Maybe I'm too quick to dismiss this whole Seasonal Affective Disorder thing. The weekend was sunny and I felt better. I've also cranked the light box up to x-tra high, and leave it on for an hour or so. I don't feel so bad. I think I'm at about 65%. And then there was a news item on the national news about how doctors are seeing a big increase in people with low moods this fall, when the east coast has had one of the most overcast fall seasons in almost 60 years.
I'm tired of the guilt, of the shame of feeling like I'm doing something wrong. To HELL with it. Now I have to try and live that out, and stop slinking around with my tail shoved under my butt. I wish humans did still have tails. But only involuntary ones that wagged or sagged in true response to one's feelings. I keep up a good front when I'm not so low I have to take to my bed. Unfortunately, it's mostly a front.
Thank god the food is ok. I've not been going to any meetings, I've just felt too low, too vulnerable, yet I fear that this is going to catch up with me. But my support group doesn't feel like a support group any more. My disease is using it against me. I can't go to them for support, I feel like as an "old-timer" I think I have to be the support, and I don't feel up to it. I've got to change something here.
11.12.06
9.12.06
Revelations, I Think...
I've been depressed for the last couple of months. The weather here has been horrible and grey. Oh for a nice white snowfall! I gave in to the opinions of my therapist and GP and finally bought one of those light boxes, and I've been taking my vitamin D faithfully, along with an antidepressant, but it doesn't seem to be taking. It's not just the weather, this has been a problem off and on for me since early adulthood. I believe that my long and torturous history with the food is also linked to this mental turmoil. Researchers have long theorized that substance abuse may be an attempt to self medicate mental illness.
Mental illness. The term just sends a chill up my spine. It sounds so final, so damning. But actually, if I can look at mental illness as something chronic but treatable, like, say, diabetes, it can remove that whole layer of shame and guilt.
I've been looking at my manifestations of depression. Often it consists of staying in bed for long periods because I feel so overwhelmed by the everyday world. But I am starting to wonder if it isn't so much a depressive mood as a reaction to extreme anxiety. When I wake up in the morning, I have a thousand thoughts coursing through my brain, and if there are too many, I just hit a threshold where I feel I have to shut down. It's almost as if a fuse blows. My tortured brain decides it's hopeless, I give up, and retreat from the world.
My father suffered from terrible anxiety. It was obvious in his case: He trembled, he would talk in his sleep, if you happened to touch him (ours was not a physically demonstrative family) he would practically jump out of his skin. And, oh yes, he was also an alcoholic.
Of course, I grew up vowing never to be like him. But I now see that what he did with booze, I did with food. And although I try to come across as a relaxed, fun, funky chick, I am really quite tense inside. Social situations are tough. I come home from choir rehearsals fantasizing about mowing my way through a big bag of kettle cooked chips. But I hide it well. Joking and laughing and trying to be Ms. Social butterfly. And I'm an artist.
But it's a ruse. I'm full of anxiety, I need long periods away from people, and I haven't been in the studio for ages. I worry, I worry, I worry. The social anxiety is the worst. I worry about what people think of me, and I get into these toxic situations where I throw my own mind out the window and get overwhelmingly occupied with what the other person wants or needs. Most of this happens automatically, without me being conscious of it. Habit? Probably at least partly. Growing up in a fucked-up family, a kid gets pretty good at sussing out what they need to do to appease the family members who are acting out. Unfortunately, I grew up with a warped idea of how relationships work.
So, on with the therapy, but I think it's time to talk to the doc again, maybe get a referral to a psychiatrist. I want to investigate some different medication options.
Mental illness. The term just sends a chill up my spine. It sounds so final, so damning. But actually, if I can look at mental illness as something chronic but treatable, like, say, diabetes, it can remove that whole layer of shame and guilt.
I've been looking at my manifestations of depression. Often it consists of staying in bed for long periods because I feel so overwhelmed by the everyday world. But I am starting to wonder if it isn't so much a depressive mood as a reaction to extreme anxiety. When I wake up in the morning, I have a thousand thoughts coursing through my brain, and if there are too many, I just hit a threshold where I feel I have to shut down. It's almost as if a fuse blows. My tortured brain decides it's hopeless, I give up, and retreat from the world.
My father suffered from terrible anxiety. It was obvious in his case: He trembled, he would talk in his sleep, if you happened to touch him (ours was not a physically demonstrative family) he would practically jump out of his skin. And, oh yes, he was also an alcoholic.
Of course, I grew up vowing never to be like him. But I now see that what he did with booze, I did with food. And although I try to come across as a relaxed, fun, funky chick, I am really quite tense inside. Social situations are tough. I come home from choir rehearsals fantasizing about mowing my way through a big bag of kettle cooked chips. But I hide it well. Joking and laughing and trying to be Ms. Social butterfly. And I'm an artist.
But it's a ruse. I'm full of anxiety, I need long periods away from people, and I haven't been in the studio for ages. I worry, I worry, I worry. The social anxiety is the worst. I worry about what people think of me, and I get into these toxic situations where I throw my own mind out the window and get overwhelmingly occupied with what the other person wants or needs. Most of this happens automatically, without me being conscious of it. Habit? Probably at least partly. Growing up in a fucked-up family, a kid gets pretty good at sussing out what they need to do to appease the family members who are acting out. Unfortunately, I grew up with a warped idea of how relationships work.
So, on with the therapy, but I think it's time to talk to the doc again, maybe get a referral to a psychiatrist. I want to investigate some different medication options.
28.11.06
Fatgrrl Evolution
For years, food has been my life. Love food, love cooking, love expressing my love for others through food. I've even worked as a sous-chef and volunteered in a soup kitchen. Then I realized that if I didn't change things I was going to die sooner rather than later, and likely not in a pleasant manner, developing hypertension and diabetes at age 36.
Fast forward nine years. Right now the food feels manageable. I've got so many good support systems in place, it is working: a plan of eating that is sane, nutritious and not punitive. A support group of people who I meet regularly at OA meetings and socially. A regular routine of exercise. A small group I run with twice weekly. A weekly therapy session. Support of family and friends. So the food is good. For the first time in my life it feels fairly sane.
But I'm at a new stage in my battle with the food. I've been a stable weight right now for a little over two years, and that initial euphoria of losing all that weight has faded. I've struggled with depression since I was in my late teens. And right now, it's the rest of my life that feels unmanageable. Last week I was very depressed, and it felt like it was impossible for me to get my life together, to do for that part of my life what has happened with my food.
This week I have a little more perspective: The other parts of my life are not as out of whack as my eating was. So I may be struggling with handling money, interpersonal relationships, and my career, but face it, who doesn't??? I've got to take it slowly, not keep heaping coals upon my head. It's not as if the rest of it fell apart when I got the food under control, it was always this way.
So, this is what life is when the food sits in its proper place.
Fast forward nine years. Right now the food feels manageable. I've got so many good support systems in place, it is working: a plan of eating that is sane, nutritious and not punitive. A support group of people who I meet regularly at OA meetings and socially. A regular routine of exercise. A small group I run with twice weekly. A weekly therapy session. Support of family and friends. So the food is good. For the first time in my life it feels fairly sane.
But I'm at a new stage in my battle with the food. I've been a stable weight right now for a little over two years, and that initial euphoria of losing all that weight has faded. I've struggled with depression since I was in my late teens. And right now, it's the rest of my life that feels unmanageable. Last week I was very depressed, and it felt like it was impossible for me to get my life together, to do for that part of my life what has happened with my food.
This week I have a little more perspective: The other parts of my life are not as out of whack as my eating was. So I may be struggling with handling money, interpersonal relationships, and my career, but face it, who doesn't??? I've got to take it slowly, not keep heaping coals upon my head. It's not as if the rest of it fell apart when I got the food under control, it was always this way.
So, this is what life is when the food sits in its proper place.
27.11.06
I Wouldn'ta Believed It if I Hadn't Eatit...
Is anyone like me and a big fan of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine? I just love those pidgin english speaking crocodiles who just can't help it, their nature is to eat zebras, and their fraternity (Zeeba Zeeba Eeta) is located in a nice suburban neighbourhood in a bungalow right next to a zebra. Maybe they need a 12 step programme... "Hi, me name Larry and me lika eating deelishus zeebas"... Needless to say I feel a certain affinity for them...
Anyway, on the roasted vegetable front, I was next store at BF's house last night and we were doing one of those very informal potluck things where we go, ok, I've got a bit of this and that in the fridge and if you have some of this, so we ended up with 2 different frozen pizzas, some soy-mushroom burgers, and carmelized cauliflower and turnip fries.
Yes. Turnip Fries (ok, rutabega actually, but in my end of Canada we rarely see white turnip and so the yellow fleshed purple skinned rutabega is called turnip here). I know, it sounds gross, but they were really tasty. BF hates turnip and A while back, when I discovered carmelized cauliflower via Orangette's blog (see my links list I'm too lazy to do it) I realized that if you sliced almost any vegetable fairly thinly, tossed it with some coarse or sea salt and olive oil and roasted it in a hot oven (400 to 450 F) until it had some brown and crispy bits it would taste great. Watch it closely after 10 minutes if it's the first time you've tried this with a particular veg, and some vegetables, like sweet potatoes have a lot of sugar, and thus quicker browning.
So...BF had this turnip literally rolling around her kitchen after a very, very, long visit from her mother. And the damn thing was starting to sprout and it was bugging her. She peeled it, and cut it up into french fry size, sprayed it very generously with her nonstick spray (in my books it's the same as tossing with a little oil if you spray for more than 10 seconds!) and sprinkled on some of that Herbemare seasoned sea salt. Then baked it on cookie sheet until it was tender and had lots of browned parts like a dark fry. Amazing. In fact, I'm going to try it tonight when I roast a duck I bought on Saturday, as the duck takes a high heat too. Yum.
Anyway, on the roasted vegetable front, I was next store at BF's house last night and we were doing one of those very informal potluck things where we go, ok, I've got a bit of this and that in the fridge and if you have some of this, so we ended up with 2 different frozen pizzas, some soy-mushroom burgers, and carmelized cauliflower and turnip fries.
Yes. Turnip Fries (ok, rutabega actually, but in my end of Canada we rarely see white turnip and so the yellow fleshed purple skinned rutabega is called turnip here). I know, it sounds gross, but they were really tasty. BF hates turnip and A while back, when I discovered carmelized cauliflower via Orangette's blog (see my links list I'm too lazy to do it) I realized that if you sliced almost any vegetable fairly thinly, tossed it with some coarse or sea salt and olive oil and roasted it in a hot oven (400 to 450 F) until it had some brown and crispy bits it would taste great. Watch it closely after 10 minutes if it's the first time you've tried this with a particular veg, and some vegetables, like sweet potatoes have a lot of sugar, and thus quicker browning.
So...BF had this turnip literally rolling around her kitchen after a very, very, long visit from her mother. And the damn thing was starting to sprout and it was bugging her. She peeled it, and cut it up into french fry size, sprayed it very generously with her nonstick spray (in my books it's the same as tossing with a little oil if you spray for more than 10 seconds!) and sprinkled on some of that Herbemare seasoned sea salt. Then baked it on cookie sheet until it was tender and had lots of browned parts like a dark fry. Amazing. In fact, I'm going to try it tonight when I roast a duck I bought on Saturday, as the duck takes a high heat too. Yum.
10.11.06
Roastavegetapaloosa!
Ok, in contrast to the last very serious post, here's something light and fun.
Earlier this week I realized I needed to do something with all the root vegetables and squash heaped in a corner of my kitchen and in my fridge crisper. Sometimes I get overambitious in the organic vegetable aisle, probably because this time of year a lot of the winter vegetables look really good. And I am sick of salads, too cold for salad, I want good, sturdy cooked vegetables. But then you get them home and get busy with something else and you suddenly realize that many of these lovely vegetables are starting to look a little funky and if you don't move soon, all that will benefit from your good intentions will be the compost pile.
So three nights ago, I rummaged around and gathered up these errant veg: a butternut squash that was developing a soft spot, a rutabega, half a celeriac (celery root, tastes like celery minus the strings), a purple kohlrabi (taste a lot like broccoli stems), some really big old carrots, and an onion. I took the whole lot and peeled (and peeled and peeled) and chopped them into half inch cubes or sticks. I heated the oven to 400 degrees F, oiled two large cookie sheets with about a Tb of olive oil each and a tsp of kosher salt sprinkled over each and rolled the vegetables around in the oil and salt and then stuck them in the oven. Now, these vegetables don't all cook the same. The sweet squash became pretty mashingly soft very quickly, but it took a good part of 40 minutes for the rutabega and kohlrabi to be tender crisp. I stirred and flipped the veg around with a big spatula a couple of times and kept my eye on it to make sure the browning didn't go overboard. I purposely wanted a few browned bits that added some interesting carmelization to the taste. Some of it's very sweet, some not so sweet. When cool, I dumped the leftovers into a big plastic container to store in the fridge. We've been living off them for the last few days --- I had a couple of poached eggs on toast for lunch today with a side dish of those roasted vegetables on the side, and they tasted so good just cold straight from the fridge I had to force myself to heat a bowlful up in the microwave. Last night was a salmon and broccoli stir fry served over noodles and some of those roasted vegetables added in near the end for interest.
If we don't eat them all up in the next day or two, I think they will make a great pureed soup after some more cooking in chicken stock, maybe with some curry paste added or grated cheese on top.
I love it when I can do stuff with food that's good for you. Having tasty, ready to eat veg in the fridge is like having giftcard burning a hole in my wallet!
Earlier this week I realized I needed to do something with all the root vegetables and squash heaped in a corner of my kitchen and in my fridge crisper. Sometimes I get overambitious in the organic vegetable aisle, probably because this time of year a lot of the winter vegetables look really good. And I am sick of salads, too cold for salad, I want good, sturdy cooked vegetables. But then you get them home and get busy with something else and you suddenly realize that many of these lovely vegetables are starting to look a little funky and if you don't move soon, all that will benefit from your good intentions will be the compost pile.
So three nights ago, I rummaged around and gathered up these errant veg: a butternut squash that was developing a soft spot, a rutabega, half a celeriac (celery root, tastes like celery minus the strings), a purple kohlrabi (taste a lot like broccoli stems), some really big old carrots, and an onion. I took the whole lot and peeled (and peeled and peeled) and chopped them into half inch cubes or sticks. I heated the oven to 400 degrees F, oiled two large cookie sheets with about a Tb of olive oil each and a tsp of kosher salt sprinkled over each and rolled the vegetables around in the oil and salt and then stuck them in the oven. Now, these vegetables don't all cook the same. The sweet squash became pretty mashingly soft very quickly, but it took a good part of 40 minutes for the rutabega and kohlrabi to be tender crisp. I stirred and flipped the veg around with a big spatula a couple of times and kept my eye on it to make sure the browning didn't go overboard. I purposely wanted a few browned bits that added some interesting carmelization to the taste. Some of it's very sweet, some not so sweet. When cool, I dumped the leftovers into a big plastic container to store in the fridge. We've been living off them for the last few days --- I had a couple of poached eggs on toast for lunch today with a side dish of those roasted vegetables on the side, and they tasted so good just cold straight from the fridge I had to force myself to heat a bowlful up in the microwave. Last night was a salmon and broccoli stir fry served over noodles and some of those roasted vegetables added in near the end for interest.
If we don't eat them all up in the next day or two, I think they will make a great pureed soup after some more cooking in chicken stock, maybe with some curry paste added or grated cheese on top.
I love it when I can do stuff with food that's good for you. Having tasty, ready to eat veg in the fridge is like having giftcard burning a hole in my wallet!
Blessed by the UPS
I was lying in bed early this morning feeling ambushed and overwhelmed by all the "had to do"'s for today, feeling utterly ashamed of how paralysed I felt. So I went back to sleep because I didn't feel able to cope. Blessed unconsciousness.
But then I remembered that I was expecting the UPS guy. So I got up, and I've been sitting around the house for the past 4 hours waiting for him. Mind you, if the UPS guy wasn't coming (I didn't actually expect the order to come this soon) I might just be sitting around anyway, but feeling worse about it. I'm really struggling with a depressed mood the last few weeks. This way, at least I'm doing something useful when I sit around. Actually, I'm doing some other stuff too. I'm writing something for a talk I'm supposed to be giving tomorrow. I've had a healthy breakfast and lunch. Somedays the blessings seem small, but I have to try to count them.
Having to stick around the house lowered the bar for me today. I'm not feeling totally paralysed and useless.
Do one thing at a time. Don't overplan. I keep telling myself, but somehow it just gets added to the coals that I heap upon my head. Life in my head is tough right now; all those coals aren't that easy to bear. Sometimes I'm ok, sometimes I'm not. But I'm still here.
But then I remembered that I was expecting the UPS guy. So I got up, and I've been sitting around the house for the past 4 hours waiting for him. Mind you, if the UPS guy wasn't coming (I didn't actually expect the order to come this soon) I might just be sitting around anyway, but feeling worse about it. I'm really struggling with a depressed mood the last few weeks. This way, at least I'm doing something useful when I sit around. Actually, I'm doing some other stuff too. I'm writing something for a talk I'm supposed to be giving tomorrow. I've had a healthy breakfast and lunch. Somedays the blessings seem small, but I have to try to count them.
Having to stick around the house lowered the bar for me today. I'm not feeling totally paralysed and useless.
Do one thing at a time. Don't overplan. I keep telling myself, but somehow it just gets added to the coals that I heap upon my head. Life in my head is tough right now; all those coals aren't that easy to bear. Sometimes I'm ok, sometimes I'm not. But I'm still here.
18.10.06
Me vs. The Cookies.. Why Do I DO This???
Didja notice that yesterday I mentioned I was making cookies for a community meeting? I was asked, and instead of saying, can I wash coffee cups or set out chairs, I said, oh sure I'll make cookies! Did anyone find that strange? I should have! I should have at least considered whether that was a good idea to have several dozen cookies cooling in my kitchen, or what's almost worse, several dozen cookies worth of cookie dough, of which I nibbled on so much yesterday that I realized I had to go without my usual evening snack of chocolate. Also, bad idea to run with cookie dough in the tummy. Holy brick in the stomach Batman...
So, I'm a compulsive overeater and I offered to do the foodie equivalent of a drunk offering to make the holiday punch for a party. I'm wondering if I should do that again. I'm still in the midst of it, so it's good I'm writing. I'm trying to be honest, not gloss the struggle over. I ran out of time yesterday so I threw the dough in the fridge and I'm baking them this morning. 7 or 8 dozen cookies are spread over the kitchen, cooling. At this point in the day (it's almost noon)I've had 2 cookies. Samples, right? Yeah. So, it's early in the day and I've already had most of my allotted dessert for the day. How am I with that? Not terribly happy about it really. I usually save a dessert for the evening.
The irony increases, I'm supposed to meet my OA sponsee for our weekly chat in an hour. Do I tell her I was baking cookies? Yes. I have to be honest, and this has been a challenge to my sanity. I wonder if this is a safe thing for me to do. Am I tempting fate, am I thriving on the thrill of baking? It's true, I love cooking and baking as an anxiety release. It feels so homey, all those good smells. Maybe I'm trying to recover, or remake my childhood where so much of the good things were around food. Intersperse that with a constant diet. I don't know where all of this leads, it's just interesting to look at at this point. Will it take a binge to change me? Do I have to change? Am I wasting my time on this earth with comfort food rather than directing my phantom but considerable when occasionally tapped energies into more sane yet more risky avenues? No answers here.
So, I'm a compulsive overeater and I offered to do the foodie equivalent of a drunk offering to make the holiday punch for a party. I'm wondering if I should do that again. I'm still in the midst of it, so it's good I'm writing. I'm trying to be honest, not gloss the struggle over. I ran out of time yesterday so I threw the dough in the fridge and I'm baking them this morning. 7 or 8 dozen cookies are spread over the kitchen, cooling. At this point in the day (it's almost noon)I've had 2 cookies. Samples, right? Yeah. So, it's early in the day and I've already had most of my allotted dessert for the day. How am I with that? Not terribly happy about it really. I usually save a dessert for the evening.
The irony increases, I'm supposed to meet my OA sponsee for our weekly chat in an hour. Do I tell her I was baking cookies? Yes. I have to be honest, and this has been a challenge to my sanity. I wonder if this is a safe thing for me to do. Am I tempting fate, am I thriving on the thrill of baking? It's true, I love cooking and baking as an anxiety release. It feels so homey, all those good smells. Maybe I'm trying to recover, or remake my childhood where so much of the good things were around food. Intersperse that with a constant diet. I don't know where all of this leads, it's just interesting to look at at this point. Will it take a binge to change me? Do I have to change? Am I wasting my time on this earth with comfort food rather than directing my phantom but considerable when occasionally tapped energies into more sane yet more risky avenues? No answers here.
17.10.06
2 Weigh or Not 2 Weigh...
... That is my question here.
When we moved... when was it, mid July, so 3 months ago, I finally threw out my peeling, chocolate brown, 1978 Sears bathroom scale. I haven't bought another one, I've been waffling.
'Twas a time when I weighed myself daily, or following the good old Weight Watchers regimen (fat lot of good that did me) once weekly. I could drive myself nuts with it. And more recently, I weighed myself monthly, after my period to make sure I was getting a more "accurate" (trans: lower) number. But I found that it was accompanied by great angst. Yet I had to do it. But if that number was up, I was in for a bad mood. And thoughts of dieting, which of course made me hungry. The Rooms of OA are rife with hilarious tales of weighing contortionists, the best one was my friend who used to take out her dental partial plate before weighing herself, or my friend who when she weighs herself, monthly, she does it 4 times, with the scale pointing in the directions of the compass! I'm not sure if she averages the number or does what I'd do and take the lowest one!
So, I thought, ok, this old scale is as inaccurate as hell and maybe it's just continuing an unhealthy obsession. It never agrees with my doctor's scale. I'll just rely on my clothes to tell me what's going on. Except most of my pants (I wear a skirt twice a year, roughly) have a certain amount of spandex. On a middle aged body, spandex in jeans means that I can still have a shape, things don't have to be baggy to be comfortable. But I don't trust the spandex to tell me if I'm still an 8. And what if the new pair of pants I bought last month are a funny fit. I can stew on this silly stuff forever, and it seems to happen every time I put on a pair of freshly laundered pants.
So it may be time to cry Uncle, just cut to the chase and buy another damn scale. I have to admit, the last nearly 4 years of weighing monthly, I didn't have any diet thoughts, except for maybe, ok, time to dial it back a little on the rich desserts last year. The number was pretty stable.
On the other hand, I have a physical in 2 days. Maybe I should just find out what that number is, compare it with the last number in my file, and see then what I should or shouldn't do.
Such a simple and elegant solution, costs nothing, I don't have to shop for a new scale. Just what my crazy brain doesn't want: sanity!
When we moved... when was it, mid July, so 3 months ago, I finally threw out my peeling, chocolate brown, 1978 Sears bathroom scale. I haven't bought another one, I've been waffling.
'Twas a time when I weighed myself daily, or following the good old Weight Watchers regimen (fat lot of good that did me) once weekly. I could drive myself nuts with it. And more recently, I weighed myself monthly, after my period to make sure I was getting a more "accurate" (trans: lower) number. But I found that it was accompanied by great angst. Yet I had to do it. But if that number was up, I was in for a bad mood. And thoughts of dieting, which of course made me hungry. The Rooms of OA are rife with hilarious tales of weighing contortionists, the best one was my friend who used to take out her dental partial plate before weighing herself, or my friend who when she weighs herself, monthly, she does it 4 times, with the scale pointing in the directions of the compass! I'm not sure if she averages the number or does what I'd do and take the lowest one!
So, I thought, ok, this old scale is as inaccurate as hell and maybe it's just continuing an unhealthy obsession. It never agrees with my doctor's scale. I'll just rely on my clothes to tell me what's going on. Except most of my pants (I wear a skirt twice a year, roughly) have a certain amount of spandex. On a middle aged body, spandex in jeans means that I can still have a shape, things don't have to be baggy to be comfortable. But I don't trust the spandex to tell me if I'm still an 8. And what if the new pair of pants I bought last month are a funny fit. I can stew on this silly stuff forever, and it seems to happen every time I put on a pair of freshly laundered pants.
So it may be time to cry Uncle, just cut to the chase and buy another damn scale. I have to admit, the last nearly 4 years of weighing monthly, I didn't have any diet thoughts, except for maybe, ok, time to dial it back a little on the rich desserts last year. The number was pretty stable.
On the other hand, I have a physical in 2 days. Maybe I should just find out what that number is, compare it with the last number in my file, and see then what I should or shouldn't do.
Such a simple and elegant solution, costs nothing, I don't have to shop for a new scale. Just what my crazy brain doesn't want: sanity!
Dreadhead
I should have dreadlocks. I wonder where they got that name, cause the people who wear them seem so mellow, perhaps through the aid of certain recreational drugs. Ehhhh, no dread here, mon! I woke up with a head full of dread this morning. I still don't understand why that happens. Nothing particularly onerous today, I did have to deal with a doctor's office phone call about scheduling issues over my still distant spectre of a hernia operation, but that's it, and come on, it's not much. All I have scheduled for today is making cookies for a community meeting tomorrow night and running, and I had thought I would try to be in the studio a couple of hours today... is that it?
On the back burner, however, there does seem to be a lot of junky thinking on the simmer.... double double, boil and bubble... worries about money, about financial issues I need to deal with. I think it's high time I consult a financial advisor about some investments my mother left me that seem to not be doing so well and I think I have to look at them now because of some tax implications next spring. Oh ugh. It may be high time, but I don't feel any where near ready. That definitely makes me want to go back to bed. Can I set the snooze alarm to go off again in another 100 years or so? I feel so freakin incompetent when it comes to money. Julia Cameron (you know, the lady who wrote The Artist's Way, self help guru to the creatively constipated) says there are people who are addicted to poverty. I may be one of them. My family fought so much over money I freak out and run when I have to consider financial questions.
Today I can deal with the cookies. The studio? That's so hard. You see, the studio is where you go to access that inner stuff, and when the inner stuff is fear and loathing, it's not very easy. I wonder where my sketchbooks are? This is the sort of thing that may be easiest dealt with in a cartoon...
On the back burner, however, there does seem to be a lot of junky thinking on the simmer.... double double, boil and bubble... worries about money, about financial issues I need to deal with. I think it's high time I consult a financial advisor about some investments my mother left me that seem to not be doing so well and I think I have to look at them now because of some tax implications next spring. Oh ugh. It may be high time, but I don't feel any where near ready. That definitely makes me want to go back to bed. Can I set the snooze alarm to go off again in another 100 years or so? I feel so freakin incompetent when it comes to money. Julia Cameron (you know, the lady who wrote The Artist's Way, self help guru to the creatively constipated) says there are people who are addicted to poverty. I may be one of them. My family fought so much over money I freak out and run when I have to consider financial questions.
Today I can deal with the cookies. The studio? That's so hard. You see, the studio is where you go to access that inner stuff, and when the inner stuff is fear and loathing, it's not very easy. I wonder where my sketchbooks are? This is the sort of thing that may be easiest dealt with in a cartoon...
16.10.06
Surprise, I ain't no Flo-Jo!
I got a call last night from one of the organizers of a series of group therapy sessions that I have been interested in joining since my Addictions Doc left town. Unfortunately the session is scheduled for the same time as one of my 2 weekly group runs. I told the person that I would have to get back to her today, that I had to think about it. And I did. I talked to Fuzz about it, but I kind of knew all along I would, regretfully, have to turn it down.
Because I love running, and I love running with the people I run with. Mind you there is only 3 of us right now, sometimes just the 2, but we are there for each other and it feels so good. I have to qualify my love for running: Sometimes it feels so good only after we've run, on those nights when it feels like my limbs are concrete blocks and my blood is thicker than mortar. But actually, even those nights aren't totally bad. The struggling usually lifts after about 10 or 15 minutes and suddenly I'm flowing.
I've got crappy lung capacity, maybe it's genetic, maybe it's because I was sick a lot as a kid and I still have some latent asthma, or maybe it's because I was very sedentary until I was nearly 40, but I'm never going to be a super athelete. I doubt I will ever attempt a marathon, that's just too much pain, but I feel pretty amazing and amazed when I can run for a half hour. I finally get what that runner's high stuff is about, feeling totally physically spent and my whole body is glowing, feeling as if the exertion has pumped blood into every last bit of my being. I actually feel good that I'm sweaty.
That's a change. When I was over 300 I did everything I could to avoid getting all sweaty, partly because it didn't take much movement to make me sweat, and I was so full of shame at my physical condition that my mind was consumed with doing everything I could to not appear sweaty and flustered. Which was impossible, so I would shun people and situations where that might happen, I grew more isolated, and more ill.
Sometimes we run at the same time as the university track club that our coach also coaches, and it's amazing to watch these kids who just seem to effortlessly raise their heels so high they're practically kicking themselves. Of course I start to compare, but I have to stop that, because I'm not them, and comparing myself to others is one of those things that gets my head into a bad space.
Fuzz has this Yogi-Barraism he likes to say which is "I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in", and I like it. At 45, and after all I've been through, I'm doing pretty damn good.
Because I love running, and I love running with the people I run with. Mind you there is only 3 of us right now, sometimes just the 2, but we are there for each other and it feels so good. I have to qualify my love for running: Sometimes it feels so good only after we've run, on those nights when it feels like my limbs are concrete blocks and my blood is thicker than mortar. But actually, even those nights aren't totally bad. The struggling usually lifts after about 10 or 15 minutes and suddenly I'm flowing.
I've got crappy lung capacity, maybe it's genetic, maybe it's because I was sick a lot as a kid and I still have some latent asthma, or maybe it's because I was very sedentary until I was nearly 40, but I'm never going to be a super athelete. I doubt I will ever attempt a marathon, that's just too much pain, but I feel pretty amazing and amazed when I can run for a half hour. I finally get what that runner's high stuff is about, feeling totally physically spent and my whole body is glowing, feeling as if the exertion has pumped blood into every last bit of my being. I actually feel good that I'm sweaty.
That's a change. When I was over 300 I did everything I could to avoid getting all sweaty, partly because it didn't take much movement to make me sweat, and I was so full of shame at my physical condition that my mind was consumed with doing everything I could to not appear sweaty and flustered. Which was impossible, so I would shun people and situations where that might happen, I grew more isolated, and more ill.
Sometimes we run at the same time as the university track club that our coach also coaches, and it's amazing to watch these kids who just seem to effortlessly raise their heels so high they're practically kicking themselves. Of course I start to compare, but I have to stop that, because I'm not them, and comparing myself to others is one of those things that gets my head into a bad space.
Fuzz has this Yogi-Barraism he likes to say which is "I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in", and I like it. At 45, and after all I've been through, I'm doing pretty damn good.
11.10.06
Hang in There, Baby!
Oh gawd, that awful poster from the seventies! That poor cat! But that's the way I'm feeling. I'm hanging on, and some days, it's like I'm down to my last claw on the branch. It's not white knuckling, not with the food, anyway, which is pretty good, pretty quiet, not calling out to me from the fridge too much.
If there is white knuckling going on, it's to do with my faith in recovery. Things are ok. Nothing is really wrong, things are "fine", but mentally, I wake up feeling like a wall just fell on me. Or more accurately, is about to fall on me if I dare to get out of bed.
I've written (some may say bragged) about how life has been so cool with food "sobriety", and it is, many times. I'm on day 633 since I had a binge, and there are some great moments. But right now, as I write this, my stomach is feeling kind of clenched up, like my jaw, and since I'm not stuffing food down my throat to smother that physical manifestation of anxiety, I can experience that feeling fully. Oh joy. Thankfully, it isn't as intense as a craving, and the discomfort often fades quickly after I recognize it's there.
It's different from a craving, this time I was just feeling and recognizing that discomfort in my gi tract that before probably I would automatically try to smother with food. I guess you could call this a pre-craving, with the craving right around the corner.
I had a craving earlier this morning. I was in a large grocery store early, a time I usually don't go shopping, but I had just dropped my BF's daughter off at school and I needed milk. Honest, I needed milk. I had had a great breakfast, a big helping of my mega chunky oatmeal with nuts and fruit, but it's a cool rainy day, the rest of the day is sort of undefined because I could do this, could do that, could do the other thing, and of course what hit me was the smell of the bread from the in-store bakery... Suddenly I needed bread although I knew full well I had at least a half a loaf in the freezer. The bread I usually buy wasn't there. But boy, did I give the other stuff there a once over, including for the umpteenth time, this olive rosemary sourdough that for me is like crack... One slice, even cut an inch thick from a large round loaf, is never enough.
I needed comfort. I know that. I needed reassurance. Comfort food, in the extreme. My problem is what starts as self-comfort slides into self abuse. I'm not comforting, I'm stuffing.
If there is white knuckling going on, it's to do with my faith in recovery. Things are ok. Nothing is really wrong, things are "fine", but mentally, I wake up feeling like a wall just fell on me. Or more accurately, is about to fall on me if I dare to get out of bed.
I've written (some may say bragged) about how life has been so cool with food "sobriety", and it is, many times. I'm on day 633 since I had a binge, and there are some great moments. But right now, as I write this, my stomach is feeling kind of clenched up, like my jaw, and since I'm not stuffing food down my throat to smother that physical manifestation of anxiety, I can experience that feeling fully. Oh joy. Thankfully, it isn't as intense as a craving, and the discomfort often fades quickly after I recognize it's there.
It's different from a craving, this time I was just feeling and recognizing that discomfort in my gi tract that before probably I would automatically try to smother with food. I guess you could call this a pre-craving, with the craving right around the corner.
I had a craving earlier this morning. I was in a large grocery store early, a time I usually don't go shopping, but I had just dropped my BF's daughter off at school and I needed milk. Honest, I needed milk. I had had a great breakfast, a big helping of my mega chunky oatmeal with nuts and fruit, but it's a cool rainy day, the rest of the day is sort of undefined because I could do this, could do that, could do the other thing, and of course what hit me was the smell of the bread from the in-store bakery... Suddenly I needed bread although I knew full well I had at least a half a loaf in the freezer. The bread I usually buy wasn't there. But boy, did I give the other stuff there a once over, including for the umpteenth time, this olive rosemary sourdough that for me is like crack... One slice, even cut an inch thick from a large round loaf, is never enough.
I needed comfort. I know that. I needed reassurance. Comfort food, in the extreme. My problem is what starts as self-comfort slides into self abuse. I'm not comforting, I'm stuffing.
3.10.06
My Talk (Long)
The Saturday Overeaters Anonymous workshop went well. Although I had already heard 3 of the other 4 speakers, I heard something new from each of them. I imagine they sweated as much over their talks as I, but I believe I also heard what I needed to hear at that particular point in time. I am often pleasantly surprised by the sense of ease and relief that comes over me at OA events, because I forget how much healing and understanding there is in the fellowship of others who understand the hell we can go through over "mere food".
Here's what I finally came up with to say. It's long but it might help someone:
*****************************
A doctor who studies obesity was asked in a radio interview, 'If the government could do one thing to stop the obesity crisis, what would it be?'
The man paused, and said, 'That's the trouble. There is no one thing you can do. You have to do ... everything."
That is the task in front of us, and it sounds daunting. It should sound daunting! We will likely have to reach further than we may have ever done before to combat a disorder that requires nothing so much as a complete change in our personality. If we are successful, our true friends will tell us that we have changed beyond appearances, our whole being will be transformed in a way we could not have predicted.
I wonder what I can tell you that will make you believe this task is possible. Ok, here is my journal entry from one of the lowest points of my life 3 ½ years ago:
So, here I am. February 28, 2003 (9:28AM) And I am typing. I got a kick in the butt yesterday from Trish, who told me that a condition of her continuing to see me would be me attending OA. I don’t know how to take that. Flattered that she cares, offended that she gives me the ultimatum---- I’m paying her for that? Relieved that I may get jolted out of the self destructive rut or is it a spiral? - that I am in... It was enough to make me stop bingeing yesterday, although I don’t know how long this will last. I guess attending an OA meeting would make it more likely to last. Oh sigh... I don’t want to go back.
Trish is my therapist and she didn’t know what else to do with me. At that point I was about 8 months out of graduate school, a painter with my own version of a writer’s block. And I couldn’t get more than 3 days under my belt without a binge. I was around 270 pounds, on my way back up to over 300, it looked like. I was on blood pressure drugs and my type 2 diabetes was creeping back. 3 years before that I had been 180. 6 years before that I had been over 300, I don’t know how much over, I kept my eyes closed when my doctor’s assistant weighed me. I first realized I was fat when I started school and my first diet was sometime before age 10, and I was up and down continually for the next 30 years. In my pictures you can see when I was practically anorexic when a teenager, and I can see at times my eating patterns have followed that of classic bulimia with compulsive exercising and stringent dieting followed by binges. Ah the binges, at heart I’m a binger, that’s the stuff that I still can sniff a pull from the underworld clutching at my throat, just driving by KFC turns me into one of pavlov’s dogs.
So, I’ve got a long track record of eating and undereating here, and right now I’ve got 622 days of back to back abstinence, that’s about a year and a half after being in OA for just over 3 ½ years. My abstinence is still pretty new here, so forgive me if I don’t consider myself an expert at abstinence, I am no expert on overeating, I'm not even an expert on myself some days because I'm often the last person to be able to tell you what I am feeling. All I can give you is my story as I see it right now.
How did I get abstinence? The real turning point was when I actually put my desire to live ahead of that awful sucking gnawing craving and picked up the 500 pound phone to call Leah. It was about 5 days after that journal entry and I wanted to eat so bad! I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, I hate Sunday afternoons and I was alone in my studio and all I wanted to do was run into the house and eat something anything to relieve that awful gnawing. I called Leah. We talked, she suggested I chug a big glass of water to relieve that impulse to swallow. The water worked, but the reaching out was what really worked. I was desperate enough to try reaching out and somehow it broke the chain of self damage.
I wrote, I read all the OA literature I could get my hands on, and I shared at meetings. Just going wasn’t enough. I had to share, and it seemed the more I shared, the more my feelings sorted out. Sometimes I was just entertaining people with my stories of disease, of wanting to snatch the last morsel off my poor unsuspecting husband’s plate, of feeling like I was going to throttle her if my mother in law asked me one more friggin time if I wanted a piece of her damn pie! I had to reach out. I had to share my pain, frustration, and amazement that I could pass a week, a month, two months, oops, a day a week, two months, three months and more without a binge.
And I did the stepwork, the first three steps particularly in the beginning for the first couple of years, and many times even today — Over and over again, like a recovery waltz: steps one two three, one two three, one two three... A pessimistic agnostic praying to a higher power for the strength to see past my own self will run riot. I tried this utterly foreign concept of trusting in something beyond myself, and instead of trying to comfort myself with another foray into bulk food, I learned that I could last through the pain which really was fleeting — the disease tries to tell me that the pain will last forever if I don’t eat something NOW! But it lies. If I don’t eat something, the feeling slinks away while I am momentarily distracted.
I’ll get to my plan of eating in a minute, but I have to say that I firmly believe that right now what I specifically do and don’t eat seems no more important than my spiritual fitness and working on my emotional health, because if I am doing well in those areas, I am so much less desperate and less compelled to eat.
I am full of fear and its corresponding emotion, shame. It takes daily work for me to not succumb to those character defects, for they are so ingrained that they are already in place waiting if I don’t work to have faith. I am no expert at this and my programme ebbs and flows. I isolate, I stew, I worry, then I luckily get good and miserable which right now seems sufficient to drive me back into meetings, talking with other members and my sponsor, writing and regular prayer. I forget. I slip into old habits. I feel ashamed and then I am amused because aha, there I am believing that old lie that I must be perfect.
I can tell you that all this work is paying off. I am happier than I have ever been in my life, and I feel more real and awake than I ever have in my life, and I expect to continue seeing things to unfold in a wonderful surprise.
Here’s the definition of abstinence I have:
I don’t binge.
I get regular exercise.
I follow my plan of eating as I can, but deviations from it, within reason, I accept. I am not on a diet, and right now there are few foods I say I will not eat. There are however, foods I have not eaten for a very long time because I know from bitter experience that they just make me feel worse and crave more and it’s not worth to eat it. Cheap candy and chips are a couple of those. Donuts don’t taste any good in quantities under a half dozen and that would just be wrong, so I don’t go there any more. They just aren’t worth the grief, and none of that stuff is kept in my house.
If anyone is interested in a more specific plan of eating, I have some copies you can get from me later. It’s around 2000 calories according to a dietitian I saw a while back, and I seem to be able to maintain a healthy weight of around 150 for about 2 years with regular exercise and activity and without excessive cravings. This may change utterly if it stops working. I can only tell you what seems to work for me today.
Being gentle with myself is part of my definition of abstinence. Until OA I was always on a diet or eating uncontrollably. If I do not follow this plan of eating to the letter, I try not to beat myself up over it. It is not a diet. It is a blueprint, and part of my abstinence that seems to work right now is avoiding that self punitive, rigid diet mentality that I suffered from for many years. If I want a particular food I don’t usually eat, I often pray about it. I ask my higher power: is this food going to make me healthier (mentally or physically) or is it going to make me more obsessed and unhappy? Is it worth it?
I was sweating over this talk yesterday. I didn’t feel perfect enough to be talking to you. There goes the ego again. But however imperfect I may be, I am a stable healthy weight for the first time in my life. It feels so tenuous. Two years I’ve been at this weight, two years out of 45. It still feels odd, and why not? This has been the exception in my life, neither gaining or losing, neither bingeing nor starving. I feel like the 9 time divorcee who finds herself in a stable marriage for the first time, still not sure how I got here.
I griped to my husband last night about how odd it was to be at a stable weight. He gave me one of those even, wide eyed looks that quiet people give you sometimes and said: You’re just stable now, period.
Here's what I finally came up with to say. It's long but it might help someone:
*****************************
A doctor who studies obesity was asked in a radio interview, 'If the government could do one thing to stop the obesity crisis, what would it be?'
The man paused, and said, 'That's the trouble. There is no one thing you can do. You have to do ... everything."
That is the task in front of us, and it sounds daunting. It should sound daunting! We will likely have to reach further than we may have ever done before to combat a disorder that requires nothing so much as a complete change in our personality. If we are successful, our true friends will tell us that we have changed beyond appearances, our whole being will be transformed in a way we could not have predicted.
I wonder what I can tell you that will make you believe this task is possible. Ok, here is my journal entry from one of the lowest points of my life 3 ½ years ago:
So, here I am. February 28, 2003 (9:28AM) And I am typing. I got a kick in the butt yesterday from Trish, who told me that a condition of her continuing to see me would be me attending OA. I don’t know how to take that. Flattered that she cares, offended that she gives me the ultimatum---- I’m paying her for that? Relieved that I may get jolted out of the self destructive rut or is it a spiral? - that I am in... It was enough to make me stop bingeing yesterday, although I don’t know how long this will last. I guess attending an OA meeting would make it more likely to last. Oh sigh... I don’t want to go back.
Trish is my therapist and she didn’t know what else to do with me. At that point I was about 8 months out of graduate school, a painter with my own version of a writer’s block. And I couldn’t get more than 3 days under my belt without a binge. I was around 270 pounds, on my way back up to over 300, it looked like. I was on blood pressure drugs and my type 2 diabetes was creeping back. 3 years before that I had been 180. 6 years before that I had been over 300, I don’t know how much over, I kept my eyes closed when my doctor’s assistant weighed me. I first realized I was fat when I started school and my first diet was sometime before age 10, and I was up and down continually for the next 30 years. In my pictures you can see when I was practically anorexic when a teenager, and I can see at times my eating patterns have followed that of classic bulimia with compulsive exercising and stringent dieting followed by binges. Ah the binges, at heart I’m a binger, that’s the stuff that I still can sniff a pull from the underworld clutching at my throat, just driving by KFC turns me into one of pavlov’s dogs.
So, I’ve got a long track record of eating and undereating here, and right now I’ve got 622 days of back to back abstinence, that’s about a year and a half after being in OA for just over 3 ½ years. My abstinence is still pretty new here, so forgive me if I don’t consider myself an expert at abstinence, I am no expert on overeating, I'm not even an expert on myself some days because I'm often the last person to be able to tell you what I am feeling. All I can give you is my story as I see it right now.
How did I get abstinence? The real turning point was when I actually put my desire to live ahead of that awful sucking gnawing craving and picked up the 500 pound phone to call Leah. It was about 5 days after that journal entry and I wanted to eat so bad! I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, I hate Sunday afternoons and I was alone in my studio and all I wanted to do was run into the house and eat something anything to relieve that awful gnawing. I called Leah. We talked, she suggested I chug a big glass of water to relieve that impulse to swallow. The water worked, but the reaching out was what really worked. I was desperate enough to try reaching out and somehow it broke the chain of self damage.
I wrote, I read all the OA literature I could get my hands on, and I shared at meetings. Just going wasn’t enough. I had to share, and it seemed the more I shared, the more my feelings sorted out. Sometimes I was just entertaining people with my stories of disease, of wanting to snatch the last morsel off my poor unsuspecting husband’s plate, of feeling like I was going to throttle her if my mother in law asked me one more friggin time if I wanted a piece of her damn pie! I had to reach out. I had to share my pain, frustration, and amazement that I could pass a week, a month, two months, oops, a day a week, two months, three months and more without a binge.
And I did the stepwork, the first three steps particularly in the beginning for the first couple of years, and many times even today — Over and over again, like a recovery waltz: steps one two three, one two three, one two three... A pessimistic agnostic praying to a higher power for the strength to see past my own self will run riot. I tried this utterly foreign concept of trusting in something beyond myself, and instead of trying to comfort myself with another foray into bulk food, I learned that I could last through the pain which really was fleeting — the disease tries to tell me that the pain will last forever if I don’t eat something NOW! But it lies. If I don’t eat something, the feeling slinks away while I am momentarily distracted.
I’ll get to my plan of eating in a minute, but I have to say that I firmly believe that right now what I specifically do and don’t eat seems no more important than my spiritual fitness and working on my emotional health, because if I am doing well in those areas, I am so much less desperate and less compelled to eat.
I am full of fear and its corresponding emotion, shame. It takes daily work for me to not succumb to those character defects, for they are so ingrained that they are already in place waiting if I don’t work to have faith. I am no expert at this and my programme ebbs and flows. I isolate, I stew, I worry, then I luckily get good and miserable which right now seems sufficient to drive me back into meetings, talking with other members and my sponsor, writing and regular prayer. I forget. I slip into old habits. I feel ashamed and then I am amused because aha, there I am believing that old lie that I must be perfect.
I can tell you that all this work is paying off. I am happier than I have ever been in my life, and I feel more real and awake than I ever have in my life, and I expect to continue seeing things to unfold in a wonderful surprise.
Here’s the definition of abstinence I have:
I don’t binge.
I get regular exercise.
I follow my plan of eating as I can, but deviations from it, within reason, I accept. I am not on a diet, and right now there are few foods I say I will not eat. There are however, foods I have not eaten for a very long time because I know from bitter experience that they just make me feel worse and crave more and it’s not worth to eat it. Cheap candy and chips are a couple of those. Donuts don’t taste any good in quantities under a half dozen and that would just be wrong, so I don’t go there any more. They just aren’t worth the grief, and none of that stuff is kept in my house.
If anyone is interested in a more specific plan of eating, I have some copies you can get from me later. It’s around 2000 calories according to a dietitian I saw a while back, and I seem to be able to maintain a healthy weight of around 150 for about 2 years with regular exercise and activity and without excessive cravings. This may change utterly if it stops working. I can only tell you what seems to work for me today.
Being gentle with myself is part of my definition of abstinence. Until OA I was always on a diet or eating uncontrollably. If I do not follow this plan of eating to the letter, I try not to beat myself up over it. It is not a diet. It is a blueprint, and part of my abstinence that seems to work right now is avoiding that self punitive, rigid diet mentality that I suffered from for many years. If I want a particular food I don’t usually eat, I often pray about it. I ask my higher power: is this food going to make me healthier (mentally or physically) or is it going to make me more obsessed and unhappy? Is it worth it?
I was sweating over this talk yesterday. I didn’t feel perfect enough to be talking to you. There goes the ego again. But however imperfect I may be, I am a stable healthy weight for the first time in my life. It feels so tenuous. Two years I’ve been at this weight, two years out of 45. It still feels odd, and why not? This has been the exception in my life, neither gaining or losing, neither bingeing nor starving. I feel like the 9 time divorcee who finds herself in a stable marriage for the first time, still not sure how I got here.
I griped to my husband last night about how odd it was to be at a stable weight. He gave me one of those even, wide eyed looks that quiet people give you sometimes and said: You’re just stable now, period.
29.9.06
Keepin' it fresh, keepin' it real
I'm a fill-in speaker at an Overeaters Anonymous workshop in a nearby city tomorrow, I only have to speak for 20 minutes which really isn't all that long, but you know, having spoken a couple of times at local OA events I'm wondering what to say that most of them haven't already heard already. I'm trying hard to keep my ego out of this. Of course, I want to be "Captain OA" and save everyone from themselves, but you know, that isn't possible, because I don't know how to save them, jeez louise I don't even know how to save me most days. Sooo.... ok, got an outline of what they want me to touch on. Touch on??? Holy crap, look at these lightweight issues:
1. Outline the depth of my desperation before I came to OA. Ooooh, fun fun fun that one! How mizerable wuz I???
2. What were the paths I took toward abstinence? That's going to take some work, digging up those memories, and make them coherent...
3. Weight loss nitty gritty. The numbers. Easy one. Pictures to back it up... hmm... I should scan a couple of photos.
4. Clearly define food plan and how it fits with my abstinence... that's a little harder, because my food plan is by definition a bit vague. Or not vague, gentle. I'm not knocking myself over the head because I had one cookie, or a handful of chips. And how does it fit with my abstinence? I guess it's a gentle fit.
Well, I guess I have some writing to do. Offline. I'm sure I'll post bits of it here but that's later.
It's been an up and down week, but overall not bad. I've been a depressed slug in some ways, but in other ways I've been pretty alive. I've been interacting with people, always a challenge when I feel lousy, and sometimes it's like dying a thousand deaths to pick up the damn phone, but I made it through. Some days it has to be enough to be enough.
1. Outline the depth of my desperation before I came to OA. Ooooh, fun fun fun that one! How mizerable wuz I???
2. What were the paths I took toward abstinence? That's going to take some work, digging up those memories, and make them coherent...
3. Weight loss nitty gritty. The numbers. Easy one. Pictures to back it up... hmm... I should scan a couple of photos.
4. Clearly define food plan and how it fits with my abstinence... that's a little harder, because my food plan is by definition a bit vague. Or not vague, gentle. I'm not knocking myself over the head because I had one cookie, or a handful of chips. And how does it fit with my abstinence? I guess it's a gentle fit.
Well, I guess I have some writing to do. Offline. I'm sure I'll post bits of it here but that's later.
It's been an up and down week, but overall not bad. I've been a depressed slug in some ways, but in other ways I've been pretty alive. I've been interacting with people, always a challenge when I feel lousy, and sometimes it's like dying a thousand deaths to pick up the damn phone, but I made it through. Some days it has to be enough to be enough.
21.9.06
The Joy of ... Babysitting???
Ok, I’ve got like 10 minutes to write.
First a prayer from page 68 (I think) of the AA Big Book. It helps ground me: God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self so that I may do thy will. Take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. And the bit I add: God, show me what it is what you had in mind when you made me.
My life was out of whack. It still gets off kilter, witness the last month or so. About 3 ½ years ago I was pulled kicking and screaming (or at least muttering and swearing) into spirituality. It was the spirituality borne of desperation. I wasn’t quite a fox-hole Christian, but I was close. Nobody was shooting at me, I was killing myself. My disease made me desperate. I was cornered. I had nowhere else to go short of bariatric surgery, and I knew that was not the answer for me. The only concept of God I could hold on to was whatever force kept the sun coming up each morning despite our best efforts to stop it. It was actually a good way to begin rebuilding my life. I didn’t have to adopt someone else’s cliched or rigid image of a higher power, although that is the one that does come up in my brain when my imagination is starved or lacking from spiritual malnuourishment. (The food metaphors just keep coming, don’t they?)
I reverted to old habits, not nurturing myself. Running from the fear instead of facing it head on. Trying to escape, but it didn’t get better. I got more and more miserable. If I hadn’t been buttonholed by someone from OA needing my assistance with a sponsee I might still be there. Still, I fought it. I made soup, I read mystery novels, I watched endless hours of tv. I stayed up until all hours of the night, avoiding life. I had an incredible couple of days of anxiety. But I finally faced the fear. I met with the sponsee, I met with my sponsor to ask for her guidance.
Today has been an incredible day. I feel so good. I feel like I have some power again. I didn’t do anything remarkable, went downtown on my bike to meet BF for lunch, made fresh pasta, planned Fuzz’s birthday cake, and did some emergency babysitting for BF. My organic food order arrived with some fantastic tart apples, basil, purple kohlrabi (never tried that before) and mammoth yellow tomatoes. Tonight is running group and dropping in on a birthday party for BF’s kid. Great day. I am not alone any more. I now can appreciate friends other than chocolate. Or kohlrabi.
First a prayer from page 68 (I think) of the AA Big Book. It helps ground me: God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self so that I may do thy will. Take away my difficulties so that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. And the bit I add: God, show me what it is what you had in mind when you made me.
My life was out of whack. It still gets off kilter, witness the last month or so. About 3 ½ years ago I was pulled kicking and screaming (or at least muttering and swearing) into spirituality. It was the spirituality borne of desperation. I wasn’t quite a fox-hole Christian, but I was close. Nobody was shooting at me, I was killing myself. My disease made me desperate. I was cornered. I had nowhere else to go short of bariatric surgery, and I knew that was not the answer for me. The only concept of God I could hold on to was whatever force kept the sun coming up each morning despite our best efforts to stop it. It was actually a good way to begin rebuilding my life. I didn’t have to adopt someone else’s cliched or rigid image of a higher power, although that is the one that does come up in my brain when my imagination is starved or lacking from spiritual malnuourishment. (The food metaphors just keep coming, don’t they?)
I reverted to old habits, not nurturing myself. Running from the fear instead of facing it head on. Trying to escape, but it didn’t get better. I got more and more miserable. If I hadn’t been buttonholed by someone from OA needing my assistance with a sponsee I might still be there. Still, I fought it. I made soup, I read mystery novels, I watched endless hours of tv. I stayed up until all hours of the night, avoiding life. I had an incredible couple of days of anxiety. But I finally faced the fear. I met with the sponsee, I met with my sponsor to ask for her guidance.
Today has been an incredible day. I feel so good. I feel like I have some power again. I didn’t do anything remarkable, went downtown on my bike to meet BF for lunch, made fresh pasta, planned Fuzz’s birthday cake, and did some emergency babysitting for BF. My organic food order arrived with some fantastic tart apples, basil, purple kohlrabi (never tried that before) and mammoth yellow tomatoes. Tonight is running group and dropping in on a birthday party for BF’s kid. Great day. I am not alone any more. I now can appreciate friends other than chocolate. Or kohlrabi.
19.9.06
Holy Crap, So That's Why I do It?
Just in the last 2 days I really embraced the role of a sponsor in OA. A big new thing that I've been dancing around for over a year (does that still qualify it as new?) but have finally gotten, excuse the pun, my teeth into. Gotten down to the meat and potatoes (oh yum I love meat and potatoes, particularly pot roast, hem hem...) of the matter. Really working with a sponsee.
Well, I have another one, or rather I had another one. I talked with her, e-mailed her a couple of times, and now she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I should call her. Sigh, I get great phone anxiety and I hate to call someone who I think might not really love talking to me, but she should have been back from her Europe trip long ago. That happens with sponsors/ees: people go missing and unfortunately it's usually not a good sign.
Anyway, I got a shove from another member who has sponsees coming out her ears and she observed that I seemed to connect with this woman, and now we're working together. I was pretty angry with the ubersponsor initially, because I felt she was pushing herself into my business, and she may do that in other matters anyway, she's that kind of personality. Now however, I think she did me a favour. I saw this person struggling with her eating who needed me and seemed really ready to work on it. I saw myself in many of the things she says. I really admired her, she's very intelligent and articulate and most endearingly, has a great sense for the comedic. What wasn't to like? I'll tell you --- I was as intimidated as Hell, and didn't feel I had anything to offer her. Oh woe is me, think I'll go eat some worms... It's amazing what utter bullshit I can convince myself of when I'm sunk in my sour cesspool of self loathing.
So I felt a little trapped. I wanted to help, but as Miz Oprah says, I felt "scured". I said yes, I'll sponsor, but I'm really afraid. And then it made me do something I've been putting off for next to forever: actually phoning my own sponsor and making an appointment to talk.
As this all was happening, I was having incredible anxiety: funny dreams, sleeplessness, social anxiety, I really wanted to bolt from a meeting where I was seated between my sponsor and my sponsee. But I didn't. I gave in. I gave up to it. Once I did that, the pain passed. It's incredible how I can get so upset and obsessed with my anxieties and then they can suddenly evaporate. I ugh, prayed. I said, ok, I can only do what I can do. I let go. Phhhht. The anger and anxiety, the feeling I've had for the last 2 months of feeling distanced from OA seemed to evaporate over a couple of days. I feel better. That's the basic benefit of sponsoring, that by confronting these issues, I end up feeling better. My sponsor tells me nearly every time we talk how good it makes her feel. I actually can feel that working.
Well, I have another one, or rather I had another one. I talked with her, e-mailed her a couple of times, and now she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I should call her. Sigh, I get great phone anxiety and I hate to call someone who I think might not really love talking to me, but she should have been back from her Europe trip long ago. That happens with sponsors/ees: people go missing and unfortunately it's usually not a good sign.
Anyway, I got a shove from another member who has sponsees coming out her ears and she observed that I seemed to connect with this woman, and now we're working together. I was pretty angry with the ubersponsor initially, because I felt she was pushing herself into my business, and she may do that in other matters anyway, she's that kind of personality. Now however, I think she did me a favour. I saw this person struggling with her eating who needed me and seemed really ready to work on it. I saw myself in many of the things she says. I really admired her, she's very intelligent and articulate and most endearingly, has a great sense for the comedic. What wasn't to like? I'll tell you --- I was as intimidated as Hell, and didn't feel I had anything to offer her. Oh woe is me, think I'll go eat some worms... It's amazing what utter bullshit I can convince myself of when I'm sunk in my sour cesspool of self loathing.
So I felt a little trapped. I wanted to help, but as Miz Oprah says, I felt "scured". I said yes, I'll sponsor, but I'm really afraid. And then it made me do something I've been putting off for next to forever: actually phoning my own sponsor and making an appointment to talk.
As this all was happening, I was having incredible anxiety: funny dreams, sleeplessness, social anxiety, I really wanted to bolt from a meeting where I was seated between my sponsor and my sponsee. But I didn't. I gave in. I gave up to it. Once I did that, the pain passed. It's incredible how I can get so upset and obsessed with my anxieties and then they can suddenly evaporate. I ugh, prayed. I said, ok, I can only do what I can do. I let go. Phhhht. The anger and anxiety, the feeling I've had for the last 2 months of feeling distanced from OA seemed to evaporate over a couple of days. I feel better. That's the basic benefit of sponsoring, that by confronting these issues, I end up feeling better. My sponsor tells me nearly every time we talk how good it makes her feel. I actually can feel that working.
18.9.06
Guilt and Dr. Phil
No, this isn't a tabloid story or saga on the Dr. Phil show. I'm admitting a guilty pleasure, right up there with mystery novels and Kraft Dinner (you 'mericans call it Mac & Cheese) with wieners: watching Dr. Phil. Right now I'm on the couch and just reveling in all that mud being thrown, enjoying with the schadenfreude of the voyeur. I think I've said it before: it's got all the titillation of Jerry Springer but with higher production values and the gloss of the upper middle class with more SUV's than life skills. Notice how none of the Phil guests ever seem to live in low end housing whereas most of the Maurys or Jerrys sound as if they are one step removed from a cardboard box.
Come on, Dr. Phil is voyeurism in the guise of therapy. Reality tv is just a less scripted form of soap opera. It's basically gossip. Why is that so pleasurable? Does it take the focus off our own problems?
Guilty pleasures like gossip, junk food, or trash novels are ok in small amounts, but I can go overboard with them way too easily. I've been reading a ton of mystery novels. I've been running from the fear, the dread that...? The best I can say is it's a fear of not being enough. I met the most recent challenges but it never feels like enough. That's the time when I feel the most like eating, giving up, flaking out in front of the squawk box and turning off my brain. And yet when I can confront that fear, after a few moments of terror, I feel so much more alive and capable. It's been a difficult month, and I feel as if I'm just coming out the other side but I'm still frightened. I rented a studio almost 3 weeks ago, and after moving most of my junk in, turned the key and left. Haven't been back since. It's all part of the package.
Hey, I don't understand this stuff, I just write it down.
Come on, Dr. Phil is voyeurism in the guise of therapy. Reality tv is just a less scripted form of soap opera. It's basically gossip. Why is that so pleasurable? Does it take the focus off our own problems?
Guilty pleasures like gossip, junk food, or trash novels are ok in small amounts, but I can go overboard with them way too easily. I've been reading a ton of mystery novels. I've been running from the fear, the dread that...? The best I can say is it's a fear of not being enough. I met the most recent challenges but it never feels like enough. That's the time when I feel the most like eating, giving up, flaking out in front of the squawk box and turning off my brain. And yet when I can confront that fear, after a few moments of terror, I feel so much more alive and capable. It's been a difficult month, and I feel as if I'm just coming out the other side but I'm still frightened. I rented a studio almost 3 weeks ago, and after moving most of my junk in, turned the key and left. Haven't been back since. It's all part of the package.
Hey, I don't understand this stuff, I just write it down.
11.9.06
Happy New Year
I know I'm not alone in this: The day after Labour Day feels more like the new year than January. I think it's the same for anyone who has spent a lot of time in school and/or has kids. There's usually a more tangible sense of another year starting than at that bleak time in midwinter after Christmas.
This fall is one of those few when I'm not starting a new course of any sort, but I am trying to return to some old healthy habits. I drifted away from my 12 step meetings and regular gym attendance over the summer when we moved into the new house. It might have been equivocation, but I did feel truly too overwhemed with everything for two months and those things got shoved onto the back burner.
But lately I've been feeling pretty stressed out, although the stressful part of the move is mostly over. It was my overactive brain stirring up worries and obsessions to torture me with. And the decrease in my exercise routine combined with a particularly social summer means the jeans are fitting a little tight. I think I've gained 5 pounds or so. I'm not sure because I threw out the old scale. What is the difference between jeans that feel shapely on my middle aged abdomen and "hm, a little too snug"? That puppy was really old --- I'm thinking Sears circa 1980? I doubt it was too accurate any more. I'm not sure if I'll buy another one, oh, likely I will, but maybe for now I'll just let my clothes be my guide. Since I started OA I usually weigh myself only monthly, but in the past I was one of those obsessive weigh myself daily types, so I'm not going to rush. And it isn't as if a new scale is going to pleasantly surprise me right now any way.
So, 2 OA meetings in the past half week and a trip to the gym this afternoon for the first time in several weeks. It felt good. I hadn't lost much strength, lightened up some of the weights a little or did a few less reps, and it did feel good afterward.
This fall is one of those few when I'm not starting a new course of any sort, but I am trying to return to some old healthy habits. I drifted away from my 12 step meetings and regular gym attendance over the summer when we moved into the new house. It might have been equivocation, but I did feel truly too overwhemed with everything for two months and those things got shoved onto the back burner.
But lately I've been feeling pretty stressed out, although the stressful part of the move is mostly over. It was my overactive brain stirring up worries and obsessions to torture me with. And the decrease in my exercise routine combined with a particularly social summer means the jeans are fitting a little tight. I think I've gained 5 pounds or so. I'm not sure because I threw out the old scale. What is the difference between jeans that feel shapely on my middle aged abdomen and "hm, a little too snug"? That puppy was really old --- I'm thinking Sears circa 1980? I doubt it was too accurate any more. I'm not sure if I'll buy another one, oh, likely I will, but maybe for now I'll just let my clothes be my guide. Since I started OA I usually weigh myself only monthly, but in the past I was one of those obsessive weigh myself daily types, so I'm not going to rush. And it isn't as if a new scale is going to pleasantly surprise me right now any way.
So, 2 OA meetings in the past half week and a trip to the gym this afternoon for the first time in several weeks. It felt good. I hadn't lost much strength, lightened up some of the weights a little or did a few less reps, and it did feel good afterward.
7.9.06
Yet Again Back
Amazing how many times I start a post with the title "Back...". Guess that's the theme of life. It's not linear, it's actually more resembling a circle, or more aptly, a spiral. You get up every morning, do mostly the same stuff, it all seems so routine.
Except I've been out of my routine lately. New house that's actually about 80 years old. New town that I lived in twice before, the most recently about 16 years previous. Plus ça change... anyway. And then I fell into the gmail/blogger/beta trap and accessing my account for a couple of weeks was tortuous. I just stopped bothering, and I think part of it was I was feeling depressed enough that I didn't feel like trying. After all, who would want to hear what I was going to say?...
Today I feel like I've been in a total funk. Got very very little accomplished unless you count reading mystery novels (Gail Bowen gets better and better) drinking coffee, and playing Luxor. Oh yeah, and phoned my shrink and moaned and sniffled for 3/4 of an hour. She, as usual, encourages me strongly to attend a 12 step meeting. Oh ugh.
I know she's right. But right now I'd rather do anything but. I think the honeymoon stage with OA is certainly over for me. Right now it feels like that part of your marriage when you look at your partner and think "Fuck, aren't we in a rut. Who the hell are you??" Hey, I just passed year 21 married to Fuzz a couple of weeks ago. I've seen this pattern before. Over and over. There are ups and downs, big and little. And you stick it out.
Sigh. I'll let you know if I ever got to that meeting. I've got more chance of going running tonight. Anything to avoid confronting the problem directly. At least I'll get some exercise, get some endorphins going.
Except I've been out of my routine lately. New house that's actually about 80 years old. New town that I lived in twice before, the most recently about 16 years previous. Plus ça change... anyway. And then I fell into the gmail/blogger/beta trap and accessing my account for a couple of weeks was tortuous. I just stopped bothering, and I think part of it was I was feeling depressed enough that I didn't feel like trying. After all, who would want to hear what I was going to say?...
Today I feel like I've been in a total funk. Got very very little accomplished unless you count reading mystery novels (Gail Bowen gets better and better) drinking coffee, and playing Luxor. Oh yeah, and phoned my shrink and moaned and sniffled for 3/4 of an hour. She, as usual, encourages me strongly to attend a 12 step meeting. Oh ugh.
I know she's right. But right now I'd rather do anything but. I think the honeymoon stage with OA is certainly over for me. Right now it feels like that part of your marriage when you look at your partner and think "Fuck, aren't we in a rut. Who the hell are you??" Hey, I just passed year 21 married to Fuzz a couple of weeks ago. I've seen this pattern before. Over and over. There are ups and downs, big and little. And you stick it out.
Sigh. I'll let you know if I ever got to that meeting. I've got more chance of going running tonight. Anything to avoid confronting the problem directly. At least I'll get some exercise, get some endorphins going.
15.8.06
Back and Whining
For a while I wondered if I would be picking this blog up again. But over the last few days I've been just settled enough in this new house to feel really restless again, and I thought, hm, time to write. Then I tried navigating the new beta/gmail sign in. Yowza. What a pain. Somehow I managed to sign in with a whole new account and then couldn't get here. There's now two me's and one of them doesn't seem to want to talk to the other. I had to trace a whole electronic breadcrumb trail to get this far, andI don't know what's going to happen the next time I try to sign in.
Anyway. I'm here. I'm fine. Fine. Freakin' &%#$@ fine. Fuzz says I'm exhausted. What does he know, he's exhausted! He's on another one of his endless strings of minor colds which happens when he gets overtired--- one day he's achy, the next he's sneezy, then it's his head, then his stomach... So I guess we should be taking it easy. We cancelled out a big trip we had scheduled to the other end of the province to attend Tiff's wedding. I'm crushed she wasn't crushed when I called to tell her. I guess I'm very disappointed. I won't get to see all the wonderful results of her meticulous planning. Part of me just said, oh hell, just get a plane ticket to Winnipeg and rent a car and go yourself, but I can't afford the extra debt.
Maybe I am exhausted. I know I'm pissed off. At everything. Our dream urban cottage needs a lot of reno. There's a constant fight for space. The bedroom is so squished I can't get my bedside table to open properly without hitting the bureau. When I try to dig in the front garden I hit a solid mat of tree roots and I have all these perennials I wanted to plant. I guess I can throw them in the back yard somewhere, well, I have to before fall... Fuzz has decided he desperately needs a garden shed and although he says he's exhausted, guess what he's doing right, now, building a shed. I keep bonking my head when I'm working in the basement. It smells damp despite the dehumidifier. I'm off my usual exercise routine and just barely keeping up with the running group after a few weeks off during the big move. The new matress and boxspring are so high I feel like the princess and the pea. We still have a lot of crap in the storage unit because we don't know what to do with it. And mouse poop just showed up in a brand new kitchen cupboard! Why do I even bother owning a cat? Just to keep my chairs shredded and give us litter to scoop, obviously!
On the other hand, I am enjoying the delights of an urban library system that actually has books I want to read. Life isn't so bad. I think it's time to make the cupcakes I've been planning for a dinner we're going to tomorrow night. Oop. Not enough time to shop and bake before running, but I can at least shop. When in doubt, spend more money.
Anyway. I'm here. I'm fine. Fine. Freakin' &%#$@ fine. Fuzz says I'm exhausted. What does he know, he's exhausted! He's on another one of his endless strings of minor colds which happens when he gets overtired--- one day he's achy, the next he's sneezy, then it's his head, then his stomach... So I guess we should be taking it easy. We cancelled out a big trip we had scheduled to the other end of the province to attend Tiff's wedding. I'm crushed she wasn't crushed when I called to tell her. I guess I'm very disappointed. I won't get to see all the wonderful results of her meticulous planning. Part of me just said, oh hell, just get a plane ticket to Winnipeg and rent a car and go yourself, but I can't afford the extra debt.
Maybe I am exhausted. I know I'm pissed off. At everything. Our dream urban cottage needs a lot of reno. There's a constant fight for space. The bedroom is so squished I can't get my bedside table to open properly without hitting the bureau. When I try to dig in the front garden I hit a solid mat of tree roots and I have all these perennials I wanted to plant. I guess I can throw them in the back yard somewhere, well, I have to before fall... Fuzz has decided he desperately needs a garden shed and although he says he's exhausted, guess what he's doing right, now, building a shed. I keep bonking my head when I'm working in the basement. It smells damp despite the dehumidifier. I'm off my usual exercise routine and just barely keeping up with the running group after a few weeks off during the big move. The new matress and boxspring are so high I feel like the princess and the pea. We still have a lot of crap in the storage unit because we don't know what to do with it. And mouse poop just showed up in a brand new kitchen cupboard! Why do I even bother owning a cat? Just to keep my chairs shredded and give us litter to scoop, obviously!
On the other hand, I am enjoying the delights of an urban library system that actually has books I want to read. Life isn't so bad. I think it's time to make the cupcakes I've been planning for a dinner we're going to tomorrow night. Oop. Not enough time to shop and bake before running, but I can at least shop. When in doubt, spend more money.
17.7.06
Not Gone, Just Moving
I didn't expect to be off this long, but then I've never done the sold house/buy house combo. I gotta say, the lawyer and even the real estate agent have earned their money. Our lawyer, also a friend, showed up Sunday at the house with the closing papers on our old house because she wasn't able to make our appointment on Wednesday. Tonight she and her husband are coming over to help with the final panicked dump into boxes. Ok, they're also friends, it's not part of the contract, but it's been wonderful to have the help of so many friends, especially since, of course, this is one of the hottest, stickiest weeks of the summer.
Ok, so, the movers come tomorrow. We've been breaking down walls, shovelling out dirty basement, fixing plumbing, painting... all that fun stuff. Man, I haven't been this dirty since working at a greenhouse! And the fun will continue in fairly high intensity for the next few days, while we find things, get the dsl and wireless hooked up, etc. Hopefully, I'll be regularly blogging before August.
Life is great! The new house comes with a small pool that I've been challenged to learn how to care for, but have had great enjoyment of with good friends and their children. Pool + children = joy. Food is good, all of this would never have seemed possible a few years ago. Thanks to the universe, including all of you.
See you soon. Keep punching. We're all in this together.
Ok, so, the movers come tomorrow. We've been breaking down walls, shovelling out dirty basement, fixing plumbing, painting... all that fun stuff. Man, I haven't been this dirty since working at a greenhouse! And the fun will continue in fairly high intensity for the next few days, while we find things, get the dsl and wireless hooked up, etc. Hopefully, I'll be regularly blogging before August.
Life is great! The new house comes with a small pool that I've been challenged to learn how to care for, but have had great enjoyment of with good friends and their children. Pool + children = joy. Food is good, all of this would never have seemed possible a few years ago. Thanks to the universe, including all of you.
See you soon. Keep punching. We're all in this together.
28.6.06
Playing Hooky with my Tchotches
Not quite. I guess you could say that my student is playing hooky. She phoned this morning to say she was either going to go back to bed or clean her house. Yuck. That sounds like a lovely day. She sounded depressed, kind of the way I feel many mornings. I could have tried to talk her out of it, but that's not my job, particularly when I just woke up. Hard to talk anyone out of anything while yawning. Honestly, I'm kind of relieved. I'm not sure we're working all that well together. Her insecurities are massive, like, hm... oh, who? ME! So I'm not sure I'm the best art teacher for her. I try to mirror her feelings back to her for support, so she sees that she's not the only artist who has self doubt, but it gets tiring.
So I get to spend another morning doing slacker stuff. Whoo hoo! The afternoon is the time to work. Yesterday I wasn't wildly productive, but I did get a few more boxes packed. And I pitched a few more things in a Goodwill box, such gems as a set of plaster fish wallplaques (you know, they were all the rage in the 60's), and two copper plated jello molds in the shape of a lobster and a salmon, all stuff from my parents' house. They were hanging on the kitchen wall as an example of wierd kitsch, but I'm tired of them. Most of my decor has been ironic kitsch, like my rearing pony lamp with the rectangular lampshade made out of orange metal blind strips. What about my hula doll??? That, I am not ready to part with yet, but there may come a day. What would my house look like without kitsch? Would it look impossibly bland? I don't know if it's possible for me to decorate without kitsch, I've spent so many years developing my taste for it, like the chili lights adorning the cornices of the kitchen. It's the poor artist failsafe decor choice. Hell, I even paint my kitsch, like the old toys that I combine in surreal still lifes. Irony (or sarcasm) and kitsch: what would I be without it? I look at the bits of useless antiquity that people (including me) scatter about our houses, old milk pails, hat stands in an era when most of us rarely wear hats that can't be stuffed in a drawer, clocks that no longer work, old tin signs, shoe forms --- it's just kitsch with a longer pedigree.
Our real estate agent suggested we have a yard sale. I'm sorry, but if I spent a whole day watching videos and eating doritos, I would regard that as a day better spent than earning a hundred bucks, sitting in my front yard, haggling with octagenerians over the price of my tchotches. No no no nope. Goodwill can earn their money getting rid of my crap.
So, the day is wide open. I'm out of newsprint to wrap stuff so I think a good idea is a trip into town to get another roll and then a trip to the gym, such a rare event these days. I was feeling kind of crappy yesterday afternoon while packing and decided I wasn't going running last night because it was raining. Then the rain slowed down. I thought, I really don't feel that bad physically, but I'm stressed out over all this packing. Solution: get on my shorts and drive to the park to meet Fuzz and my running group. Well, most of my group wimped out, including my coach! Fuzz runs with the overacheivers, and the only other one of my group to show up is way faster than me, so I told her to not bother waiting for me and ran in the drizzle by myself. It was beautiful. I didn't have to worry about keeping up or humouring anyone along and just ran at my own pace, which actually turned out to be about the same as my usual time. The drizzle kept it cool, like a nice breeze, and I met a very friendly elderly Labrador who, when I stopped to chat briefly with her owner about the deer that just passed by, just rested herself against the side of my sweaty leg as if to say, hi, you seem nice, can I just hang out with you? Wet dog isn't so bad when you're wet already.
After another morning of being ignored by the cat, is someone trying to tell me something about dogs, or am I just opening myself up to the doggy universe? No, not another Lab, too big for eternal puppydom. I think. Maybe. Argh.
So I get to spend another morning doing slacker stuff. Whoo hoo! The afternoon is the time to work. Yesterday I wasn't wildly productive, but I did get a few more boxes packed. And I pitched a few more things in a Goodwill box, such gems as a set of plaster fish wallplaques (you know, they were all the rage in the 60's), and two copper plated jello molds in the shape of a lobster and a salmon, all stuff from my parents' house. They were hanging on the kitchen wall as an example of wierd kitsch, but I'm tired of them. Most of my decor has been ironic kitsch, like my rearing pony lamp with the rectangular lampshade made out of orange metal blind strips. What about my hula doll??? That, I am not ready to part with yet, but there may come a day. What would my house look like without kitsch? Would it look impossibly bland? I don't know if it's possible for me to decorate without kitsch, I've spent so many years developing my taste for it, like the chili lights adorning the cornices of the kitchen. It's the poor artist failsafe decor choice. Hell, I even paint my kitsch, like the old toys that I combine in surreal still lifes. Irony (or sarcasm) and kitsch: what would I be without it? I look at the bits of useless antiquity that people (including me) scatter about our houses, old milk pails, hat stands in an era when most of us rarely wear hats that can't be stuffed in a drawer, clocks that no longer work, old tin signs, shoe forms --- it's just kitsch with a longer pedigree.
Our real estate agent suggested we have a yard sale. I'm sorry, but if I spent a whole day watching videos and eating doritos, I would regard that as a day better spent than earning a hundred bucks, sitting in my front yard, haggling with octagenerians over the price of my tchotches. No no no nope. Goodwill can earn their money getting rid of my crap.
So, the day is wide open. I'm out of newsprint to wrap stuff so I think a good idea is a trip into town to get another roll and then a trip to the gym, such a rare event these days. I was feeling kind of crappy yesterday afternoon while packing and decided I wasn't going running last night because it was raining. Then the rain slowed down. I thought, I really don't feel that bad physically, but I'm stressed out over all this packing. Solution: get on my shorts and drive to the park to meet Fuzz and my running group. Well, most of my group wimped out, including my coach! Fuzz runs with the overacheivers, and the only other one of my group to show up is way faster than me, so I told her to not bother waiting for me and ran in the drizzle by myself. It was beautiful. I didn't have to worry about keeping up or humouring anyone along and just ran at my own pace, which actually turned out to be about the same as my usual time. The drizzle kept it cool, like a nice breeze, and I met a very friendly elderly Labrador who, when I stopped to chat briefly with her owner about the deer that just passed by, just rested herself against the side of my sweaty leg as if to say, hi, you seem nice, can I just hang out with you? Wet dog isn't so bad when you're wet already.
After another morning of being ignored by the cat, is someone trying to tell me something about dogs, or am I just opening myself up to the doggy universe? No, not another Lab, too big for eternal puppydom. I think. Maybe. Argh.
Playing Hooky with my Tchotches
Not quite. I guess you could say that my student is playing hooky. She phoned this morning to say she was either going to go back to bed or clean her house. Yuck. That sounds like a lovely day. She sounded depressed, kind of the way I feel many mornings. I could have tried to talk her out of it, but that's not my job, particularly when I just woke up. Hard to talk anyone out of anything while yawning. Honestly, I'm kind of relieved. I'm not sure we're working all that well together. Her insecurities are massive, like, hm... oh, who? ME! So I'm not sure I'm the best art teacher for her. I try to mirror her feelings back to her for support, so she sees that she's not the only artist who has self doubt, but it gets tiring.
So I get to spend another morning doing slacker stuff. Whoo hoo! The afternoon is the time to work. Yesterday I wasn't wildly productive, but I did get a few more boxes packed. And I pitched a few more things in a Goodwill box, such gems as a set of plaster fish wallplaques (you know, they were all the rage in the 60's), and two copper plated jello molds in the shape of a lobster and a salmon, all stuff from my parents' house. They were hanging on the kitchen wall as an example of wierd kitsch, but I'm tired of them. Most of my decor has been ironic kitsch, like my rearing pony lamp with the rectangular lampshade made out of orange metal blind strips. What about my hula doll??? That, I am not ready to part with yet, but there may come a day. What would my house look like without kitsch? Would it look impossibly bland? I don't know if it's possible for me to decorate without kitsch, I've spent so many years developing my taste for it, like the chili lights adorning the cornices of the kitchen. It's the poor artist failsafe decor choice. Hell, I even paint my kitsch, like the old toys that I combine in surreal still lifes. Irony (or sarcasm) and kitsch: what would I be without it? I look at the bits of useless antiquity that people (including me) scatter about our houses, old milk pails, hat stands in an era when most of us rarely wear hats that can't be stuffed in a drawer, clocks that no longer work, old tin signs, shoe forms --- it's just kitsch with a longer pedigree.
Our real estate agent suggested we have a yard sale. I'm sorry, but if I spent a whole day watching videos and eating doritos, I would regard that as a day better spent than earning a hundred bucks, sitting in my front yard, haggling with octagenerians over the price of my tchotches. No no no nope. Goodwill can earn their money getting rid of my crap.
So, the day is wide open. I'm out of newsprint to wrap stuff so I think a good idea is a trip into town to get another roll and then a trip to the gym, such a rare event these days. I was feeling kind of crappy yesterday afternoon while packing and decided I wasn't going running last night because it was raining. Then the rain slowed down. I thought, I really don't feel that bad physically, but I'm stressed out over all this packing. Solution: get on my shorts and drive to the park to meet Fuzz and my running group. Well, most of my group wimped out, including my coach! Fuzz runs with the overacheivers, and the only other one of my group to show up is way faster than me, so I told her to not bother waiting for me and ran in the drizzle by myself. It was beautiful. I didn't have to worry about keeping up or humouring anyone along and just ran at my own pace, which actually turned out to be about the same as my usual time. The drizzle kept it cool, like a nice breeze, and I met a very friendly elderly Labrador who, when I stopped to chat briefly with her owner about the deer that just passed by, just rested herself against the side of my sweaty leg as if to say, hi, you seem nice, can I just hang out with you? Wet dog isn't nearly so bad when you're already wet yourself.
After another morning of being ignored by the cat, is someone trying to tell me something about dogs, or am I just opening myself up to the doggy universe? No, not another Lab, too big for eternal puppydom. I think. Maybe. Argh.
So I get to spend another morning doing slacker stuff. Whoo hoo! The afternoon is the time to work. Yesterday I wasn't wildly productive, but I did get a few more boxes packed. And I pitched a few more things in a Goodwill box, such gems as a set of plaster fish wallplaques (you know, they were all the rage in the 60's), and two copper plated jello molds in the shape of a lobster and a salmon, all stuff from my parents' house. They were hanging on the kitchen wall as an example of wierd kitsch, but I'm tired of them. Most of my decor has been ironic kitsch, like my rearing pony lamp with the rectangular lampshade made out of orange metal blind strips. What about my hula doll??? That, I am not ready to part with yet, but there may come a day. What would my house look like without kitsch? Would it look impossibly bland? I don't know if it's possible for me to decorate without kitsch, I've spent so many years developing my taste for it, like the chili lights adorning the cornices of the kitchen. It's the poor artist failsafe decor choice. Hell, I even paint my kitsch, like the old toys that I combine in surreal still lifes. Irony (or sarcasm) and kitsch: what would I be without it? I look at the bits of useless antiquity that people (including me) scatter about our houses, old milk pails, hat stands in an era when most of us rarely wear hats that can't be stuffed in a drawer, clocks that no longer work, old tin signs, shoe forms --- it's just kitsch with a longer pedigree.
Our real estate agent suggested we have a yard sale. I'm sorry, but if I spent a whole day watching videos and eating doritos, I would regard that as a day better spent than earning a hundred bucks, sitting in my front yard, haggling with octagenerians over the price of my tchotches. No no no nope. Goodwill can earn their money getting rid of my crap.
So, the day is wide open. I'm out of newsprint to wrap stuff so I think a good idea is a trip into town to get another roll and then a trip to the gym, such a rare event these days. I was feeling kind of crappy yesterday afternoon while packing and decided I wasn't going running last night because it was raining. Then the rain slowed down. I thought, I really don't feel that bad physically, but I'm stressed out over all this packing. Solution: get on my shorts and drive to the park to meet Fuzz and my running group. Well, most of my group wimped out, including my coach! Fuzz runs with the overacheivers, and the only other one of my group to show up is way faster than me, so I told her to not bother waiting for me and ran in the drizzle by myself. It was beautiful. I didn't have to worry about keeping up or humouring anyone along and just ran at my own pace, which actually turned out to be about the same as my usual time. The drizzle kept it cool, like a nice breeze, and I met a very friendly elderly Labrador who, when I stopped to chat briefly with her owner about the deer that just passed by, just rested herself against the side of my sweaty leg as if to say, hi, you seem nice, can I just hang out with you? Wet dog isn't nearly so bad when you're already wet yourself.
After another morning of being ignored by the cat, is someone trying to tell me something about dogs, or am I just opening myself up to the doggy universe? No, not another Lab, too big for eternal puppydom. I think. Maybe. Argh.
27.6.06
Meandering through Slugday 2 and... Cleaning???
Ok, another morning spent in bed. Doing even less, getting up later, reading the entertainment section of the Saturday paper and an illuminating article on pie, yes, pie, rhubarb at that, in the Sunday Times.
I think I need this. Thinking about making pie. Sacrilige for a compulsive overeater? Not necessarily. I have the odd piece of pie, but I don't think I've made one for almost a year. I'm really out of practice. Pie is one of those things you get better at with practice, probably because it requires such eye-hand coordination, kind of like riding a bike. I'm sure I can still do the fundamentals, but the finer points of crust (it's always about crust, isn't it?) may be forgotten. Why in hell do I want to make pie? Well, to have a piece, of course!
But I also have this fantasy of making a pie for each of the neighbours I will be leaving in two weeks, most of which I regret not having gotten closer to. I really have very little in common with most of them, but they have been generally good neighbours: friendly enough for the odd chat or just a wave. There's one who I quite like and never see much but at least we will be living near enough her son that we'll still see them the odd time and I may get to walk his dog, that is if he doesn't pull my arm from my socket!
Speaking of dogs, I am having dog fantasies. Martha Stewart (sigh, yes, another guilty pleasure) yesterday was a rerun of her bulldog day show, and I really like the look of French bulldogs. They aren't so wrinkly drooly as the English variety, but still fall under the so-ugly-they're-cute category. Temperamentally they seem pretty easy going, but the only thing that gives me pause is their lack of heat & cold tolerance. Is that just asking for trouble in our hot humid summers? And of course they would need a coat in winter: that's just too precious. I'm confident I could bludgen Fuzz into walking a dog in a coat, but he would suffer.
It's nice to just be able to sit and bluesky. Yesterday I discovered a geranium sale at my favorite greenhouse (ok I used to work there) and went nuts and bought geraniums and verbena and alternantheria (I can't actually say that, I just say "trailing purple stuff" for six planters! I'm just so happy I have more sun at the new house. There are a couple of huge silver maples but that's about it, and their shade is dappled.
We're slowly going through stuff, packing, and culling. On Sunday Fuzz took a bunch of old and not so old toys down off a high bookshelf running the length of a living room wall. We dusted and packed. And I culled. Some things I just automatically packed, like the antique toys and my half rusted Lassie lunchbox from primary school. Others, like a doll my dad brought back from Holland on one of his peripatetic business trips (likely bought in the airport shop) got dusted, fondled, and then placed in the goodwill box. I'm letting go of more and more of my childhood. She wasn't a loved doll, always the type you just put on a shelf and looked at. I'm getting quite cold blooded about this. No, that's not right, it's not cold blooded, I'm analysing why I hang on to things, and if it doesn't have a good memory or feeling attached to it, it goes. The doll just reminded me of how often my father wasn't there (physically and emotionally) when I was a kid. The lunchbox reminded me of my mother sending me to school with a roast beef sandwich, a thermos of hot soup, and one of those little red boxes of raisins. When I look at it that way, the choice was a no-brainer.
When you see how the language of love in my family was expressed through food, no wonder I have food issues. Ergo the rhubarb pie fantasy. I care therefore I cook. Interesting.
The emptier my house is getting, the clearer I feel. God, am I going to end up being the clutter Nazi? Is Martha rubbing off on me too much? Yesterday I vaccuumed the whole house and then washed two floors. I'm having a love affair with my Swiffer. Who is this woman?
I think I need this. Thinking about making pie. Sacrilige for a compulsive overeater? Not necessarily. I have the odd piece of pie, but I don't think I've made one for almost a year. I'm really out of practice. Pie is one of those things you get better at with practice, probably because it requires such eye-hand coordination, kind of like riding a bike. I'm sure I can still do the fundamentals, but the finer points of crust (it's always about crust, isn't it?) may be forgotten. Why in hell do I want to make pie? Well, to have a piece, of course!
But I also have this fantasy of making a pie for each of the neighbours I will be leaving in two weeks, most of which I regret not having gotten closer to. I really have very little in common with most of them, but they have been generally good neighbours: friendly enough for the odd chat or just a wave. There's one who I quite like and never see much but at least we will be living near enough her son that we'll still see them the odd time and I may get to walk his dog, that is if he doesn't pull my arm from my socket!
Speaking of dogs, I am having dog fantasies. Martha Stewart (sigh, yes, another guilty pleasure) yesterday was a rerun of her bulldog day show, and I really like the look of French bulldogs. They aren't so wrinkly drooly as the English variety, but still fall under the so-ugly-they're-cute category. Temperamentally they seem pretty easy going, but the only thing that gives me pause is their lack of heat & cold tolerance. Is that just asking for trouble in our hot humid summers? And of course they would need a coat in winter: that's just too precious. I'm confident I could bludgen Fuzz into walking a dog in a coat, but he would suffer.
It's nice to just be able to sit and bluesky. Yesterday I discovered a geranium sale at my favorite greenhouse (ok I used to work there) and went nuts and bought geraniums and verbena and alternantheria (I can't actually say that, I just say "trailing purple stuff" for six planters! I'm just so happy I have more sun at the new house. There are a couple of huge silver maples but that's about it, and their shade is dappled.
We're slowly going through stuff, packing, and culling. On Sunday Fuzz took a bunch of old and not so old toys down off a high bookshelf running the length of a living room wall. We dusted and packed. And I culled. Some things I just automatically packed, like the antique toys and my half rusted Lassie lunchbox from primary school. Others, like a doll my dad brought back from Holland on one of his peripatetic business trips (likely bought in the airport shop) got dusted, fondled, and then placed in the goodwill box. I'm letting go of more and more of my childhood. She wasn't a loved doll, always the type you just put on a shelf and looked at. I'm getting quite cold blooded about this. No, that's not right, it's not cold blooded, I'm analysing why I hang on to things, and if it doesn't have a good memory or feeling attached to it, it goes. The doll just reminded me of how often my father wasn't there (physically and emotionally) when I was a kid. The lunchbox reminded me of my mother sending me to school with a roast beef sandwich, a thermos of hot soup, and one of those little red boxes of raisins. When I look at it that way, the choice was a no-brainer.
When you see how the language of love in my family was expressed through food, no wonder I have food issues. Ergo the rhubarb pie fantasy. I care therefore I cook. Interesting.
The emptier my house is getting, the clearer I feel. God, am I going to end up being the clutter Nazi? Is Martha rubbing off on me too much? Yesterday I vaccuumed the whole house and then washed two floors. I'm having a love affair with my Swiffer. Who is this woman?
26.6.06
Slugday
This morning when the alarm went off, I decided I needed a day off. Or at least half a day. I miss the routine I got into around the time of my hysterectomy, when I spent many weeks having the whole morning to take my breakfast back to bed and read or blog while the tv played in the background. In the last couple of months, the task of selling, buying and moving house has become my job and has managed to occupy most of my waking hours and attention. I am fighting with a cold right now - the type that travels around your body and seems to leave for a day just to return, maybe because I need more rest.
However, as a doctor pointed out, I am not so good at "self-care" and he's right, dammit. Why it is so hard for me to accept this as a helpful observation, not criticism? He told me I have to take better care of myself, and I have to admit I'm not sure exactly how to go about that. Ok, I'm getting the eating better stuff pretty well, but as someone who has been obsessed with food most of her life, it's not surprising that that was the first thing I would tackle.
The physical exercise stuff is an interesting journey. It took me over five years, but I went from no exercise to maybe too much. Before my surgery I was exercising too much, perhaps even compulsively. I was going to the gym religiously 3 times weekly, plus running at least 3 times weekly, and I had developed some sports related injuries in my shoulder and knees. I think that in some area of my brain, I believed that if I didn't exercise nearly every day, I would fall apart. Some of the scenarios lurking in my semi-conscious were: gaining back a lot of weight, losing all discipline and never exercising, just a general avalanche of backsliding. Well, it hasn't happened yet. I am going to the gym much less, but I'm still running 2 or 3 times a week with my group and/or Fuzz (wow, never thought that day would ever come to pass. He was always the fit one!) and I'm doing things like gardening, home reno, packing and extensive cleaning. Checking my weight monthly, I've gained 2 pounds at the most. So the physical stuff is ok right now, it's still a discovery process that I suppose will continue.
I guess the hard part of self care for me is discovering the difference between being good to oneself vs. overindulging. A morning in bed feels dangerous to me for some reason. I feel shame over it. And yet I regularly plug myself into the television for hours on end late at night. It's like, well, it's late, who does useful work then? And yet I feel I never have time to write or meditate. Why don't I do it then instead of watching the Late Late Show? Oh, I don't know. Maybe I need this guilty pleasure. It isn't accompanied by Late Late Eating any more, so what's the problem? Dial it back, honey. Even Martha has help.
However, as a doctor pointed out, I am not so good at "self-care" and he's right, dammit. Why it is so hard for me to accept this as a helpful observation, not criticism? He told me I have to take better care of myself, and I have to admit I'm not sure exactly how to go about that. Ok, I'm getting the eating better stuff pretty well, but as someone who has been obsessed with food most of her life, it's not surprising that that was the first thing I would tackle.
The physical exercise stuff is an interesting journey. It took me over five years, but I went from no exercise to maybe too much. Before my surgery I was exercising too much, perhaps even compulsively. I was going to the gym religiously 3 times weekly, plus running at least 3 times weekly, and I had developed some sports related injuries in my shoulder and knees. I think that in some area of my brain, I believed that if I didn't exercise nearly every day, I would fall apart. Some of the scenarios lurking in my semi-conscious were: gaining back a lot of weight, losing all discipline and never exercising, just a general avalanche of backsliding. Well, it hasn't happened yet. I am going to the gym much less, but I'm still running 2 or 3 times a week with my group and/or Fuzz (wow, never thought that day would ever come to pass. He was always the fit one!) and I'm doing things like gardening, home reno, packing and extensive cleaning. Checking my weight monthly, I've gained 2 pounds at the most. So the physical stuff is ok right now, it's still a discovery process that I suppose will continue.
I guess the hard part of self care for me is discovering the difference between being good to oneself vs. overindulging. A morning in bed feels dangerous to me for some reason. I feel shame over it. And yet I regularly plug myself into the television for hours on end late at night. It's like, well, it's late, who does useful work then? And yet I feel I never have time to write or meditate. Why don't I do it then instead of watching the Late Late Show? Oh, I don't know. Maybe I need this guilty pleasure. It isn't accompanied by Late Late Eating any more, so what's the problem? Dial it back, honey. Even Martha has help.
20.6.06
Back Again
The Title Wizard says I've used "Back" in a number of my titles. Not a huge surprise I guess, because isn't "back" the pattern of life? As I sag, aw no, come on, ease into a sage (!) 45, I am beginning to think that the Bhuddists have it right: you repeat events and mistakes until you get it right, and maybe that takes several lifetimes. It certainly seems that I, and other people I know who are struggling to change their lives, seem to repeat our issues endlessly. I used to find this depressing and sometimes still do while I'm in the midst of an AFGO (Another F***ing Growth Opportunity) but now I'm more able to look at it and sigh, "0h yeah, that again". Sometimes I even smile because I've just been reminded that my humanity is linking me with all the other humans I know and respect who also struggle.
I used to think I had to be perfect. Hell, there are still many times I fall into that thinking. See, that's one of my patterns!
I used to think I had to be perfect. Hell, there are still many times I fall into that thinking. See, that's one of my patterns!
19.6.06
Whew, This Feeling Stuff is Hard!
I don't usually post in the evening, but I've had so little time to write in the mornings that it's now or never. I'm ticked off I've been posting so little. I've wondered if this meant the end of my blog for a while, but I think posting is good for my health. Who cares where it is or isn't going. I've spent too much of my life worrying about end product.
True to form, I've spent the last week worrying. The unthinkable happened: we bought and sold a house in what seem like good deals in around a month, and everything is moving more or less smoothly. After some great euphoria over this, the worry found its way back in. And why not? It's my default position. Just like being hungry. When in doubt, worry, then eat! That's how, kiddies, you get back on the binge-o-matic! Whee!
Someone in a meeting this morning said, "I don't know what's wrong, but my food's up. It will come to me soon." I nodded, because that's what I'm recognizing in myself the longer I hang around the 12-step "rooms": I'm still lousy at figuring out why I'm not feeling happy some days, but I realize that I am unhappy about the same time the hunger rises. I guess I'm healthier these days, because I get good and miserable before I start to binge. I don't look forward to these lousy feelings, but it beats the alternative. It's as if there is some antediluvian part of my brain that is slowly learning to recognize a negative emotion before my digestive tract does!
Not that I'm perfect at this. I'm no food nun. But rather than fantasizing about diving into a dozen donuts, I usually find I'm snacking on a few more baby carrots, pickles and other veg. If this doesn't help the hunger and it's not meal time I go, "Duh? Wazzup? Aw crap, what is it now?"
True to form, I've spent the last week worrying. The unthinkable happened: we bought and sold a house in what seem like good deals in around a month, and everything is moving more or less smoothly. After some great euphoria over this, the worry found its way back in. And why not? It's my default position. Just like being hungry. When in doubt, worry, then eat! That's how, kiddies, you get back on the binge-o-matic! Whee!
Someone in a meeting this morning said, "I don't know what's wrong, but my food's up. It will come to me soon." I nodded, because that's what I'm recognizing in myself the longer I hang around the 12-step "rooms": I'm still lousy at figuring out why I'm not feeling happy some days, but I realize that I am unhappy about the same time the hunger rises. I guess I'm healthier these days, because I get good and miserable before I start to binge. I don't look forward to these lousy feelings, but it beats the alternative. It's as if there is some antediluvian part of my brain that is slowly learning to recognize a negative emotion before my digestive tract does!
Not that I'm perfect at this. I'm no food nun. But rather than fantasizing about diving into a dozen donuts, I usually find I'm snacking on a few more baby carrots, pickles and other veg. If this doesn't help the hunger and it's not meal time I go, "Duh? Wazzup? Aw crap, what is it now?"
13.6.06
Whoa...
I wonder if I come across as terminally positive here? Am I ticking you off with some sort of goody two shoes act? I dunno. It's impossible to see how others see us.
CAUSE I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!
Our house sold!! It took 2 days. Yah, baby! Fuzz and I walked around in a daze for most of Saturday. That was it. No more "fluffing", obsessive cleaning up after ourselves, or any more of that crap. Sad to say that this was the cleanest our house every has been. But I kind of like it. It looks so uncluttered. It's good, because now we have to pack up, and we're moving into a smaller house. So, if I can keep that image of an uncluttered space during moving and reno stuff, it will give me the impetus to keep getting rid of stuff. Speaking of which, this afternoon I am going to take a series of digital photos of stuff so I can send it to various friends who may wish to buy or adopt stuff.
I'm freakin' amazed at how well this has been going. None of the awful stories I've heard of in real estate have been happening. Financing, legal stuff, all of it has gone through without much of a hitch, boom boom boom. And yesterday I bought a new fridge. Well, used, but gently used for a few years and half the original price. And it's just the fridge I wanted but didn't think I could afford yet. I actually was approached about it in an OA meeting. Turns out she was told I might need a fridge by another OA friend ---who I think I wrote about here before, the one who's been helping me pack up and clean in exchange for art lessons.
I keep thinking this is eerie evidence of a higher power at work, and best friend thinks it's time I bought a lottery ticket, but our higher power really does work through people. And a higher power works through me gettin' it out there: sharing with friends about my issues and fears, my problems, my joys. I've gotta get the whole deal "out" there. Basically, we're all part of this higher power. It's bigger than all of us, maybe, but it is essentially composed of all of us.
I've spent too much time in my life trying to function in my own little bubble. Yesterday I wanted to skip and jump for joy, and I had many different friends to do so with. It was magnificent. This is living.
CAUSE I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!!!
Our house sold!! It took 2 days. Yah, baby! Fuzz and I walked around in a daze for most of Saturday. That was it. No more "fluffing", obsessive cleaning up after ourselves, or any more of that crap. Sad to say that this was the cleanest our house every has been. But I kind of like it. It looks so uncluttered. It's good, because now we have to pack up, and we're moving into a smaller house. So, if I can keep that image of an uncluttered space during moving and reno stuff, it will give me the impetus to keep getting rid of stuff. Speaking of which, this afternoon I am going to take a series of digital photos of stuff so I can send it to various friends who may wish to buy or adopt stuff.
I'm freakin' amazed at how well this has been going. None of the awful stories I've heard of in real estate have been happening. Financing, legal stuff, all of it has gone through without much of a hitch, boom boom boom. And yesterday I bought a new fridge. Well, used, but gently used for a few years and half the original price. And it's just the fridge I wanted but didn't think I could afford yet. I actually was approached about it in an OA meeting. Turns out she was told I might need a fridge by another OA friend ---who I think I wrote about here before, the one who's been helping me pack up and clean in exchange for art lessons.
I keep thinking this is eerie evidence of a higher power at work, and best friend thinks it's time I bought a lottery ticket, but our higher power really does work through people. And a higher power works through me gettin' it out there: sharing with friends about my issues and fears, my problems, my joys. I've gotta get the whole deal "out" there. Basically, we're all part of this higher power. It's bigger than all of us, maybe, but it is essentially composed of all of us.
I've spent too much time in my life trying to function in my own little bubble. Yesterday I wanted to skip and jump for joy, and I had many different friends to do so with. It was magnificent. This is living.
6.6.06
Balance? Wazzat?
Around 4 pm I fell into bed and slept for a solid 2 hours. I was exhausted. The real estate agent had just left the house after taking a series of pictures for the listing on her website. Fuzz and I, with the help of a few dear friends, had just spent every spare moment of the last few weeks preparing: packing, painting, cleaning cleaning cleaning what hasn't been cleaned for years, drywalling, patching wallpaper, mowing, planting planterswrestling The China Cabinet of Doom into a storage unit, I even spent Sunday laying ceramic tile on two countertops... one of those jobs I just never "got around to" for 2 years.
But it worked. The house looks great. Kind of like I always dreamed it could but never felt able to make happen. Now, I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning every spare moment, but hey, it's not bad exercise. How do I integrate some of this into my daily life without it taking over? The last few weeks I haven't journalled much, gotten to the gym, nor spent much time in the studio. And I don't even have kids. I don't want to be busy busy all the time. I know I know, it's the old story, I want it all, but, yes, I do want more. I want to have friends in my next house without cringeing about how it looks. I like being able to see outside without gunge on the windows. I like the look of a clean countertop with some open space so I can work on it without having to shove piles of stuff (usually paper) to the side.
Can this be a part of my life? I'm already feeling overwhelmed by the concept. I think that may be a sign that I need to spend less time dwelling on the concept, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And granted, right now is a particularly hectic time. This isn't just housekeeping, it's moving! (I can hear the collective "ugh!" from here.
When it all seems like too much, I recall how I felt the last couple of months when I was finishing grad school. One day I wrote out a list of all the projects I had to accomplish before the end of the semester, and I went into shock! "No way can I do all of this!" I thought. Then I got rid of the list and went back to work. It all got done, maybe not as perfectly as I desired, but it went remarkably well given how intimidating that list looked.
Except, right now I feel like another nap!
But it worked. The house looks great. Kind of like I always dreamed it could but never felt able to make happen. Now, I don't want to spend the rest of my life cleaning every spare moment, but hey, it's not bad exercise. How do I integrate some of this into my daily life without it taking over? The last few weeks I haven't journalled much, gotten to the gym, nor spent much time in the studio. And I don't even have kids. I don't want to be busy busy all the time. I know I know, it's the old story, I want it all, but, yes, I do want more. I want to have friends in my next house without cringeing about how it looks. I like being able to see outside without gunge on the windows. I like the look of a clean countertop with some open space so I can work on it without having to shove piles of stuff (usually paper) to the side.
Can this be a part of my life? I'm already feeling overwhelmed by the concept. I think that may be a sign that I need to spend less time dwelling on the concept, and just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And granted, right now is a particularly hectic time. This isn't just housekeeping, it's moving! (I can hear the collective "ugh!" from here.
When it all seems like too much, I recall how I felt the last couple of months when I was finishing grad school. One day I wrote out a list of all the projects I had to accomplish before the end of the semester, and I went into shock! "No way can I do all of this!" I thought. Then I got rid of the list and went back to work. It all got done, maybe not as perfectly as I desired, but it went remarkably well given how intimidating that list looked.
Except, right now I feel like another nap!
2.6.06
Damn, The Sponsor was Right AGAIN
I've been in OA now for over 3 years and I've just recently started sponsoring in the last month. My sponsor has been encouraging me to sponsor for ages, but I've been either too wrapped up in my own recovery or just plain afraid of sponsoring. Growing up in a family where I was trained to sacrifice my needs for my parents disfunction, for the longest time I just didn't feel able to be a healthy sponsor rather than an enabler or a martyr. Just when all the poo hit the fan with buying and selling a house, so I'm still not the most active sponsor in the world, and I'm taking a tip from my sponsor and letting my "sponsees" call me, do the footwork in their recovery by reaching out to their sponsor.
Right now I don't have time to chase them down. If they want me, they know where to find me. One of the two has just dropped off the face of the earth, but she's a big NHL hockey fan, and it's playoff season, so I figure she'll resurface in a few weeks.
The other one I've been playing phone tag with. The relationship is complicated by the fact that I can often be found going to bed only slightly earlier than she usually rises, but the other morning she finally got me at home and awake. My sponsor has always said to me that her sponsees often gave her more than she gave them, at which I would usually go "huh?", but I found that happening on Tuesday morning.
My sponsee is pumped, she wants to work the program. She's sick and tired of being sick and tired. Lookout, she's on a roll, get out of her way. Here I was half awake, having spent half the night rattling around the house packing, tidying, pitching and completely obsessed with house, house, house. I was also feeling pretty low that night, pessimism rising.
She brought me down to earth, reminded me of where I was and how important these new habits of living are to my present happiness. She also reminded my how little program work I've been doing. I was telling myself that because my food was quiet (Hell, I was so busy, I was forgetting to eat my programmed snacks, always a shock for me to realize), I was fine. If you read my posts regularly, you will have noticed how little I've been blogging. Ditto with the reading of OA literature and attending meetings. They are all part of my lifeline, what keeps me plugged into health, rather than disfunction and misery.
Ok, ok, uncle uncle! I hear ya! Time to put some balance back. Do the things that make me feel better. Hit a meeting yesterday, and will do another tomorrow and lunch with a fellow sufferer who's struggling. Then back to the unending house crap. Did I say I'm glad we're moving into a smaller house? Much more manageable, and forces me to let go of the China Cabinet of Doom!
Right now I don't have time to chase them down. If they want me, they know where to find me. One of the two has just dropped off the face of the earth, but she's a big NHL hockey fan, and it's playoff season, so I figure she'll resurface in a few weeks.
The other one I've been playing phone tag with. The relationship is complicated by the fact that I can often be found going to bed only slightly earlier than she usually rises, but the other morning she finally got me at home and awake. My sponsor has always said to me that her sponsees often gave her more than she gave them, at which I would usually go "huh?", but I found that happening on Tuesday morning.
My sponsee is pumped, she wants to work the program. She's sick and tired of being sick and tired. Lookout, she's on a roll, get out of her way. Here I was half awake, having spent half the night rattling around the house packing, tidying, pitching and completely obsessed with house, house, house. I was also feeling pretty low that night, pessimism rising.
She brought me down to earth, reminded me of where I was and how important these new habits of living are to my present happiness. She also reminded my how little program work I've been doing. I was telling myself that because my food was quiet (Hell, I was so busy, I was forgetting to eat my programmed snacks, always a shock for me to realize), I was fine. If you read my posts regularly, you will have noticed how little I've been blogging. Ditto with the reading of OA literature and attending meetings. They are all part of my lifeline, what keeps me plugged into health, rather than disfunction and misery.
Ok, ok, uncle uncle! I hear ya! Time to put some balance back. Do the things that make me feel better. Hit a meeting yesterday, and will do another tomorrow and lunch with a fellow sufferer who's struggling. Then back to the unending house crap. Did I say I'm glad we're moving into a smaller house? Much more manageable, and forces me to let go of the China Cabinet of Doom!
Wrestled the Gorilla...
aka the china cabinet into the storage unit! It is massive (219 cm tall, that's over 7 ft and almost a meter deep), but thankfully the top half detaches from the bottom. And of course, the dining room now looks spacious. I kind of like the old thing, the homespun craftsmenship, dovetailing, and plain dignity of it. It may or may not be valuable, but I can't keep it in any house I'm going to live in any time soon, more suited to a rambling old farmhouse with 12 foot ceilings.
There are also so many sad memories with this cabinet. It seems to hold a dark cloud of sadness in its dark victorian depths. In the top was all the china and crystal that was used so rarely. In the bottom went various bits of stuff that my parents didn't know what to do with: all those Christmas tchochkes from my father's business associates, 60's cloth napkins and placemats in acqua, green and orange, home movie cameras and reels, slides... then there was the alcohol and chocolate. My father's vice and mine, respectively, side by side. It just struck me a month or two ago how eerily the two forbidden substances coexisted there for years while I swore I would never be like my father as I mimicked his every step in alcohol with my food: the closet bingeing, the shame, the isolating, the supressed rage and fear, the hopelessness.
The reasons for selling it aren't merely physical. I think it's time to move on with my life.
26.5.06
Ahhhh
Finally, I'm taking a little time to just stop. Seems like ages since I've been able to sit in bed with the laptop and the TV on, half-watching Martha cook something, I'm not sure what, I'm not paying much attention, just luxuriating in somebody else working. I've got 10 zillion other things I "should" be doing --- my friend says, "there you go, should-ing on yourself again" --- but I need to stop, gather my scattered wits. I'm taking this morning off.
We've been painting and packing. I'm so happy about where our new house is, downtown in Midsizeburg, where I can walk or bike to almost anywhere I want to go in the downtown. But the house is smaller. It's a great size for the two of us, but it is forcing me to finally come to terms with all that furniture and bric-a-brac I inherited when my parents died almost 10 years ago. I've sold or given away a lot of it, but there is still too much. It is as if I am living in a museum to their memory, and it's not a happy memorial --- there are many sad memories tied up with these old things. I don't have an albatross around my neck, it's a china cabinet filled with silver and pinwheel crystal!
Like going through the waves of grief I went through when my mother died (not the same as when my father died, his passing was a merciful relief of misery), I go through waves of emotion when dealing with their stuff:
"Oh God, if they only saw what I was doing, they'd be spinning in their graves!"
"I am SO SICK of this stuff!"
"That's it! This can go to Goodwill!"
"Maybe I can just make a fire in the backyard..."
"Ok, let's go with the auctioneer..."
"I wonder if this might fit in the kitchen?" Fuzz:"Are you KIDDING?"
"I'm keeping this. No, I'm not. Yes, maybe... Rats... "
"Is this actually worth all this grief?"
"Just put it in the box before I change my mind!"
"Wow, this looks really good when you get all the crap out of here!..."
Whew. No wonder I can feel tired even without lifting a finger! However, slowly, things are happening. I'm discovering how dealing with stuff can be pretty satisfying. And come what may, the first week of July we are moving. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Feel the doubt, feel the fear, spit in its face, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And enjoy this cup of coffee.
We've been painting and packing. I'm so happy about where our new house is, downtown in Midsizeburg, where I can walk or bike to almost anywhere I want to go in the downtown. But the house is smaller. It's a great size for the two of us, but it is forcing me to finally come to terms with all that furniture and bric-a-brac I inherited when my parents died almost 10 years ago. I've sold or given away a lot of it, but there is still too much. It is as if I am living in a museum to their memory, and it's not a happy memorial --- there are many sad memories tied up with these old things. I don't have an albatross around my neck, it's a china cabinet filled with silver and pinwheel crystal!
Like going through the waves of grief I went through when my mother died (not the same as when my father died, his passing was a merciful relief of misery), I go through waves of emotion when dealing with their stuff:
"Oh God, if they only saw what I was doing, they'd be spinning in their graves!"
"I am SO SICK of this stuff!"
"That's it! This can go to Goodwill!"
"Maybe I can just make a fire in the backyard..."
"Ok, let's go with the auctioneer..."
"I wonder if this might fit in the kitchen?" Fuzz:"Are you KIDDING?"
"I'm keeping this. No, I'm not. Yes, maybe... Rats... "
"Is this actually worth all this grief?"
"Just put it in the box before I change my mind!"
"Wow, this looks really good when you get all the crap out of here!..."
Whew. No wonder I can feel tired even without lifting a finger! However, slowly, things are happening. I'm discovering how dealing with stuff can be pretty satisfying. And come what may, the first week of July we are moving. I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Feel the doubt, feel the fear, spit in its face, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And enjoy this cup of coffee.
23.5.06
Taking Time to Listen
Listen. Really listen. What is she saying? It's exhausting. She thinks she's talking about looking for a job, but all I hear is a stream of negatives, "I can't"s, and "They did x to me". Finally I give up and start tuning her out, because she's too busy justifying to listen to any suggestions. I can't blame her, I know I've been locked in that behaviour too, but boy, it seems like there is a lot of pain. Did I really listen or just get locked into "helpful" mode? That's my other default position.
She may have hit bottom. She sounds totally disgusted with her life right now. Sometimes listening helps with that, but it's so hard to not judge.
She's also talking about losing weight. Tried OA, didn't like the God talk. We talked a bit about the whole spirituality vs. Christianity thing.
Funny the things you get into just talking with a casual acquaintance @ Starbucks. on a cold May morning.
She may have hit bottom. She sounds totally disgusted with her life right now. Sometimes listening helps with that, but it's so hard to not judge.
She's also talking about losing weight. Tried OA, didn't like the God talk. We talked a bit about the whole spirituality vs. Christianity thing.
Funny the things you get into just talking with a casual acquaintance @ Starbucks. on a cold May morning.
22.5.06
Things are Going Well, If Very Fast
This is another of those "on the run" posts. Akkkk! I have to get dressed and all that stuff, we're going over to the new house to look at the kitchen. The vendor actually paid for new kitchen cabinets before she got the news she was being relocated, so we're trying to figure out where stuff is going and what we need changed, if anything. And then there's paint swatches. The house was mid renovation so I can pick what colors I want. Wow. Too much, dude.
Fuzz is pacing. Time to go. Life is faster right now but pretty sane, amazingly. Except I'm not getting enough exercise the last few days. I want to work on that. Good thing I quit my job at the end of last month! A real estate agent comes for a talk tomorrow about selling our house and sometime this week a lady from the auction service is coming to give me some appraisals. Whee...
I'll write again soon. Promise. And I won't talk about freakin' real estate.
Fuzz is pacing. Time to go. Life is faster right now but pretty sane, amazingly. Except I'm not getting enough exercise the last few days. I want to work on that. Good thing I quit my job at the end of last month! A real estate agent comes for a talk tomorrow about selling our house and sometime this week a lady from the auction service is coming to give me some appraisals. Whee...
I'll write again soon. Promise. And I won't talk about freakin' real estate.
16.5.06
Continually Amazed
Well, it happened. The seller accepted our offer, and the bank likes us, and we don't even have to rush to sell our house because our finances are in very good shape. I keep asking people to pinch me. You know, it's just a little modest 2 storey in a downtown neighbourhood that I think is on its way up, no big deal, right? Except the house next door is owned by my best friend (of 25 years) and her partner and daughter. After living for 15 years in "Smallville" and never really finding a community (excepting the 2 years I lived in New York), I am going to be living in a place (shall we call it Midsizeburg) where I think we will find a community. Within blocks live other artists and musicians, and many more of our friends, including Fuzz' brother and wife. Fuzz actually grew up 2 blocks away. Stranger than fiction.
I feel very lucky, but I think we made our own luck by listening to our hearts, putting out the word we wanted to live in the neighbourhood, and asking for help: spiritual, emotional support, and physical help from our friends. It was our friend that told our neighbour that if she ever wanted to sell her house they had someone interested. And then being willing to have fate, a higher power, karma, or whatever do what it would for us. This morning a groggy Fuzz said through a codeine-acetaminophen-ibuprofen blur (he's got a virus) "Boy, your higher power sure was on yesterday!" And he's right. It is amazing when you start clearing out the old emotional debris, I believe a channel opens up that allows good things to come to me that I can't even imagine.
The seller and even the seller's father seem extremely happy, because she was able to sell her house in 2 days and now can concentrate on moving to her new job out west in July. One major headache out of her way.
I was doing the "Mr. Bean Christmas Morning Happy Dance" yesterday, or was it the "Snoopy" along with lots of high pitched squealing. Maybe not the best idea, because it's easy to bonk your head dancing and jumping around with your eyes screwed shut!
When we got home last night I was still adrenaline filled, so I got on the treadmill for an hour's power walk. Then I lay down on the couch with a little cantelope and Letterman, thinking I might follow it up with some hot milk. The next thing I knew, it was an hour later, the cat tucked under my chin. I crawled up to bed and slept like the amazed baby I am.
Anybody want to buy a charming 90 year old house with a custom designed art studio & craftsman workshop in small town Canada? Such a steal!!! ;))
I feel very lucky, but I think we made our own luck by listening to our hearts, putting out the word we wanted to live in the neighbourhood, and asking for help: spiritual, emotional support, and physical help from our friends. It was our friend that told our neighbour that if she ever wanted to sell her house they had someone interested. And then being willing to have fate, a higher power, karma, or whatever do what it would for us. This morning a groggy Fuzz said through a codeine-acetaminophen-ibuprofen blur (he's got a virus) "Boy, your higher power sure was on yesterday!" And he's right. It is amazing when you start clearing out the old emotional debris, I believe a channel opens up that allows good things to come to me that I can't even imagine.
The seller and even the seller's father seem extremely happy, because she was able to sell her house in 2 days and now can concentrate on moving to her new job out west in July. One major headache out of her way.
I was doing the "Mr. Bean Christmas Morning Happy Dance" yesterday, or was it the "Snoopy" along with lots of high pitched squealing. Maybe not the best idea, because it's easy to bonk your head dancing and jumping around with your eyes screwed shut!
When we got home last night I was still adrenaline filled, so I got on the treadmill for an hour's power walk. Then I lay down on the couch with a little cantelope and Letterman, thinking I might follow it up with some hot milk. The next thing I knew, it was an hour later, the cat tucked under my chin. I crawled up to bed and slept like the amazed baby I am.
Anybody want to buy a charming 90 year old house with a custom designed art studio & craftsman workshop in small town Canada? Such a steal!!! ;))
15.5.06
Sleep, Puleeze...
Maybe there is something to my doctor and therapist's suspicion that I may suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. During my checkup on Monday I realized I'm sleeping much less than a month ago and didn't feel nearly as sluggy as in March and February. I have a feeling I'll be trying one of those light therapy boxes next winter.
Tonight (it's coming on 5 am as I type this) I've got the opposite problem, sleeplessness. Major stress going on right now as we are trying to negotiate a private sale on a house. It's kind of small and needs some cosmetic work, and the basement, hooboy, don't get me started, but I love the location. Suddenly all our moving, selling and buying plans are notched up about 5 clicks. As Fuzz pointed out, it's much easier to be motivated when you have an concrete object in sight. About a million things could cause this to fall through, but it's a trip we've gotta try, sleepless night or not.
Let's see, today I have to investigate a storage locker and ugh, phone the bank for a talk about financing. Big fear around that last one, but Fuzz is up to his eyeballs in work, and this is something I can do. Fuzz is hilarious, he's absorbed enough of this "higher power" stuff from my work with Overeaters Anonymous to get it, he keeps saying, "If our higher power wants us to get this house, we will, it's out of our hands." It helps with the stress, but he still looks a little strung out over it too.
I guess this is what a healthy life looks like. Yesterday, my computer geek partner made a concept map (kind of a flow chart) of all the things stressing him out about this! I chose the low tech way and cried for a while, feeling completely overwhelmed and ashamed of how incompetent I felt, and then got on with life: Community choir rehearsal, made a roast beast dinner for us and Fuzz's folks, packed a couple more boxes last night with one eye on the Law & Order CI season ender. I just did ---what do they call it in 12 step circles? --- oh yeah, "the next right thing". Speaking of which, I think I can sleep now. Oh joy, one whole hour before the alarm goes off!
Tonight (it's coming on 5 am as I type this) I've got the opposite problem, sleeplessness. Major stress going on right now as we are trying to negotiate a private sale on a house. It's kind of small and needs some cosmetic work, and the basement, hooboy, don't get me started, but I love the location. Suddenly all our moving, selling and buying plans are notched up about 5 clicks. As Fuzz pointed out, it's much easier to be motivated when you have an concrete object in sight. About a million things could cause this to fall through, but it's a trip we've gotta try, sleepless night or not.
Let's see, today I have to investigate a storage locker and ugh, phone the bank for a talk about financing. Big fear around that last one, but Fuzz is up to his eyeballs in work, and this is something I can do. Fuzz is hilarious, he's absorbed enough of this "higher power" stuff from my work with Overeaters Anonymous to get it, he keeps saying, "If our higher power wants us to get this house, we will, it's out of our hands." It helps with the stress, but he still looks a little strung out over it too.
I guess this is what a healthy life looks like. Yesterday, my computer geek partner made a concept map (kind of a flow chart) of all the things stressing him out about this! I chose the low tech way and cried for a while, feeling completely overwhelmed and ashamed of how incompetent I felt, and then got on with life: Community choir rehearsal, made a roast beast dinner for us and Fuzz's folks, packed a couple more boxes last night with one eye on the Law & Order CI season ender. I just did ---what do they call it in 12 step circles? --- oh yeah, "the next right thing". Speaking of which, I think I can sleep now. Oh joy, one whole hour before the alarm goes off!
10.5.06
Body vs. Head
I have to admit, once again, that I am a complex creature. "No no no," screams my brain, "I want everything to be simple! Why is everything so damn complicated!" Grr! Spit! I am considering the relationship between my head and my body, which is probably pretty similar to most women: torturous at best. I wonder how many women I know do not look daily (or more) at another woman (3D or 2 dimensional) and find their own body lacking? And honestly, I also have the other distasteful trait: looking at someone and thinking "well, at least I don't look like that." I would like to think myself above all that, but I'm not. I fight it, or accept it as remaining evidence that my self esteem is still lousy. In other words, it's my head that's the problem, not the body. Pretty common disease in our culture, and not confined to women.
My therapists have called it shame. Yuck. What a word. Just writing it makes me shiver.
But like I said, it's complex. I also have pride in my body, and there are bits I am just discovering. Like my toes --- I had my first pedicure ever last week and what a treat it was! All this soaking and massaging and buffing and stuff, wow! Best Friend, an old hand at this spa stuff and big fan of the french manicure --- something I just don't get--- had hers painted a subtle blush taupe, but not me! Like a kid in a cosmetics store, I went straight for the fuschia. It took me almost 45 years to finally get there and needed BF to make the appointment and accompany me to keep my nerves at bay, so I went for the brightest day-glo color there to proclaim to the world, "Hey! I got my toes done! Aren't I a girly girl?"
My question is, what took me so long? Why did I have to lose half my body weight to honor my toes? Maybe it's because I now actually like people looking at me, because I no longer wish to be invisible, I am discovering my body. It's like running, also a new pursuit, discovered just last fall. I like sweating now. Before it just made me angry.
My therapists have called it shame. Yuck. What a word. Just writing it makes me shiver.
But like I said, it's complex. I also have pride in my body, and there are bits I am just discovering. Like my toes --- I had my first pedicure ever last week and what a treat it was! All this soaking and massaging and buffing and stuff, wow! Best Friend, an old hand at this spa stuff and big fan of the french manicure --- something I just don't get--- had hers painted a subtle blush taupe, but not me! Like a kid in a cosmetics store, I went straight for the fuschia. It took me almost 45 years to finally get there and needed BF to make the appointment and accompany me to keep my nerves at bay, so I went for the brightest day-glo color there to proclaim to the world, "Hey! I got my toes done! Aren't I a girly girl?"
My question is, what took me so long? Why did I have to lose half my body weight to honor my toes? Maybe it's because I now actually like people looking at me, because I no longer wish to be invisible, I am discovering my body. It's like running, also a new pursuit, discovered just last fall. I like sweating now. Before it just made me angry.
8.5.06
Emotional Feet Stamping
I have written and erased the same 3 or 4 sentences three times. I've got a bee in my bonnet but I'm not sure why. I just feel restless and discontent. I'm not sure what is going on in my fevered noggin, but it seems cyclic. Could be a body cycle, or just a reaction to things going ok, neither great nor awful. And I know tomorrow it will probably seem different. Isn't it amazing that today's emotional tailspin will likely evaporate to such an extent that tomorrow it will be hard to remember just what was so awful?
Last night I mentally went through a checklist of all the good things I had accomplished yesterday. I had to do this because I hadn't helped Fuzz with a home reno project he really wanted to get done. That was his job, but I felt a lot of guilt for not helping him. Instead I cooked meals for us, cleaned out the stinky (whoof, what died in here???) leaves and guck from the pond and got it functioning for the season, tidied my studio some more (no wonder it was hard to move around with 3 bicycles and the back seat from the van in there!), mowed the lawn for the first time this year, whacked the weeds, cleaned the kitchen, bought food, and wrote. All good and worthy things, but because I wasn't helping him, I felt guilt. He never even suggested I aid him. That's just the script in my head. It's so hard for me to stay with my own stuff. As soon as I feel I "should" be doing something for another, it's as if my brain has been snatched from my body.
It's a constant source of amazement for me how someone who used to weigh over 300 pounds and is still about 145 and 5'9" can feel so ephemeral, without substance, when confronted with another's issues or agenda. It is as if the binge eating was an unconscious effort to feel real, as if I existed.
I'm going to the gym later, and I think I might combine some weight training with a run outside since it's such a beautiful day, sunny, with just an edge of crispness as we edge toward summer. I think I'll run along the lake and around the campus. It will likely improve my mood, maybe release some endorphins. Instead of eating to feel as if I exist, I will make myself physically stronger. I still like that odd ouchy ache I sometimes get when I move after exercise. It says, oh yeah, those muscles got used for something. After years of physical inactivity, it's nice to feel my body talking to me on occasion, just a little tweak here and there, not big pain. Speaking of tweaks, I'm not even getting that as my body is into its 3rd month of healing from the hysterectomy today, and I'm feeling about 98% recovered, with about the only symptom being a slight lag in my energy reserves.
One thing I am feeling anxiety around, but also flashes of joy, is being in the studio to give my friend art lessons. She wants to come back for more this week, so I have some prep to do. Another small step taken in my journey doing something meaningful that I love. Now that is making me feel alive! I'm thinking of things to work on while she paints... uh oh, might be time for another self portrait. That's usually what I do when I haven't been painting for a while and need an utterly fascinating subject to get those juices flowing again...
Last night I mentally went through a checklist of all the good things I had accomplished yesterday. I had to do this because I hadn't helped Fuzz with a home reno project he really wanted to get done. That was his job, but I felt a lot of guilt for not helping him. Instead I cooked meals for us, cleaned out the stinky (whoof, what died in here???) leaves and guck from the pond and got it functioning for the season, tidied my studio some more (no wonder it was hard to move around with 3 bicycles and the back seat from the van in there!), mowed the lawn for the first time this year, whacked the weeds, cleaned the kitchen, bought food, and wrote. All good and worthy things, but because I wasn't helping him, I felt guilt. He never even suggested I aid him. That's just the script in my head. It's so hard for me to stay with my own stuff. As soon as I feel I "should" be doing something for another, it's as if my brain has been snatched from my body.
It's a constant source of amazement for me how someone who used to weigh over 300 pounds and is still about 145 and 5'9" can feel so ephemeral, without substance, when confronted with another's issues or agenda. It is as if the binge eating was an unconscious effort to feel real, as if I existed.
I'm going to the gym later, and I think I might combine some weight training with a run outside since it's such a beautiful day, sunny, with just an edge of crispness as we edge toward summer. I think I'll run along the lake and around the campus. It will likely improve my mood, maybe release some endorphins. Instead of eating to feel as if I exist, I will make myself physically stronger. I still like that odd ouchy ache I sometimes get when I move after exercise. It says, oh yeah, those muscles got used for something. After years of physical inactivity, it's nice to feel my body talking to me on occasion, just a little tweak here and there, not big pain. Speaking of tweaks, I'm not even getting that as my body is into its 3rd month of healing from the hysterectomy today, and I'm feeling about 98% recovered, with about the only symptom being a slight lag in my energy reserves.
One thing I am feeling anxiety around, but also flashes of joy, is being in the studio to give my friend art lessons. She wants to come back for more this week, so I have some prep to do. Another small step taken in my journey doing something meaningful that I love. Now that is making me feel alive! I'm thinking of things to work on while she paints... uh oh, might be time for another self portrait. That's usually what I do when I haven't been painting for a while and need an utterly fascinating subject to get those juices flowing again...
7.5.06
Listening and Recasting God
At the beginning, and at the end of many OA meetings they say the "Serenity Prayer". It is a shortened variation on the original prayer written by an American Protestant minister and theologan Reinhold Niebuhr, and the version we use is: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. " Then---and I know this is where we differ from other 12 step fellowships and maybe even from OA in different regions--- we add the sentence "Thy will, not mine be done."
The wording of much of the original 12 step literature passed down from the early 20th century AA founders was originally a stumbling block for me when I started attending OA meetings. Raised Catholic, I'm someone who has avoided most organized religion for most of her adult life. That being said, over a decade ago I realized I wanted to have a community to consider my spiritual life with, and so I'm a member of a Unitarian Universalist fellowship, a very liberal faith community that is bonded by that desire to explore spirituality without being told what we must believe. I found a lot of good people, but for some reason I never went much deeper in my search. I still stayed angry at God and scared.
So I have trouble with the G-word. Or I did, until I was told that I could conceive of God, or "a higher power" in any form I wanted. It took me a long time to realize how stereotypical and unhelpful the image of a higher power I had swallowed early on was for my emotional and physical health. The God I had created for myself was punitive and angry, cobbled together from the attitudes of the family and community I grew up in, and the popular culture. God was invoked to keep us in line in the church and me in line in my family.
As I meditate now on the possibility of a higher power that might want me to be "joyous, happy and free", I realize that this means I have to change my conception of what that higher power wants me to do in my daily life. Like this morning.
I was lying in bed with my usual dose of guilt: "Oh ugh, I should vacuum, I should rake the leaves out of the basement window well, clean out a closet, blah blah blah..." when what I really wanted was to sit in bed, drink coffee, turn on the CBC and surf the net and write. Then that phrase "Thy will not mine" floated into my fevered coconut.
I wondered "what if Thy will is for me to sit in bed with my laptop?" Not what my parents would say, but maybe by absorbing their sad conception of a higher poser (that was originally a typo but maybe it was a freudian typo) was one of the things that made my life so awful. Evidence that this may be the case is that when I do shove everything else back and do just that, I'm more in touch with my feelings and the rest of my life goes much better: I eat better, I obsess less about food, I get exercise, I keep myself straight with valued friends, I discover the joy of pedicures and running and belly dance, I get into the studio more. And paradoxically, enough of the other stuff that needs to be done, basic housework and stuff like that, seems to get done, if not enough for my old Fake God. I need to fire Fake God, and for the time being, do it daily.
The wording of much of the original 12 step literature passed down from the early 20th century AA founders was originally a stumbling block for me when I started attending OA meetings. Raised Catholic, I'm someone who has avoided most organized religion for most of her adult life. That being said, over a decade ago I realized I wanted to have a community to consider my spiritual life with, and so I'm a member of a Unitarian Universalist fellowship, a very liberal faith community that is bonded by that desire to explore spirituality without being told what we must believe. I found a lot of good people, but for some reason I never went much deeper in my search. I still stayed angry at God and scared.
So I have trouble with the G-word. Or I did, until I was told that I could conceive of God, or "a higher power" in any form I wanted. It took me a long time to realize how stereotypical and unhelpful the image of a higher power I had swallowed early on was for my emotional and physical health. The God I had created for myself was punitive and angry, cobbled together from the attitudes of the family and community I grew up in, and the popular culture. God was invoked to keep us in line in the church and me in line in my family.
As I meditate now on the possibility of a higher power that might want me to be "joyous, happy and free", I realize that this means I have to change my conception of what that higher power wants me to do in my daily life. Like this morning.
I was lying in bed with my usual dose of guilt: "Oh ugh, I should vacuum, I should rake the leaves out of the basement window well, clean out a closet, blah blah blah..." when what I really wanted was to sit in bed, drink coffee, turn on the CBC and surf the net and write. Then that phrase "Thy will not mine" floated into my fevered coconut.
I wondered "what if Thy will is for me to sit in bed with my laptop?" Not what my parents would say, but maybe by absorbing their sad conception of a higher poser (that was originally a typo but maybe it was a freudian typo) was one of the things that made my life so awful. Evidence that this may be the case is that when I do shove everything else back and do just that, I'm more in touch with my feelings and the rest of my life goes much better: I eat better, I obsess less about food, I get exercise, I keep myself straight with valued friends, I discover the joy of pedicures and running and belly dance, I get into the studio more. And paradoxically, enough of the other stuff that needs to be done, basic housework and stuff like that, seems to get done, if not enough for my old Fake God. I need to fire Fake God, and for the time being, do it daily.
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