' I Want To Sing Like The Birds...'

'I want to sing like the birds, not worrying about who hears or what they think' is one of the most beautiful quotes I know, so much so that I got it tattooed on my body. It was my first tattoo. One night, I stayed up past midnight talking in depth about this quote with my dad. We both resonated in our own way, finding a common ground amidst the separate paths of our lives. We both wanted to be free from the cages imposed in our minds, and we were there for each other that night, learning from each other about the way we'd come to experience this magnificent, crazy, unknown world. We wished to be like the birds, boundless, thoughtful, primitive, in flight, soaring, seeking, discovering, dancing with the wind. And I still wish to be like that, even in moments where I forget, every day. Eating disorders trap you, restrain you, torture you and slowly kill you, keeping you so far from freedom that there's almost no way out. But there is a way out. And that is recovery.

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What is it like to want this one thing so badly, and equally, not?

I spend most of my days in fear now. I fear losing control, I fear weight gain, I fear calories, I fear the hospital, I fear hurting people, I fear others' judgment of me, and I fear spending the rest of my life trapped. And I know that the only way out is through, but the discomfort of going through is unbearable and torturous in itself for somebody with severe and chronic anorexia. I do, however, experience moments of strength; sometimes they last for a few minutes, hours, or, with luck, days. And when I muster that strength, I remember what it feels like to be happy, or at least an illusion of such. And those moments are utterly beautiful and serene. In those moments, though I don't feel free like the birds, I feel the hope of freedom, the taste of it on the tip of my tongue, and I want to scream out at anorexia and say, 'let this moment last forever' because it feels so different to the life of agony and suffering I've come to be accustomed to. So what is this like? It’s heartbreaking in the way it sounds. It's trapping in the way it sounds. It's cyclical in the way it sounds. It's a never-ending game of tag and chase and tag and chase and tag and chase until I'm so caught up in the game that I don't know anymore what I'm so desperately trying to play, trying to win. I don't know my goals anymore because they live upon a blurred line, one that constantly switches between fading and appearing.

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Why do I want to sing like the birds?

I want to remember the sound of silence, the quiet landscape felt whilst one flies high up in the sky, overlooking nothing but endless turquoise ocean, and the joy of having choices. I want that because I can't remember what it tastes like, and instead I feel like I walk through life missing out on a life that's so good one is infatuated with it. I have friends and family who enjoy living so greatly that they would do anything to survive for as long as humanly possible, and instead, others like me are spending their waking hours dying a slow, torturous, and painful death. I want to sing like the birds because, like my mum always reminds me, it is your birthright to be free, to be happy, and to be exceptional. Somewhere, in my lost and lonely heart, deep down, I know this to be true. I know it like I know my name. It is not right to live the way I do, so far from freedom, so unlike the birds.

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What would the freedom of singing like a bird look like?

Singing like the birds would be like a prisoner feeling the air beyond bars for the first time, looking at the top of a waterfall, smelling the crisp, natural oxygen, and hearing the purity of fresh water hitting the boulders. I would know no time, only listening to what my body needed, honouring it, respecting it, being grateful for it. If I were free to sing like the birds, all of my relationships would be improved, for I'd be amongst my flock, safe, of sound mind, at harmony in one another's company, living a simple life of merely attaining sustenance, love and fulfilment. Singing like the birds would look like everything, everything and more. It would be beautiful, so beautifully so that it would make me cry just to be living, really, truly living.

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A perfect error

When I read this blog post to my dad, he asked why I hadn't mentioned singing in it. I used to sing all the time, Dolls; I sang for my HSC, I sang in the car, and I sang while doing chores because I loved it. My mental illness doesn’t allow me to feel that I deserve nice things anymore. And one of those nice things is singing. My eating disorder took that away from both me and the people who used to love to hear me sing. But what my dad and I noticed together is that I'd written this entire blog post using the quote: 'I want to be free like the birds, not worrying about who hears or what they think',  but the correct quote is: 'I want to sing like the birds, not worrying about who hears or what they think.' I wrote the wrong quote multiple times throughout this blog post, I didn’t hear the error as I read it aloud, and for heaven's sake, I didn’t recognise the mistake when it’s literally tattooed on my body for me to see at all times. Somehow, it just escaped me over and over again for the past week that I've been writing this? No, I think this was my subconscious mind robbing me of the gift that it is to have a passion, a passion beyond anorexia's desires, the evil alter ego mind that tells me I'm not worth anything at all. And this was a perfect error to me, Dolls, because despite how sad the reality is, it opened my mind to the possibility that one day, I will sing again, like the birds, over and over, because it will feel so good to remember what it felt like to be deserving of something again.

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'I want to sing like the birds, not worrying about who hears or what they think’ is so much more than a quote or a tattoo to me; it's a mindset, a mindset that I'm so desperate to attain that it physically hurts my heart because I love the concept and the notion with every fibre of my being. I want to sing like the birds so that I can connect with my inner child, with the world, with nature, with the goodness that it is to be free and to be singing.

Kisses,

COS x