And here we are: The final day of 2017! It feels like just yesterday I was blogging my 2017 New Year's Resolutions. Now comes the time to reflect on 2017, a year of immense growth and confusion.

I'm not sure what to make of this year to be honest. It felt like a fragmented year: A year where little bits of everything happened, and everything amounted to the lessons I was destined to learn. I'm not sure if that makes perfect sense, but it felt like a year where everything happened. I learned so much in 365 days.

2017 taught me to be selfish. Selfish with my time, my heart, my feelings, my mind, and most importantly, myself. In the past I spent too much time feeling sorry for myself and the things I couldn’t change, wishing for things I didn’t have, and begging for people who did not deserve me. 

In 2017 I held myself through heartbreak and pain, and emerged like a lotus flower. I lost people I thought I couldn’t live without, but I also met extraordinary people at UCT who helped me through my anxiety and fear. I forged the most beautiful connections and friendships, and made amazing memories along the way. I listened to extraordinary voices and learned things. I pushed myself into new work opportunities through 20 Model Management and Exclusive Books. I changed my environment by restyling my room into a peaceful and loving sanctuary.

I achieved things I never knew possible:

• Matric with six distinctions, an A aggregate, and top 10 in my year
• A scholarship to university
• My learner’s license
• 100 Days Of Courage👸🏽
• A job
• A modeling contract
• My hard work in first year paid off through my stellar end of year results

I’ve grown immensely, but I’ve also regressed: I’ve been vulnerable and terrified in my anorexia relapse... But I have also strengthened my mind and body in my intense desire for recovery and life. I have learned to treat myself as a first priority, and to feel my feet on the floor without asking someone if they are there.

2018 is my year to be happy again. To be Sarah-Kate, truly, madly, and freely. My 20th year will be the happiest I’ve ever been, God willing.

Next year, I hope I can learn to heal to restoration. I hope my body will blossom and be free of fear. I hope I can sustain the art of mindfulness. I hope my relationship with myself flourishes.

2018 will be MY year. My year of health, recovery, happiness, good vibes, blessings, hard work, love, and growth. Thank you for the memories, the lessons, the heartaches, and the blessings 2017.

All I want for Christmas is to become the person I deserve. 

I want to give myself the love, compassion, affirmation, and respect that I so desire and crave from everyone else. I want to be the first person I want to see in the morning, as I am, not the person I want to be inside my head. I want to hold myself in-between the crisp white sheets and fall deeply in love with the softness of my hair, the warmth of my skin, the softness of my touch, and the wriggling of my legs. I want to see beyond my flaws into the corners of my soul, and fill these spaces with light and warmth. I want to see myself as a whole human being living a life for herself first, not for other people. I want to have the kind of love for myself that makes me indestructible. I want to be empowered by my body. I want to nurse it and nourish it so that I can climb higher, swim further, and run faster. I don't want to treat it as a prison. I want to experience all that I can in this one precious life I have been granted. 

All I want for Christmas is to stop being afraid of growth, and let go of my need to be in control of everything in order to make it perfect. I have not been able to live fully and love freely because I am so scared of admitting that I need things: People, food, and rest. I somehow feel like needing things makes me weak. That is why I push myself to the edge: To starvation, dehydration, and exhaustion. When I am walking on these tightropes, I feel like I am independent, strong, and belonging to no one. That is why my eating disorder makes me feel empowered in the most distorted way. Anorexia needs nothing and no one. She makes me feel like the ice queen of my own deserted frozen kingdom. But in that process, it makes me more dependent than ever before. I become dependent on numbers to tell me my worth, on the mirror to show me who I am, on medication to get me out of bed, and on doctors and psychologists to make me human again. I don't want to live a life of dependency. That sort of life doesn't fit in with where I am now. I want to be an adult. I want my parents to trust me. I am nineteen years old and my mother has to beg me to eat. My friends text and call me almost everyday to see if I am okay. Everyone is constantly worried about me. I don't want to be the friend left behind anymore. I don't want to be the one everyone always worries about. I truly believe myself to be a responsible and trustworthy person capable of living a life of freedom, power, and adventure. But right now, I cannot live that life, and people don't trust that I will be able to handle such a life. I want people to trust me. I want people to look at me and say, "You see her? She was in a really bad space once upon a time. But look at her now: Healthy, full, beautiful, and whole. She rose above into a new life. And she has never been happier." 

All I want for Christmas is for people to see me as happy and whole and healthy. I want to eat so that my body feels energized and full. I want to be able to eat what I want if I want to eat it. I want to be able to eat at whatever time of day I want. I want to stop defining myself by the number on the scale. I want to be able to be okay with whatever form my body decides to take. If I get a little chubbier, I want to be okay with that. If I go up a dress size, I want to be okay with that. I just want to be able to live. That is all. I want to be able to eat and not care. I want my body to be free. I don't want to police myself with hatred and force. I just want to be able to validate myself as a person in time and space, and be okay with who that person is. I want to be able to see myself as more than a body. I want to be able to feel my feet on the ground, and feel my heart beat in my chest, and know that I do not need the validation of someone else to solidify my existence. I want to be whole as I am. 

All I want for Christmas is to be able to eat without caring about calories, carbs, fat, sugar, and weight. I just want to have a free body and mind. I want the freedom of not giving a damn about what form my body takes. Because I want my mind to be strong enough in the knowledge that beauty is not worn on the skin, but sewn in the heart. I want to believe wholeheartedly that whatever my body does is what it will do, but that what I look like does not define me. My mind, my thoughts, how I treat myself, how I treat others, how I chase my dreams, how I fulfill my goals, how I reach for my own happiness, how I embrace life, how I rise above adversities, how I nourish myself, and how I see beauty beyond the surface- THAT is what defines me. My body is merely a single part of my whole experience. The current fear I have about it getting bigger, changing, becoming healthy, and receiving energy and nourishment speaks to a deep sense of self-hatred and insecurity that I have. 

All I want for Christmas is to love myself. I just want to feel peace in my heart. I want to love my body for all that it is. I want to embrace it, however it decides to grow and mature. The reason why I find it so difficult to nourish and nurture myself is because I don't believe I am worthy of it. I've also said that I am constantly seeking validation from other people that I exist. My sense of self is shattered, and I no longer see myself as a person living and worthy of love and respect. I can give so much to other people, but leave so little for myself. I punish myself in unspeakable ways which is where my eating disorder manifests from. There is an entrenched and moulding fear in my subconscious about the future, growing up, becoming bigger and older, and the uncontrollable nature of what my life will become.

All I want for Christmas is to cultivate beautiful thoughts around life, food, and my sense of self. These beautiful thoughts will assist in my eating disorder recovery, and in turn help my body grow naturally and peacefully into a body that matches these thoughts. My body right now: Starving, exhausted, dehydrated, bony, empty, hollow, and void of life, currently reflects my thoughts. The body I have now is an external manifestation of all I feel I deserve. My body now reflects my internal processes of how little self love and respect I have for myself. How little I love the body I will have forever, and how much I punish and bully myself because that is all I can do for myself. 

All I want for Christmas is a loving mind. I want to think freely, love fully, breathe deeply, give selflessly, and treat life as the miracle that it is. Teetering on the edge gives me a thrill, but it will never give me the joy I will receive if I open my heart to the heartache, happiness, and head-spinning confusion that life offers. I need my thoughts to become purified. Once that happens, my body will follow suit. It will become an outward manifestation of the inner peace I so desire. And when that happens, I won't care what I look like. I will no longer chase the bones in my shoulders, chest, and back. I will instead be grateful for the body that reflects all the love and patience I have with myself and my journey. Then and only then will I be truly and wholly beautiful. 

That is all I want for Christmas.