Opening the Clam

My mind is like a clam. If I don't open it up and look at it regularly, it slams shut and threatens to never open, not even if I take a sharp knife to it. In order to keep it opening, I have to practice doing so regularly.

This morning I didn't write. I napped, I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher. I even bagged up the recycling for tonight. If that isn't a sign of procrastination, I don't know what is. Why do I even try opening the clam? Well, for the simple reason that I have to. If I don't want to slide into compulsive eating. It took me a long time to make that association, sure, my OA meetings are full of people who say that literature, meditation and prayer on a daily basis are what keeps them sane, but I really didn't believe it would work for me. Or I didn't believe that I could keep it up for a long period of time. After all, I was Miss Try Anything Once, but ask me to keep doing it, fuggeddaboutit.

But at some point I was tired of the craziness. Tired enough to try doing it differently at least. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Then sanity is going, ok, maybe I should try doing it differently if I want my life to be different. I don't think I'm that unlike the majority of people who can be told something by people about a million times before it actually takes, and only really believe it when seeing and feeling it ourselves. Well, I've found a couple of things that I used to enjoy aren't so enjoyable, and in some cases, I now prefer the sane behviour/substance. I'm just do it because told it's good for me, the sane choice actually feels better.

For instance, some junk foods I rarely eat any more because they are so damn unsatisfying. Donuts are one of them. Like Louie Anderson says, you don't even taste that first one, it's chomp, chomp, and slurrph, you've inhaled it and aren't even sure you actually ate it. Not positive my teeth actually made contact on the way down. It just paved the way for the next one. Ones. All one doughnut does for me is set up the craving for more. On its own, its particularly unsatisfying. I'd much rather have an ounce of really dark chocolate and a nice cup of a very good decaf coffee or chai. It takes as long to eat, actually longer because the chocolate demands savouring, and I can stop with one.

It's kind of like that with the writing. Invariably, I will feel better after doing this. And that feeling better sets up the craving to repeat those good feelings. No, it's not the same as a good binge (an oxymoron if I ever heard one), but I'm starting to savour the long term benefits of emotional sanity. And I'm talking beyond the obvious pleasures of being able to fit into the same normal sized clothes year after year that I don't have to go to the fat people ghettos to buy.

Less obvious is the sheer pleasure of physical exercise. For a while was I just did it because 1) I was "skeerd" of dying and bad health and 2) it would help me lose weight faster. I really disliked it at first. Initially, all I could do was take a hour's walk at night (less people who would see me) with Fuzz before bed. Now, this has taken over five years, but I have to say that now exercise gives me a high. In addition, I'm now fit enough that physical challenges like moving house, walking a distance to explore someplace on a trip, sprinting through the airport to catch a connection, or setting up a campsite when the weather suddenly turns really hot won't throw me for the loop it used to.

Of course, none of this on its own is what keeps me out of the food. But it helps. It all adds up. If I can do the footwork, shore up my dykes, it can help me from being swamped when I'm having a bad time and I can feel the clammy wet fingers of a food flood threatening at my toes and my tastebuds, when my mouth says, more, and I know it's not because I actually need more food. The thing is, those moments can come upon me so suddenly, when things seem to be going well, and suddenly taking an extra bite seems like a good idea.

Like last night. After choir practice a bunch of us go for a "postlude" at the pub across from the cathedral we're performing at on the weekend. The fact that I don't drink isn't much of a problem, I easily order my diet coke, and they nicely give me an extra large one with a slice of lime. The hard part is the pub grub, for this is a very traditional pub that specializes in deep fried everything--- with a side of mayo! I was so glad that the guy in our group that ordered those hand cut fries was sitting at the opposite end of a long table and that when he offered to send them down our way, there were two of us (one a man who I know is battling some weight and health issues) who were able to wave it back the other way. But it was that close. I could have had a few. Maybe. Or I would have had a few then ordered another basket "for the table". But I know damn well who would claim the lion's share. Or should I say "what" would claim its share. My disease, my gremlin, my freakin' starvin' inner child. Whatever lives within and always needs more.

Oh, I saw my optometrist this morning re: the floater, which I can't even see any more. He did all the stuff: dialation, photos, etc etc, and nothing seems amiss. Then he showed me retinal photos of his floaters. Awesome!