D.L.

c/o USPS Letters

Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation

15251 Pleasant Alley Road

Center City, MN 55012

Dear D,

We have only a tenuous connection as friends on social media, with a shared love of running and dogs, but I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I’m rooting for you to conquer your challenge. I’ve been there too, not in the same way, but more similarly than you might imagine, having struggled with an eating disorder that very nearly killed me, then held me prisoner for more than a decade. I know that it is still there, in me, part of the fabric of who I am, but we’ve made our peace and learned to live with one another in a way that is not destructive or dangerous. You are the only one who can make this change work, and all you need to do is believe in yourself and trust yourself. And never be afraid to lean on loved ones and friends, because they are all in this with you.

Be well.

Learn from yesterday

Live for today

Hope for tomorrow

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

                    -William Ernest Henley