Am I Not Still God? by Kathy Troccoli

Author:Kathy Troccoli [Troccoli, Kathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Some Drew Near the Gates of Death

I was at the height of “hiding” when I battled with bulimia. Nothing brought me more shame and self-contempt than the long, dark road through that struggle. It started at college. Before that time I was lean and ate anything I desired to eat. In 1977 I attended Berklee College of Music for two semesters. It is a very unconventional music college because its main emphasis is on jazz. It’s located in Boston and at the time was basically composed of two buildings. Berklee was, and still is, a very prestigious music school, and I was excited to become a student there.

However, it was a severe change for me. There were no sororities or fraternities. It was not a “normal” college life. There were middle-aged men coming off the road to take a couple of arrangement classes. Students were extremely transient because many took just a course or two for what they needed to become better artists.

The female population was sparse, and I remember not wanting to go to the cafeteria the first couple of weeks because, as a female, it was easy to feel on display. Besides that, I was a Long Island girl who had extremely little knowledge of other cities or other cultures. I arrived there from “my little Italy” environment and was sort of thrown into a tailspin. I felt out of my element. I felt out of control. I began eating for comfort.

A Dunkin’ Donuts shop down the block would give free garbage bags of all sorts of donuts to the students in town after it closed for the night. The guys and I would eat dozens of them at midnight and wash them all down with a couple of glasses of milk. On the weekends I was doing a lot of partying. The six packs of beer I was consuming were not helping the fog in my brain or the bulge building around my middle.

Most days I wasn’t quite sure why I was there. All I wanted to do was be a singer. My mom was the one who wanted me to have the “education.” “You could always fall back on teaching,” she would say. I would want to vomit. I never wanted to teach. As valuable as teachers are, I knew in my heart that wasn’t what I was cut out to be. I longed to sing.

So there I was. Pretty miserable. By the time my mom came to pick me up and take me back to New York for the Christmas holidays, I had gained twenty pounds, cut my hair, and had a bad perm. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I walked out of the elevator. I knew she was thinking,

Is this my Kathleen?

I wanted to bury my head in her chest and say so many things.

I’m scared.

I’m not sure who I am.

I know I look bad, Mom. I feel bad.

What am I doing here?

What is life all about?

I didn’t say any of those things.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.