed me during Red Rooms and I shut him down, lost in a chocolate-induced spiral. I will be better, but for now, I want more. I slam the bathroom door and tchotchkes tumble from the shadow box. Emily! he exclaims. What? I respond sheepishly.
You didn’t even kiss me at midnight! I say months later.
But we were fighting. I didn’t think you wanted me to kiss you.
You should’ve been a gentleman and kissed me anyway!
Tommy thinks this is hilarious. I love making him laugh.
FEBRUARY
I stop eating sugar and instead I eat mangoes, lots and lots of mangoes. I look up, do mangoes have a lot of sugar? It turns out they do. I try and figure out other fruits to pivot to, but they also have a lot of sugar. I’m supposed to be doing astrology readings at a benefit for the LA wildfires but all I’m thinking about is chia pudding. I get the chia pudding. I read some charts and don’t enforce my time boundaries. I feel exhausted and scattered. I eat a glittery meringue, and then a Win Son mochi donut. So good. I want more. I’m bingeing again.
MARCH
APRIL
We’re in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania for Lizzi’s wedding. I don’t really like weddings but this time I’m having fun, dancing with Robby and Rachel and Tommy, talking to duck hunters and duck PHDs. At one point I look up and Lizzi, Rachel, and I are all swaying with our partners to “Harvest Moon.” My heart swells with appreciation for them and our nice boyfriends and husbands. A huge bucket of sour gummies gets passed around and I feel guilty for eating some. Lightening cracks in the sky and rain pours down on the metal roof. I think I’m going to take time off work, I tell Rachel. I’m having a really hard time with eating.
MAY
WHAT’S UP SIERRA TUCSON SPRING BREAK 2025!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Grady screams into a microphone, our MC for the afternoon. Her and Danica relentlessly petitioned the staff to let us have extra pool time on Memorial Day, and thankfully they prevailed. Instead of the usual hour-and-a-half, we’re allowed to use the pool for three hours. Someone sets up a karaoke machine and the girls sing “Steal My Sunshine” in matching orange bathing suits. It’s like we’re in Palm Springs!, I joke, with the purple mountains high in the background. We’re not in Palm Springs. We’re at a rehab facility in Arizona. I float around on a pool noodle, laughing hysterically. I ask Mike to train me and immediately regret it as soon as he starts explaining how muscles work. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in process group, taking the confidentiality pledge and breaking it later in the day. My therapist, Dana, tells me I can’t leave to go to the pool when I ask. Too bad. I don’t skip process group again, except when we have equine therapy for the second time. It’s too hot and the small horses scared me.
JUNE
I go to see Caroline in Phoenix. It’s so hot in Arizona. JUST SO YOU KNOW THIS IS WHAT I LOOK LIKE I text Tommy when I send him a mirror pic of me in second-hand True Religion jeans that I can’t even button. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was gonna heal and tan and walk and drink water (lose weight). Instead I drank probably 100 vanilla Soymilks and ate 100 graham crackers (gained weight). I’m so scared of going home. I don’t want to go home.
JULY
So…I think you should consider going to residential care?, my nutritionist posits to me. My stomach drops. I wasn’t supposed to be one of the girls coming back into group crying because I was being sent away. I did everything right. I ate all my meals. I participated. I stayed awake (mostly). What did I do wrong? I reassure her that I would be fine. I go to a yoga class with Olivia and feel sick flipping upside down. I got this, I thought. A deeper voice says, I don’t got this at all. I inform my nutritionist that I thought about it and I’m good to stay home! A week and a half later I’m in the car going to residential treatment outside Philadelphia. A few months later, I’m in a Zoom with my normal therapist and my old DBT group. They’ve been up-to-date on my progress, the first treatment and the second. My therapist asks what changed between admission dates. I don’t know, I guess I, surrendered….?
AUGUST
We can’t find the location at first, but Gemma makes a few turns and gets us to the right place. We see the universal sign for an AA meeting, a group of people smoking in the parking lot. This is my first time outside of Renfrew in three weeks. When the chair starts the preamble, I want to burst into tears. I want to go up to this random woman in an Eagles sweatshirt and give her a hug. I want to get down on my knees and weep, feeling the power of God in this random dingy room. I feel it all until a woman shares that she lost 30 lbs when she stopped drinking. I think, Congrats. Bitch.
SEPTEMBER
I run into Callie on the 7 train platform. It’s my first week back to PHP and I’m already running late. I confess that I’ve barely been to any meetings since I got back. She invites me to a word-of-mouth Buddhist meeting in the city. I take her up on the offer because I’ll do basically anything that offers an exclusive experience. We meet up on a Saturday morning with Molly and take the train uptown. We change into robes and sit on pillows in a long, dark room with other sober meditators. We meditate for so long. The meeting is so long. Hunger gnaws at my stomach. After we all say goodbye, I panic and find a park down the street so I can eat the tuna fish pita and Annie’s cookies that have been waiting patiently in my bag. I don’t know what to do with my new freedom. I was going to take the ferry home but instead I just take an Uber.
OCTOBER
We’re going out for Halloween. I haven’t gone out in a long time. I don’t really like going out since I stopped drinking, or more specifically since I got sober and can’t take some old Adderall or an edible. Before we go out, we have to do our laundry. On our way home, I get a Celsius for the first time. And some Zyn! I don’t like caffeine or nicotine but I want to feel like I’m partying, like I can substitute the magic of that first drink. It’s fun dripping fake blood onto my face while Tommy puts on his Jigsaw make up. We take an Uber to Ridgewood and the Zyn makes me feel like I’m going to vomit. We go to an AA party and passively watch Game 7 of the World Series. I alternate between Zyn and cigarette, Zyn and cigarette. We go to a comedy party that’s uncomfortably crowded and I see the hosts of a popular podcast that I don’t listen to but constantly get served clips of. I’m peeing and someone bangs on the door. I immediately assume that there’s a gunman, or the police are here to arrest me. Instead, the host kicks me out of the bathroom and also maybe the party when I open the door. Everyone’s staring at me. I’m going to burst into fucking tears at this stupid fucking party. I don’t, but I cry about it the next day at a meeting. I dine out on this story for about a week.
WHAT A BITCH!!!!, everyone replies.
Well, she did say she was sorry. And that she was on a lot of drugs.
NOVEMBER
I’m boycotting Thanksgiving, I proudly tell anyone who asks. And it’s NOT! about the FOOD!, I add, as if it’s some achievement that I’m not triggered by an extremely triggering holiday. I’m 34. I can make my OWN decisions about the holidays, GOD! The day before Thanksgiving I become incredibly sad and lonely at the thought of spending the holiday alone, a decision that no one forced upon me. It’s Thanksgiving. I take a SoulCycle class with Irena (the most disordered thing you can do, we joke), I run into a popular girl from high school who I’m shocked remembers me. I go to Jamie and Mariela’s to get Kiki for the day, and eat cookies Mariela insists are burnt but definitely aren’t burnt. I cuddle in bed with Kiki. I make gifts for friends out of clay. I walk Kiki to the top of Greenpoint and run around with her on an expanse of grass and dirt. The sun sets over the city, navy and red. I get in bed and watch Freakier Friday. I laugh at all of the stupid jokes.
DECEMBER
If anyone new came into the kitchen, they would be overwhelmed. But we’re familiar with the coordinated chaos of getting water, applesauce, juice, and string cheese. We bump into each other getting to the microwave and someone’s fretting about what dessert to choose. It’s pasta day, which is usually stressful, but today feels celebratory. A long table full of girls hurting and healing and disassociating and laughing about something Marie said and Violet going, sooo….how was your day?. Meals are hard but I feel warm. This is sisterhood!, I think, feeling sentimental and sappy as hell. We’ll probably never see each other again but for now, we’re family. Yuck!
*names changed of anyone mentioned in AA or treatment to protect anonymity
This was so beautiful, I love you!