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Exactly two months, three weeks, and one day ago, I bought my Compass Bracelet at Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C... But that's not really where the story starts. It also doesn't really start exactly 6 months and one week ago, when I finally broke. Finding a beginning to my story is difficult.  So as i'm writing this, i'll just assume that the beginning of my story blends into the beginning of everything there ever will be - and that at the same time, this story (my story) will fade into all of that goodness in the end. It'll become/remain a part of everyone's story...because I figure that all our stories are connected somehow (just like these bracelets). Anywaaaaay.....let's get back to six months and one week ago. Exactly six months and one week ago, I was the very embodiment of what many people think they know about anorexia.  I'd accepted this narrow diagnosis as my identity...as if all of the many doctors who'd written it on all of my many charts could better able to tell me who I was than I could tell myself. My entire life I'd willingly accepted everyone else's opinion of who I was and who I should be. By this point, I'd spent the past 3 years trying (and failing) to figure out what the error was inside of me that just had to be causing this nasty, old eating disorder. Because clearly, if I couldn't stop starving myself to death, there must have been something fundamentally wrong with who I was in the very deepest sense of my self, right? And if there was a "problem" there HAD to be an equally as identifiable solution, right? A cure? Wrong. I'd deprived my body and soul for so long that I'd left myself weak, lost, and scared to the point of desperation. Ironically enough, in a hopeless attempt to totally control my world, i'd lost total control. I'll skimm over all of the boring/gory/unnecessary details, but to sum it up - I had to abruptly leave my job, leave my home, leave my person, and leave life's control booth. It took all that to figure out that what I had wasn't an eating disorder, it was a spirit disorder. Fast forward. Today is June 24, 2018, and so much has changed. I'm not the girl I was 6 months and one week ago, because she was never me. 'Me'  had gotten lost inside of a broken body and had been drowned-out amidst all the noise of the world. I managed to resurface through some personal intention, and a whooooole lot what I used to see as 'convenient accidents'. Now I know that all those 'convenient accidents' were actually just the intention of the universe/God/the Supreme Being/life force (whatever noun you please...because let's be real, none of them could possibly do that energy justice). All that intention and love brought me back. I've known for weeks and weeks who I'd pass my bracelet on to when the time came. My healing has simultaneously been the result of, and helped to create, one of the most amazing and unlikely friendships I'll probably ever experience. Today, he started a new part of his life - a part that I'm sure will be filled with just as much incredible uncertainty and excitement as mine has been recently. I want him to have my compass bracelet as a reminder of a few different things: 1) To remind him of everything that he's done to help me wake back up to the amazing soul that I am. 2) To remind him of the amazing soul that he is. 3) To remind him (and all of the other amazing souls that this bracelet will travel along to touch) that this universe itself is really just one big, amazing thing. For me, the Compass Bracelet has been a reminder that EVERY. SINGLE. SOUL. out there comes from the same source as I do. As different as we are, we all have that little bit of life inside of us that sprang up from exactly the same place. I really can't put into words how much love I feel for the world and for all the souls that make it up. Myself (finally) included. We're all connected. And we're all okay.     Grace and peace. Love, and light. Now and forever. -Sarah