I'm Italy Mom and this is The Slowdown.

I remember once being pulled through an entire year simply by the desire to be desired.

I was in New York City and life was rougher than it had been in some time.

I couldn't see past my own grief over a friend's death and a recent heartbreak which seemed

to be more of an indicator of my life's downward trajectory than a singular event.

I was good at one thing that year, my own self-fulfilling isolation.

All I would do was work, try to save money, and count calories.

It seemed that when I couldn't control anything, I wanted to control the way my body looked,

the way it felt.

I thought only about what I was eating and how much I was eating and what I would feel

like once I weighed less.

Like many people, I've had a strange relationship with my body for years.

It's only been recently that I've learned to love it, to treat it with all the respect

and care it deserves.

But back then, I thought loving myself meant becoming smaller, something more digestible

for others, or perhaps something more invisible.

That year, as I got smaller, I did not get happier.

My friend was still dead, and my heart was not mended.

Still I learned something about what it is to do what you can to get through a year.

I wasn't making the healthy choices, or the wise decisions, or taking care of myself

the way I should have, but sometimes it's about simply getting through from one month

to the next.

...