I'm chuckling at myself today. I see the signs of a midlife crisis everywhere: not spending much time at work in the studio, busy injuring myself doing sports, and today, I should be able to drive my new scooter home (Insurance Gods willing, but I'm having a hard time being patient). Call it my mini-menopausemobile!
(Warning! The following rant will only be of interest to the severely two-wheel obsessed!)
I finally gave up my fruitless quest for the TNG Lowboy, because despite its low price and cute styling, the parent company seems to be behaving like jerks, screwing up the importation of the model into Canada every which way, and I've heard so many horror stories about how they treat dealers and customers that after the second delay I decided to ask for my deposit back. I feel sorry for the dealer in Toronto, they seem like very nice, professional people, but I think they chose a bad company to represent.
So the last couple of days, to cheer myself after the hernia mishap (see previous post) I went scooter shopping. Since there were so few available in this area besides the pricey Vespas, I broadened my search for lower cost, lower gas guzzling transport into small motorcycles (under 650 cc) and found a couple of really nice little Hondas and Suzukis. Then my friend the Reverend Brian, who just bought himself a nice Kawasaki, (I call him the Rolling Rev) suggested the Yamaha dealership a few miles out of town. I checked it out on the web and voila, they have a lovely little retro styled scooter, the Vino, in a nice 125 cc size: enough power to scoot around town with a little juice leftover. Ain't she cute? The silver color is a little understated for me, but I'm sure I can figure out a way to pimp it out a little. 
Now I just have to be patient and wait for my insurance agent to call me back. Not one of my strong points, as I seem to have that addict's tendency to want everything, and want it RIGHT NOW! But then by that criteria, most of North America would be addicts. Maybe we are?...
Ever heard of Julia Sweeney's show "God Said, Ha!"? It's about how the best laid plans in your life can suddenly go sideways, particularly if your health and/or that of a loved one suddenly takes a dive. Well, last week was one of those weeks that made me wonder, ok, God, what's the plan NOW? It wasn't a life threatening event really, just my femoral hernia, the one I thought was fixed in February, made a sudden dramatic return. I had gone for an hour long, mildly strenuous bike tour with a group, and that night I was popping a tennis ball sized lump out of my groin. At one a.m. the next morning Fuzz was driving me to the Emergency room. Within an hour I was in a bed in the ER with an iv drip and some lovely morphine running through my veins. Somewhere around 4 a.m. the little sucker in my crotch retreated and all felt fine.
The surgical resident told me it may be just a small tear and there's a 50/50 chance it will scar up and heal itself closed, but I have to be careful for 6 weeks. And I still may need further surgery if it comes back after that. No running, no swift biking, definitely no weight training. That leaves me with gentle biking around town, slow and low up hills, and swimming. Phooey. For 3 days I was severely bummed. Angry. I've just discovered this whole new life of physical activity, I made it through a hysterectomy last year, this winter the tummy tuck and the hernia patch, and I thought I was in the clear for a while. Well, there was the plantar fasciitis in my left foot, but it's healing. Am I suffering from Boomeritis (symptoms include a return of adolescent illusions of immortality) or what?
Anyway, I slowly came to terms with it and after a week I'm ok with it. Unless I end up injuring myself swimming. Is that possible? The scariest part of this hasn't been the threat of further surgery, it's been the possibility that if I can't exercise for the hour each of 5 or 6 days/weekly that I've been doing, will I have to eat less? That feels threatening. Cut off my leg, but don't take away my food!!! What is the sane way to handle this? Good damn question, I wish I knew.
Ok, this sounds pessimistic, but it isn't really. Well, sometimes it does get me down. I suffer from a compulsion to overeat. I thought that one day I would lose weight and all the hard stuff would be over. No more dieting, I would be one of those people who just sat at a healthy weight. No extra effort needed, I would just be like normal people and get on with the rest of my life. Lost weight, tick that one off the to-do list. Yeah, right. The bad news is, it seems to be a chronic issue. I still struggle with my compulsion to overeat. I still have food thoughts, I still get waves of nostalgia for old binges.
The good news is, I have so many more things going on in my life that I didn't have when I was morbidly obese, and so I have less time to dwell on the food. All in all, my life is better, but it isn't an, excuse the pun, cakewalk. I need to work on this new life, and when I take time daily to recommit to living a better life, it is easier. It's like the antidepressants I've been taking for years, I have to remember to take them every morning. Or the antihistamine I have to take daily in the spring to keep me from sneezing my head off with seasonal allergies. I have to write, here and privately. I have to think, I have to pray. All of this is necessary for me to deal with the chronic compulsion I have to eat. Through lots of therapy and lots of Overeaters Anonymous meetings over almost five years, I have come to believe that my disease has much to do with using food to comfort myself, deal with life when it feels unmanageable, which is often. The twelve step model offers an alternative way of dealing with my issues which seem insurmountable, and I have plenty of people in the meetings to mirror myself and my insanity back to me.
Often it is very frustrating, ok, often people in meetings piss me off! And usually, when I analyze why someone is driving me to the point where I want to stick my thumbs in their eyes, I find that it's my disease that's being triggered: I may need to stick up for myself, or just remember that I am fine and I don't need them to tell me I'm fine. Just because I didn't get that reinforcement when I was a kid does not make them responsible for my happiness right now. I don't have to love them, spend time with them outside a meeting, I just have to be there and be present in my own skin.
I recently had an issue with someone in the OA programme that was upsetting, but I drew a boundary with this person and I'm very comfortable with it. The other person did not take it well, and while I was angered by the pettiness of her response, it was affirming for me to know that drawing a clear boundary with this person was a wise decision. More importantly, I did not try to save this person from her disease, because that's an old pattern in my life---decades in the making---I want to stop repeating.
There's one of those 12 step maxims that seems self evident, but today I quite treasure it: Nothing changes if nothing changes. If I want freedom, I need to change a few things, things that I never thought had anything to do with me & food. Admitting that I was wrong about that assumption makes it possible to shift things that have felt unshakeable.
So I weighed myself this morning, all seems well, I'm at a little over 156 pounds, and I feel pretty good, wise, except for my left foot (see below). I was a little worried about my weight because I haven't been able to run for a few weeks; it seems that I've developed plantar fasciitis in one foot. So, while I'm doing physio and checking out orthotics, I've been using my bicycle and swimming more. After being ticked off by being unable to run, I'm now actually grateful that I've been forced to use my bike for longer and more aerobically challenging rides rather than my usual short trip downtown to pick up something. I grew up overweight, and completely non-athletic. Gym class was awful, and I just wasn't an athletic kid. I had a bike but I never really used it much. So now I'm discovering that it's kind of fun to go on a long ride, and I'm gaining confidence on my bike, a cheapo mountain bike type from Costco. I've got friends with snazzy road or hybrid (road/trail) bikes that cost at least 4 times mine, but all I need at this point is something durable that has a range of gears to make the big hills manageable. I did have a coaster bike that had actually been my moms, but she didn't know how to use it. And on a hill, well, I would just die.
Last week, I had a number of times on my bike when I felt ike a kid. Not like a kid again, because I don't remember ever enjoying it this much when I was young. Honestly, I'm having a hard time finding time to work in the studio, because I'm having too much fun. Yesterday the scooter shop phoned with bad news: my new scooter, on order now for over a month, has been further delayed because of import delays involved in introducing a new model to Canada. Now it looks like it may arrive in August. I'm disappointed, but maybe I'll hang in rather than just caving in and buying a much more expensive, but readily available scooter like a Vespa. Maybe it's a good opportunity to get friendlier with the old bike.
Today I feel like a truck ran over me. It's Monday. Ugh. But yesterday was almost the perfect day. I went on a bike trek with some friends along a hiking trail on an old railway bed between 2 points about an hour each way and had a lovely lunch at the end of the first half at a great restaurant in a little town. It was great: Sunny and just the right temperature. Fairly flat terrain but the gravel could be loose enough in spots you had to keep your wits about you, and only one big hill which we walked up. Trees and lakes, swamps and lily pads, with all the smells of nature in early summer. It was great, just great. I was well aware of a voice that said, "uh huh, couldn't do this when you were 310." Not surprisingly, all my companions on this trek were OA people.
The physical stuff was easy, the part I find hard is the interpersonal stuff. I crave being with other people, but after I'm with them for a fairly short time, they begin to grate on me. I think everyone finds that to some degree, don't they? But I wonder if I have a way of presenting myself that makes it worse? Do I swallow my needs and wishes excessively when in the presence of others? Is this why I feel so dragged out?
Or am I just feeling a natural letdown after such a nice day? I wanted it to last forever. How do I get more of that? Maybe I just get back on my bike? I'm going to a DA meeting at noon, I'd better get moving. Maybe that's the answer for now, I just have to get moving.
I chaired an OA meeting on Saturday, always an unnerving experience for me for I so easily take responsibility for everyone else at the meeting. I just have to keep giving it away, telling myself, "nope, not my issue, not my issue...". I had another one of those "wow" moments during the time when as chair, I had to qualify myself as an oa member, or in other words, one who wishes to refrain from compulsive eating (under, over, unconscious, whatever problem eating issue one has). And I realized I had been attending OA for four???? years!!! I did a quick check with D, sitting beside me and she nodded yes because she had been there about the same amount of time.
Four years. It kind of feels the same way as when I think about how long I've been married. Simultaneously it seems like a very long time, ok, like forever, and almost no time.
So, how am I after 4 years? Well again, I feel very different and yet not changed at all. I am not where I want to be in my life with my career, which seems to be on hold right now, but I am enjoying days where I feel physically well. I am physically fit, foot injury not withstanding. As I start physiotherapy, I'm picking up the pace of my swimming. I am trying to be healthy, exercising moderately, but not become a compulsive overexerciser.
I eat a balanced diet, but I do have treats. But the treats have an interesting was of biting me in the butt. I notice that the day after having a treat --- say a nice dessert or a bag of chips (BTW, which came in a single serving size, but is it my imagination or are small bags of chips getting bigger?), I will feel deprived and crave another treat, as if I had been subsisting on a diet of celery sticks, when I most definitely had not. Yet if I just have my usual evening treat of a small bar of dark chocolate, my cravings just stay at their normal level (always there in the background, but not very strong). The nature of my beast, I guess, I'm built differently. Aren't I? What do "normies" feel? I'll have to ask one. Maybe they do the same thing.
