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adventure, or calling each other with new schemes and plans, lying in bed together, or sharing a bath.
    Would I have done this on my own? I’m not sure. In many ways this relationship with Tom is central to my journey of recovery. Despite our individual failings—my stubborn independence, his irrational jealousy (of any man who comes within a mile radius of me—any male friend, colleague, acquaintance, or stranger)—mostly it seems to work. On that rainy February evening, that unlikely blind date, we found each other—and we might even make it through. No relationship is perfect, and I think we’re both learning to compromise.
    * * *
    One morning last week, for example, a burst of optimism. Usually I find January the bleakest month but this year I feel positive, full of hope: it’s a new year and I’m determined to make progress. I had stayed overnight at Tom’s flat, and we were sitting at the breakfast table, sharing the newspaper, discussing the headlines, grumbling companionably about going to work, sipping our coffee and eating—raspberries for me, toast and jam for Tom. I’d slept badly and the tiredness would catch up with me later, but for the time being there was nowhere else I’d have rather been. I looked at Tom, his hair wet from the shower, his blue shirt and jeans, gobbling his toast as if it would run away, and I felt acutely happy. After so many years of guarding my own space, it feels good to be normal: sitting at the breakfast table, eating together, starting the day with another human being.
    I cycled off to work. Two hours later I received this email: Em, I believe in you absolutely. I’m filled with hope about the future for us and hope you are too . . . Waking up next to you in the morning is the best way to start the day. When I think of my life a few years ago when you didn’t exist for me, it was just a different existence, as though I was living on another planet. T x
    There is so much worth struggling for; when our relationship is good it’s the best. Tom and I have been through a lot, but he can stay or go; he is an adult and it’s his choice. I recall that line in On the Road , “I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion,” and wonder why he’s with me . . . but I’m starting tounderstand that most of us feel this way most of the time, a bit ramshackle, a bit confused.
    If there’s any point to love, surely it’s to make us strive to be better people—kinder, more generous. With Tom, I want to be a nicer version of me for him. Every day I try to think of myself less, to put him first, to get outside the depression and anxiety of the eating disorder. As anyone who has been close to a sufferer will know, anorexia is more than a problem with food. It doesn’t just surface at mealtimes. It’s a constant conflict, a state of internal warfare. Yes, it’s like I’ve declared war on myself.
    I often remember something my great-aunt, Virginia Woolf, wrote in her novel Night and Day : “Of course I behave badly, but you can’t judge people by what they do. You can’t go through life measuring right and wrong with a foot rule.” Don’t get me wrong: it’s no excuse. I’m responsible for everything I do and say. I try not to blame my bad behavior on anorexia, but remember this is not a diet gone wrong; it’s a mental illness.
    Mental illness, sickness, disease—I never thought I’d be involved in any of this. I don’t enjoy appointments with doctors or psychiatrists, and I don’t think of myself as a victim. But who knows what life has in store for you—and who knows who you’ll fall in love with? I know this has been a huge learning curve for Tom, but I am who I am, and this condition is what it is. Would it sound lame if I said that anorexia was never my choice?
    I do have a choice now, and that’s to recover. So, I keep