Ordinary Folks, Powerful Feels (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on March 2, 2016 by KatieComeBack

In my last post, I talked about one of the dynamic speakers we had at our safety conference. As I mentioned, he left an impression, and gave me lots to think about.

But the emotional pinata had only taken a few whacks at this point. I had no idea it was about to be flogged until it hemorrhaged its contents all over me.

It was time for the next speaker.

A man by the name of Frank DeAngelis took the podium.

You might not recognize that name at first. But it may ring a bell when I tell you that Frank DeAngelis was the principal of Columbine High School from 1996 – 2014. And it was on April 20, 1999, that two of his students carried out one of the largest school shootings in US history.

For the next hour and a half, we relive the terror of that day through Frank’s eyes. We listen to his horrific account of watching students be shot and killed. Of facing the gunman and hearing glass shatter around him. Of seeing a fellow teacher distract the shooter long enough for him to hustle other students to safety, and of hearing the gunshots that would silence the voice of a dear friend.

We hear the anguish of the first responders, frustrated at their inability to do anything but wait outside, knowing what was taking place as they watched helplessly. (They were forbidden to enter the area until it was secure; that protocol has since changed.) We can only imagine the tension – and relief – as the surviving students meet their parents at a nearby elementary school, and the unspeakable grief of those parents remaining when they are informed, by heartbroken officials, that no more students will be arriving.

Frank’s life was spared that day – but it was forever changed. It goes without saying that the trajectory of his life was knocked completely and permanently off its path. And the nightmare didn’t stop when the shooters died. There were students – and families – to support, and a school to run. And there was additional fallout: He was named in several lawsuits – when you’re grieving, you need a place to hang the hat of blame, and a lot of parents threw berets in his direction. His marriage didn’t survive, and he is working to rebuild the relationship with his daughter, who stood aside as Frank poured his life into the needs of his students.

But then we began to hear a story of rebuilding, community, and hope. We hear how, through time, faith, support, and an unparalleled strength of character, Frank and the community began to heal.

I was fortunate to be able to talk with Frank later that evening. A small group of us shared life stories and laughs over drinks later that night. He’s a very congenial dude, really charming, friendly, and genuine. Very Italian, by the way. (He’ll tell you that in the first five minutes you speak to him.)

And human. Very human.

I won’t begin to call Frank DeAngelis ordinary. No one who positively impacted the lives of so many young adults – who genuinely CARED, and continues to care, about each and every person impacted by this horrific event – who helped rebuild a community – can be called “ordinary.”

But he was certainly a regular guy. And one day, a terrible, terrible thing happened. It would have been understandable if he’d left his job at Columbine. But he stayed until every student who was enrolled in 1999 graduated. (And a couple more years for good measure.)

Nowadays, in “retirement,” he advises on matters of school safety.

And he offers a message of hope.

I spent the next day of the conference involved in active-shooter training.

As you can imagine from the subject matter – it was a pretty intense day. We analyzed case studies, listening to the 911 calls from the March 2009 Carthage, NC nursing home shooting. We watched the video of the Bay District School Board shooting from December 2010. (Yes, the entire thing is on video, because they routinely televised these meetings locally.)

And then we watched Run. Hide. Fight.

If you haven’t watched this video, you probably should. (And spoiler alert – there are people with guns shooting down people without guns. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; watch at your own risk.)

I’m severely disturbed that we live in a world where safety professionals are advising us to watch things like this, and to have “active shooter” drills in the workplace. But just since that training day, we’ve had two more incidents hit the headlines: Kalamazoo, MI the day after I left, and a workplace shooting in Hesston, KS last Thursday.

It’s hard to deny that we need to prep employees for this, just like you might practice a fire drill or tornado watch. But I can’t say that one can ever truly be prepared for anything like this.

We’re told to train our employees to run – get out – if they hear gunshots. Study your workspace and think about where they’d hide if they couldn’t escape. Plan for what you could use to barricade the door. What you’d fight with if cornered. Play dead if you have to. Lie in a pool of someone else’s blood so they think they’ve already shot you.

Sometimes, the world is truly terrifying.

On my way home last Friday, I got the message that a dear friend’s husband passed away suddenly. He leaves behind a young son, and the sweetest, dearest woman on the planet will now be faced with reconstructing her life without the husband she obviously loved very dearly.

He was just a couple of years younger than me.

The following Monday morning, I was advised than an HR friend had lost her battle to cancer.

She was talented. Witty. Spunky. She personified “scrappy.” An animal lover. A beautiful soul.

She’s my age.

Two young, strong, vibrant lights, extinguished forever.

Most of the time, we take living for granted. Every day, we expect to wake up in the morning. (Slowly, and reluctantly, but we do eventually reach the generally recognized state of “awake.”) We go to work with the understanding that eight (OK, ten or twelve) hours later, we’ll be returned to our families in pretty much the same shape we started in, albeit a bit tired or cranky. Later, we eat dinner and go to bed, with no doubt about repeating the routine tomorrow.

But sometimes, on a very ordinary day, a terrible, terrible thing happens. On average, 550 people per year will be murdered at work. Nearly 90 people per day will be killed in a motor vehicle accident.

And if that doesn’t get you, there’s always the Big C. If you go to this page, you can pull some interesting stats:

In 1975, for ages 20-49, there were 137 cancer deaths per 100,000. In 2012 there were 157. Is 157 a big number? No. But it is a 15% increase.

Let’s look at the under-20 set. Thankfully, there aren’t a lot of children dying from cancer, but even one is far too many – especially if it’s YOUR kid. During this same time period, the incidence rate per 100 went from 13 cases to 17 1/2 – a 35% increase.

Sonofabeach96 wrote a post the other day about this very thing.

Right now, I feel like I have things sorta figured out. That concerns me, as that’s when life tends to kick you in the nads….

That said, if life is all ebb and flow, yin and yang, and good times, bad times, then will, or when will, my other shoe drop?

Once in a while, life slaps you right in the face with the fact that it can be unfairly random. You can do everything right – exercise, eat right, live peacefully, and take every safety precaution – and you still might draw the short stick.

I mentioned my friend died from cancer. Lung cancer, to be specific. I know what you’re wondering, but please, please don’t ask me if she smoked. What the hell does it matter? Will it bring her back if I say “no”? Will it offer YOU some sort of comfort, knowing you’ve never smoked, and allow you to believe it can’t happen to you?

Because it can.

Or something else can.

Today was not my day. If you’re reading this, it wasn’t your turn, either.

So what am I doing with my life? Why, I’m weighing myself daily while measuring every bite I take and beating myself up when the food I dare to eat inevitably displays itself on my thighs.

For what, exactly? Am I hoping for a smaller coffin? Do I want to be a slighter target for a gunman, or have the ability to hide in a smaller space?

Do I really think that will make any difference?

Shouldn’t I be focusing on the business of living?

It’s certainly food for thought.

I’ll be sure to ponder this while counting calories burned on my treadmill. And, ya know, I’ll be dreading getting on the thing…but I shouldn’t be taking it for granted.

For now, I’m doing my best to throw a little kindness out into the world, trying to chuck good vibes out where I can. In the airport last week, a lady was a bit rude to me – her kid rammed my chair while I was eating, and I’ll admit I gave him the stinkeye. She got a bit mouthy – and while I have no doubts about my ability to defeat most opponents in a verbal showdown, I opted to remember how frustrating it can be to have an energetic young son, and decided to pray for patience and peace for her.

Sure, I could have sparred with her, but what good would it do? You’d just have two angry people instead of one – and there’s enough hostility in the world already. Right?

And in the middle of the week, I had just started my 35-minute commute (OK, it’s more like 40, but I start the day as an optimist) when someone ran a stop sign. I blared the horn and slammed on the brakes, leaving an enviable patch. Thankfully, I missed solidly T-boning her – but not by much.

Quickly, I made the decision not to be angry. It was clearly a mistake. (She looked VERY surprised. Stop signs are subtle, sneaky things, sprouting up randomly in places they’ve never been before.) Haven’t I made mistakes before? Abso-freakin-lutely. And I’d want to be forgiven. I prayed for focus and calm for her and went on my way.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still capable of getting plenty angry – both at others and at myself. I’m not some peace pioneer – not by any stretch.

But, while I can’t be the sun, I can certainly try to shine a flashlight into the dark, dusty corners in my quest to find the good things about this sometimes bleak, scary planet.

And if anyone comes out swinging, I’ll whack ’em in the cranium with the blunt end and run like hell.

Run. Hide. Fight.

Breathe.

Hope.

Peace.

Ordinary Folks, Powerful Feels (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on February 28, 2016 by KatieComeBack

I mentioned in my last post that I’d just returned from a safety conference, and mentioned how these things normally go. (Hint: Zzzzzzzzz)

This week’s conference, however, was decidedly different. And it, along with some events over the weekend, kicked me right in the feels.

The conference started with two dynamic speakers. First up: Tony Crow, founder of INJAM.

“Tony Crow worked for TXU for 20 plus years. During this time he attended numerous safety meetings. He heard and knew the list of safety rules. THey were so ingrained that he instictively followed them….

“But on February 15, 2003…Tony was accidentally shot. He was totally blinded for life.”

(You can read more about Tony’s story here.)

What the above doesn’t tell you, however, is that Tony was shot by his 17-year-old son.

On the way to the hunting spot, Tony and his son passed a truck with passengers who were obviously hunters. Tony remarked to his son that, due to the amount of orange they were wearing, they were OBVIOUSLY not locals. He chuckled as he commented that they must be from the big city.

He regrets that comment to this day.

While they were out hunting, Tony told his son he was going back…and on the way, he saw one more quail. He made a game-time decision to go after it, changing direction from where he told his son he would be.

His son, thinking his father was elsewhere, saw the dog point. And he shot.

He didn’t get the quail.

He shot his father.

In the face.

Instantly and permanently blinding him. Forever.

Think about that for a minute.

You’re suddenly blind. Permanently.
Your son – not even an adult yet – has to live with the knowledge that he pulled the trigger.
Your life has changed forever. As did the lives of your wife and son and family and friends and coworkers. In an instant.
You could have prevented it.

Tony was an ordinary guy. And one day, a terrible, terrible thing happened.

Tony turned his tragedy into a non-profit, and now tells his story nationwide. He reminds us all that safety is never off the clock….and that accidents hurt so many more than just the injured party.

INJAM – It’s Not Just About Me.

And you know what? He’s right. And I realized that this applies to so much more than safety – it applies to mental health issues, too.

Selfishly, I looked at myself first. I stared down my food issues and disordered eating for a good, long while.

Can I really pretend that I’m only hurting myself?

Do I really think my coworkers don’t know exactly what I’m doing?

How can I possibly believe that this doesn’t impact my children? My husband?

While my daughter, thankfully, seems to be very well-adjusted, how can she NOT be impacted by having a mother who weighs and measures her food? I’ve tried really hard, of course, to keep my issues from her…but let’s be real here – teenagers are not idiots. True, they often appear to not be listening, but they have a well-honed radar that quickly targets the very things you hoped they’d gloss over, like how much you really spent on those boots, or how much you actually drank in college.

What is she actually hearing? What am I teaching her?

My son has, on occasion, called me “bony.” That shouldn’t be a good thing. Yet, I can’t help but feel flattered. How twisted does one have to be to view this as a compliment? (Not very. I betcha $5 at least six of you reading this feel the exact same way. Fess up, ladies.)

Side note: I should add that my son is freakishly strong – like Bamm-Bamm.

Source: Wikipedia

When he first started kindergarten, he loved wrestling the upper-classmen. It was nothing for him to take out a fourth grader. I remember when he was seven, he was carrying around his 13-year-old cousin – who, at the time, weighed about 90 pounds or so. Now, he’s super helpful when his dad needs help moving a piano, or when my daughter is feeling lazy and wants Doritos, but doesn’t want to leave her room – she then gets a piggyback ride up the stairs.

Anyway.

Coworkers? I don’t want to flatter myself by pretending anyone pays that much attention to me, but….

I manage a small team at work, and it’s just common knowledge that I don’t really eat. I don’t get invited out to lunch anymore, because I never go – I’ve turned down too many invitations for them to continue to bother. When we have work meetings, I bring my own snacks – or just slug a bottle of water. When our CEO was new, he held department meetings, providing lunch during the meet-and-greets. I brought an apple.

“What, my food’s not good enough for you?”

“Nope.” <crunch>

(I’m still there a year later, so I guess it wasn’t complete career suicide.)

And then there’s my husband.

I know he and I have had our issues, but you know what? He does a lot of stuff really, really right. He’s working so hard at fixing “us.” And my contribution? I’ve been trying to silence the voices inside my head that cut me down – or at least, not give them a megaphone by repeating what they say out loud.

If a candy bar falls to the floor, and no one eats it, did it really fall? And does it still have calories?

What candy bar? <omnomnom>

So, we’re not talking about it. Inwardly, I’ve decided to sweep it under the rug, at least at home.

My logic, as flawed as it may sound: I’ve mentioned before that over the last year or so he’s been doing a lot of research and reading to shore up and quantify his beliefs. For awhile, he was pretty angry about the whole thing. This came to a head about a year ago. Since that time, he’s gradually begun to let go of the anger, and we’re starting to talk more. Slowly, and carefully. Gently pulling back the bandages to see if the wounds have started to heal.

But I still don’t like it very much.

So I figure that if he can explore spiritual stances I will never agree with, I am certainly free to diet, exercise, and lose as much weight as I want, regardless of how much he claims to not want me to.

Makes sense, right? I perceive some of his anger as unhealthy and damaging. He’d say the same about my eating habits.

We’re even. Size invisible, here I come.

But since it’s not just about me…let’s talk about other stuff. When you hear “mental illness,” what comes to mind?

Do you think about the recent workplace shooting in Kansas?

Do you connect this term with the random rambling, scraggly homeless person you see on the street?

Do you remember yourself, or a relative, struggling with postpartum depression?

Do you recall a relative or friend who self-medicated with alcohol, drugs, or food?

More importantly, did you TALK about any of this? Or did you pretend that the issues – or the people themselves – were invisible? If you did discuss it, was it in hushed tones? Behind closed doors? Was it…scandalous? Embarrassing? Humiliating?

Cherokee Doll wrote the other day about the stigma, shame, and guilt that mental illness can bring.

“The stigma surrounding mental illness is well known and remarked upon. Although there is a wider movement to de-stigmatize mental illness and other invisible illnesses, the fight is only beginning. Victim blaming of the mentally ill is widespread, casual, and accepted. Rarely do people bother to stop and put themselves in the shoes of the mentally ill….

“No one would speak to a cancer patient that way.”

Her post illustrates so well some of the challenges with mental illness, and highlights the hurdles we as a society haven’t been able to clear.

hurdlepile

Somehow, instead of mocking, shaming, and creating memes for social media, we need to find a way to help each other climb over the obstacles and clear the hurdles together.

“…I am VERY painfully aware every day of my life how much pain me and my illness have brought to those around me…just know that I already inflict enough of that guilt upon myself. You don’t need to throw it in my face too. I have spent a lifetime blaming myself. No need for you to jump on that bandwagon too. I hate me more than you ever could.”

How can we help each other heal?

Extend a hand. Lend an ear. Hug often.

You may not be able to pull someone out of the darkness – we’re not mental health professionals, obviously – but you’ll give them something to hold onto.

Hope. Love. Understanding. A reminder that they aren’t invisible, and you know that they still exist…and they matter.

It helps to heal. And healing helps all of us.

Because mental health issues impact ALL of us.

It’s not just about me.

The next speaker was (spoiler alert) a man by the name of Frank DeAngelis. But I’ll talk about him in my next post.

(to be continued)

Dissecting the Funk Frog

Posted on January 9, 2016 by KatieComeBack

Yeah, I know. It’s been a while. This funk that I’ve been in since – wow – November – seems to have settled in for the long haul.

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the issue, to roll back “effect” so I can find the cause. This is a coping trick that helps me (sometimes) when I get an overflowing cup of the feels. Often, emotion crashes into me like a runaway truck, and my priority at that point is to roll off the road and pick gravel out of my kneecaps, notsomuch getting the license plate of the bus or piano or proverbial cartoon anvil that’s just knocked the spiritual wind out of me.

I’ve found that just putting a label on an overwhelming feeling helps drain its hold on me. If I can identify it – if I can call it out, give it a name, loosely label what it is – it loses some of its ability to smother me and I can start to come out from underneath it.

“I am feeling anxious. This feeling will pass. It is OK to feel this way.”

Believe it or not, that small acknowledgement helps. From here, I can then ask myself if there is anything that might make me feel better. (Tonight, it was paying bills, of all things. Go figure. I suppose the getting-done-ness of an annoying pending task helped in some way, but I’m not taking it up as a recreational activity. 9/10 do not recommend.)

But whatever’s dragging me down these last few months is engulfed in a thick cloud of fog, darting craftily in and out between the trees to keep me nervous and off-balance. After a lot of squinting and head-scratching (and, unfortunately, way too much snack food) I can only make out vague shapes and shadows of what I think it might be:

My dad. I did get to see him over the holidays, and on the plus side, he’s still alive. But he doesn’t have long – months? weeks? Every morning, I check my phone for the news I’m dreading. Every morning. Kinda wears on a gal after a while when you start every single day checking for a pulse.

My marriage. He’s trying. He’s been attentive, kind, understanding, and overwhelmingly helpful. All the things you’d ever want.

But it takes time to accept that something you once believed to be somewhat magical is really quite pedestrian. Ordinary.

It’s like Grandma’s prized antique vase:

vase

After years of admiring it, cautioning the kids to “look but don’t touch,” and hearing great stories about its perceived rarity, you take it to be appraised on Antiques Road Show, where you discover (after a four-hour wait in line behind someone with a fugly Volvo-sized painting that you’re pretty sure was created by a dog and a four-year-old) the prized glass sculpture that she so carefully guarded and protected was a mass-produced grocery store giveaway in the 1950s and has a market value somewhere between Betamax video cassettes and books on how to survive the Y2K disaster*.

Why Worrying is a Waste of Time - Y2K

*Ah, Y2K. We were all doomed, remember? Everyone was up in arms about how 1/1/00 was essentially gonna shut the planet down, because computers didn’t know that “00” meant 2000 instead of 1900. We all held our breath on New Year’s Eve, and…nothing happened. Well, except this: There was an older gentleman who was quite well-known in our small town for founding one of the larger local businesses. He was a community icon, especially after he turned 100. And the year he turned 105, he received a letter from the local elementary school reminding his parents to sign him up for kindergarten. HAHAHAHA

Anyway, even if your vase isn’t priceless, you can’t just throw it out, right? Because Grandma LOVED it, and its place on her mantle has given it a rich history and some good stories. So you still treasure it, but…it’s just not the same vase you thought it was. You just don’t have quite the same… reverence for it. It’s nice, but viewing it gives you just the smallest twinge of disappointment, because it’s simply not what you made it out to be. It’s an unstirred blob of cornstarch in your coconut cream memory pie.

Work. Normally, my busy season ends right before Thanksgiving. This year, it lasted all the way until December 23, at which point I attempted to take a few vacation days. But I didn’t really get the break I needed, because apparently, I’m SO important that they felt the need to call me EVERY STINKING DAY (three times one day. THREE. TIMES. Am I the HR freaking pharaoh?!?!) with questions, problems, and general bad behavior of certain employees. (I blame the full moon. Really. Ask any HR person, or anyone who works in a hospital, if there’s any truth to the full moon being fertilizer for the crazy daisies. They’ll affirm heartily.)

But the holidays are over now, Open Enrollment is closed, we’re all set up to print the ACA tax forms (I think, anyway; besides, the deadline’s been delayed AGAIN, so I have two more months to ~~royally eff them up~~ issue them. Oh, and that also means you won’t have them by the time you want to file your taxes. THAT won’t confuse anything, right?) and the OSHA logs (over thirty of them. !!!) are ready to post. I might be due for some relief shortly. Fingers crossed. Although I did hear that the CEO has some “ideas” he wants to discuss, so if you need to find me, I’ll be hiding under my desk behind the 2008 termination files.)

Fat. So, through all this, I’m still fighting the food demons. I went from swearing off food to eating ALL THE THINGS so no one else can have any. Here are some more of the things I can no longer have in the house (because I will tape them to my face and inhale until the bag is empty):

CC_coconut-crunch-new

Sweet & Salty

I can also no longer have no-bake cookies, because my motto seems to be One Batch, One Serving. I made two batches over the last three weeks. Moo.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

(If you don’t quite hate yourself enough and want to get in on the self-loathing, go here and make these. Use brown sugar and sub out the butter for more peanut butter, because butter is gross. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I cannot be held accountable for your cocoa-covered countenance of shame, or the repercussions of locking your family out of the kitchen.)

Topping off the snack-food skyscraper was an influx of gift cards (Merry Christmas!) to my favorite public binge site, Benihana. This is one of those Japanese cook-on-the-table types of places, where you sit around family-style while they twirl knives and pitch shrimp tails in your pocket. During the entertainment, you get four or five courses of food, a veritable stir-fried Mount Unami that no one could POSSIBLY scale to the summit.

Except me and the hubs. We take great pride in declaring that to-go boxes are for quitters, and that the ability to finish the whole thing is what makes America great.

And we ate there twice over the last two weeks, finishing every bite and washing it down with one of these:

Yeah. It’s as good as it looks.

Contributing to the waist-pinching is the lack of exercise. I try to run a few days a week**, but that’s been tabled lately because somehow, I hurt my hip. I say “somehow” because I quite literally have no idea what I did to it. One day, I got out of bed, stretched, and felt a stabbing pain. YAY. This week, I finally caved and went to the doctor (Happy New Year! Here’s your $5000 deductible!) so I’m hoping they can get me back on track.

**Don’t get me wrong – I don’t actually LIKE to exercise. But without it, I find the stress builds up inside and doesn’t have an outlet. It just sits there in my gut demanding I feed it naughty things like kettle corn and chocolate pudding. Exercise, like coffee, keeps me from having to chip through the frozen ground to bury the bodies.

The doctor thinks it’s something that can only be healed by using crutches for four weeks.

Whoa there, Doc.

<BEEP BEEP> BACK UP THE TRUCK.

I have to navigate a ginormous parking lot every day, and I live in America’s Frozen Tundra, AND I have to juggle my coffee and my morning smoothie, so unless these suckers come with cup holders and an ice pick, I don’t see crutches being a reality. Plus, airports. I have five trips to take between now and the end of February. While crutches might be handy to take out unruly children and line-cutters, I don’t think they’re gonna expedite my last-minute dash to my gate.

I did get an MRI yesterday, so hopefully that’ll give me a more palatable answer. Like something that requires weekly massages and heat therapy.

And speaking of therapy….I should probably add that I quit that, too. Why?

Because the therapist called me fat.

OK, I should clarify. She didn’t mean to, I don’t think. But while we were talking, Dr. P made a comment about “your size X body.” Essentially, she mentioned a size that, intellectually, I know is viewed as “slender” by society….BUT IT’S A FULL SIZE BIGGER THAN I ACTUALLY WEAR. So my brain immediately assumed that I look 10-15 pounds bigger than I AM, which is 10 pounds bigger than I WANT to be. You see how this works? I’ve been working so hard to accept myself at my current size, and one offhanded comment just burnt all progress to ashes. So forget it – we’re back to a goal of Size Invisible and I apparently need to lose twenty pounds*** in order to be acceptable.

Incongruously***, I dealt with all of this last night by downing a healthy (HAHAHAHA) portion of Cab Sav and most of this:

40% Reduced Fat Original

***Classic eating disorder logic here, amiright?

But today is a new day. I’ve broken my clichéd New Year’s resolutions about twelve times already, but thankfully, there’s no punch card of restarts.

Today, I can start anew.

What I’ll choose, though – food? weight loss? health? remains a mystery.

‘Tis the Season to be…Gelatin (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on December 23, 2015 by KatieComeBack

So I’ve been absolutely sucktacular at posting lately.

I feel kind of like a bad Jell-O salad from the 1950s. I seem to be stuck in this gelatinous, undecipherable state of…blah. I’m suspended in this gray, chilly place that I don’t really like, but can’t seem to find the energy to work my way out of.

Lately, I’ve been rotating between three general moods: 1) anxiety over something I can’t identify, 2) a vague general sadness, or 3) feeling nothing at all. Season with a pinch of irritation and a teaspoon of fairly random anger, and serve on a platter of bitter arugula to a bunch of society ladies who are harshly judging you.

Occasionally, I spy a bit of brightness, like a maraschino cherry*, just out of my reach. It looks…nice, and even though I think, at least intellectually, that I’d rather be warm and engaged in life a bit more, I’m not motivated to actually DO anything to move towards it. Besides, moving would take energy. So here I stay.

YOU KNOW YOU WANT ME

When the sadness or the anxiety creep in, I shut those bishes up with other vices. My emotions are drowned out by the crunching of chips, the munching of popcorn, the suddenly urgent work project, the flood of wine. The world around me is gearing up for the holidays, but the joy and exuberance of the season are muffled by the thick layer of apathy clogging my eardrums and blurring my eyesight. I’m not powerless, really. I’m just uninspired and unmotivated. So I shrug back under my shawl of numbness and do…nothing.

Blah.

*Did you know that, in most of those beloved fruit cup snacks from childhood, that the cherries weren’t even cherries AT ALL? They were GRAPES. Grapes with makeup. TRUE STORY. Nowadays, the USDA has defined standards for what percentage of fruit cocktail actually has to be cherries – but many of those cherries STILL wear blush. And often, the dye is carmine. WHICH IS MADE FROM BUGS. That’s fine with me; I’d actually rather eat bugs** than a lot of what we attempt to pass off as “food”; this is more of a PSA for you vegan types.

**Speaking of eating bugs – if you want to get in on the hippie-trendy-sustainable-food bandwagon and try some really tasty bugs (come on, all the cool kids are totally doing it!) visit chapul.com. These folks make some seriously good energy bars – out of crickets, of all things. Yes – crickets:

from inhabitat.com

Now, before you jump on your chair and scream like a little girl – hear me out. I swear they have NO weird aftertaste – when I first tried them, I was actually disappointed because they DIDN’T taste…I dunno…exotic? I’m not sure what I was expecting. Something more unusual, I guess. But although they won’t make you hear colors or grant you metaphysical genius powers, they’re energy bars that actually taste good. Like cookies. And the bugs are all ground up, so I promise you won’t get a cricket leg in your teeth. Taste some adventure and buy some. I TRIPLE-DOG-DARE YOU. I mean, unless you hate Mother Earth or something. Whatevs.

Anyway. I’m trying to figure out why I just don’t FEEL this year. And, while I’ve been dealing with a few things this year, I think this particular funk may have something to do with my dad. So this post is super long, and I’m sorry, but selfishly, I need to get this out of my head so I can start to deal with it in a way that doesn’t involve a bottle of wine, sharp words towards my family, or gallons of delicious, brain-soothing popcorn.

Almost exactly a year ago, my phone rang at work. Now, this was unusual for a couple of reasons: One, it was my personal cell phone. I don’t get many calls on my cell phone – I mean, who actually talks on the phone anymore? We all text and Facebook and InstaTweet and a bunch of other things that your average preschooler has figured out and I will never understand.

Two, I don’t have cell phone coverage where I work. We’re not entirely sure why, but there are theories. One is that our building is haunted. Even though I totally believe in ghosts, I’m not buying this one. I’m more aligned with Team Crappy Construction and Leaky Windows. Our building actually used to be a window factory before the current company bought it. In the winter, my office gets so cold that I get ACTUAL LEGIT FROST ON MY WALLS. (Gee, and the window people went bankrupt WHY?) Suffice it to say I have a space heater cranked at 80 between October and May. (And the rest of the year, because air conditioning.) And I’m sure somewhere in this shoddy shack is a solid, scientific explanation why my office can’t hold heat, yet is impermeable by cell phone signals. (And probably isn’t bulletproof, but has successfully shielded me from crazed local wildlife.)

So my phone rings, and I see from Caller ID that it’s my brother. I stare at the phone for a minute, surprised. My brother? In the middle of the day? He works all day. How strange and random. Why would he call in the middle of-

Oh.

I let the call go to voice mail, knowing that if I pick it up, I’ll be rewarded with a frustrating round of “What? WHAT? Can you hear me now? Hello?” I call him back from a land line and get voice mail; meanwhile, he’s leaving me a voice mail. I call him again. No answer. YAY TECHNOLOGY. Frustrated, I try him one more time.

“Dad had a stroke. It’s bad. Come home.”

The next twelve hours are a blur. I blurt out to my team that I’m leaving. I get in the car and call my spouse. I retrieve the five voice mail messages I couldn’t get before. (THANKS VERIZON.)

I start chucking clothes into a suitcase (not wanting to discern what I might need for a funeral; do I jinx it if I pack a black skirt and dress shoes? or do I risk being the relative who went to her dad’s funeral in yoga pants?) while I call Delta to get my Christmas flight rescheduled. (Mad kudos to Delta for helping me out. On any given Sunday I’m typically cursing them for stranding me in Detroilet YET AGAIN, and their number is stored in my phone as Another F@#$ing Flight Delay, but they came through for me this time.) I dump a week’s worth of food into bowls and pour six bowls of water for the cats, hoping for the best as I head to the airport.

I check a bag, wondering, as it trudges along the conveyor, when I might see it again. I wonder if I will see my father again. If he’ll have passed before I get there. If he’ll know I’m there. If he’ll know who I am.

I pick at a sandwich during my layover at JFK. (Seriously, airports? I was ONE gluten-free sandwich away from STARVING TO DEATH. I know us sensitive types should plan ahead and pack our own food, but seeing as how sometimes air travel is an emergency and OBVIOUSLY it’s my dad’s fault for not requesting to have his stroke two weeks in advance so you could provide real food I could actually EAT, would it kill you to have a meal option here or there for those of us who can’t eat normal people bread? If not for that one lone sammie, I WOULD HAVE TOTALLY EATEN ANOTHER PASSENGER’S DOG. I had a packet of grainy mustard and I was eyeing the Chihuahua at gate B17. Don’t challenge me, bro.)

Hours later, I’ve aged forty years. I get to the hospital, prepared for the worst. I find my father’s room in the ICU, darkened, machines whirring and beeping. Tubes. Lots and lots of tubes. And in the center of this artificial cobweb, underneath a gray, dark cloud of wires and a ventilator, I find my father. The man who bravely swatted bees and dried tears, who fearlessly chased both bats and boys out of the house, lies there, motionless, small and shrunken and vulnerable.

…to be continued….

Fueling the Food Beast

Posted on November 1, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Have you ever monitored a toddler’s diet?

If you have kids, you probably remember the many, many questions you had about the proper feeding of a two-year-old:

How long can a sippy cup stay out of the fridge before we risk botulism?

Are six bites of turkey really enough to sustain this kid until dinnertime?

That’s a remarkable diaper load for six bites of turkey. Oh, look….he apparently ate a blue crayon, too.

Please don’t tell me he’s chewing on the French fry we gave the cat to play with.

<at a ballpark, or church> Oh look, he’s eating…um…a saltine? WHERE DID HE FIND A SALTINE CRACKER?!?

(Side note: Rest assured, I totally did not poison my kids. Well, not on purpose, anyway. You do the best you can, but those suckers are quick when they wanna be. Toddlers totally fool you with their propensity for copious amounts of drool and general lack of motor control. You let your guard down and risk a quick blink, and when you open your eyes you find them covered with a massive wad of ick. This is why my daughter’s first solid food was actually a ladybug. But we were just notified yesterday that she received a full scholarship to the university of her choice, so either bugs are good for you, or they clearly didn’t slow her down much. #mombrag)

Anyway. The point here is that toddlers’ lives aren’t focused on food. To them, food is fuel.

Kids have a normal, healthy relationship with food. When they’re hungry, their little bodies TELL them to eat – so they reluctantly stop trying to draw on the cat with a Sharpie, and find Mom or Dad to demand a snack. And when they’ve had enough, and are no longer hungry, they throw the rest of their food on the floor so they can be released from the restraints of the high chair and go do something ~~devious~~ fun or educational.

Toddlers don’t eat when they’re bored or when they’re sad. They have lessons to learn, things to ~~break~~ explore….They’d MUCH rather be playing, or throwing a tantrum, or plotting to smear something red and sticky on something CLEARLY not meant to be sullied, like the wall, the couch, or the carpet, than sit down and refuel.

Simply put, toddlers have better things to do than center their lives around food.

That must be so very…freeing.

I mean, these kids – babies, really – have a completely unadulterated approach to food. Get some when you need it, forget about it when you don’t. It’s that simple.

I cannot be the only person to whom this seems to be a completely foreign concept. Can I?

Dr. P (the therapist) and I talked about this a bit. Eating “normally” is a long-range goal for me. (Or so SHE says. I’m not quite ready to accept “normal” if it makes the scale go up. Sigh. She’s got her work cut out for her, that’s for sure.)

But what does “normal” even LOOK like?

Maybe I can learn something from my toddler days?

OK, maybe notsomuch. I mean…yuck. <shudder>

But defining “normal” eating isn’t all that easy. We can define an eating disorder pretty quickly – here’s an example found on ANAD.org*:

An eating disorder is an unhealthy relationship with food and weight that interferes with many areas of a person’s life. One’s thoughts become preoccupied with food, weight or exercise. A person who struggles with an eating disorder can have unrealistic self-critical thoughts about body image, and his or her eating habits may begin to disrupt normal body functions and affect daily activities.

*National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. You’re welcome.

So whatever we consider “normal” eating isn’t…that. Okay.

Perhaps it means tossing the food scales, deleting the food tracking apps on my phone, and just eating when I’m hungry, stopping when I’m full, and letting my body weigh what it wants to.

Sounds simple. But then, the most complicated things often do.

Sadly, one of the consequences of a life filled with the all-or-nothing yin-yang of food extremes is that you completely lose the ability to discern when you’re actually hungry. It makes sense, really – if you’ve spent years spinning yourself around in a constant complete 180 between splurging and starving, dieting and binge-eating, deprivation and indulgence – is it any wonder that I have no natural ability to know when and what I need to eat?

After 30+ (!!!) years of gaining and losing weight – of alternating between Dieting: Extreme Edition and gorging on the all-you-can-eat platter at the Screwitall Grand Buffet – I have no idea – zero – on how to listen to my body.

I’ve spent most of my life basically flinging my appetite back and forth violently between the ceiling and the floor trying to break it. It should be no surprise that I’ve been successful.

Left to my own devices, I truly think I could go for days without feeling hunger. And then, once I realized that yeah, I probably need to eat something, the dam would break wide open, and it’s all HIDE YOUR KIDS, HIDE YOUR WIFE in my kitchen.

My fridge be all like:

(Retro meme from back in the day for y’all)

In all seriousness – very occasionally I feel hunger – but not often. But when I “allow” myself free reign – eating what I “want” – I can eat WELL past the “full” point, until my stomach is sporting a food baby that would fool the eye of the most experienced midwife, and I seriously do NOT have room even for the legendary wafer-thin mint. (Bonus points if you know the reference. My apologies if you didn’t, and clicked on the link, and now cannot unsee it. I truly am sorry. Here’s a bucket.)

When I’m in “food mode,” I can easily keep up, volume-wise, with my 6’4″ hubs and I blow right past my 15-year-old. Yes, I can eat more than a growing teenage boy. Why is there no trophy for that?! (Probably the same reason that there is no award for stopping up a commode that you bought SPECIFICALLY because it can flush an ENTIRE BUCKET OF GOLF BALLS. Not that this has EVER happened. If it did, I’m not sure whether the perpetrator (poopetrator?) should be mortified or impressed. Probably both. But that’s beside the point because THIS IS ENTIRELY FICTIONAL AND TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN. GOT IT?)

Maybe I’m actually part camel. Perhaps eating nothing for weeks and then EVERYTHING in a day is normal…for me.

This is FINE, as long as my body does what my mind wants it to and drops ten pounds. But that clearly isn’t how it works for the camel.

That’s hott.

I very much do NOT wish to resemble a camel, in any way, shape or form. But I suppose being cool with my body, regardless of its size, is PROBABLY part of this whole “normal” dealio.

Right?

Except….what woman in the US is OK with her body as-is?

Anyone? Anyone?

We know that nearly 35% of the US population is obese. And despite the fact that only (only!) 1 in 5 American women are on a diet – and that this number’s lower than it was a few years earlier, when it was closer to 1 in 3 – we’re not happy about how we look. It turns out that two-thirds of women are trying to lose weight, and 39% of us let it impede our happiness.

I guess we’re just not using the d-word to describe all the meal-skipping, raw vegan, high-protein gluten avoidance we’re trying. Diets are so 1990s, anyway. It’s all lifestyle choice, right? Or was that what we were calling it in 2005? <head scratch>

Regardless of whatever label we’re slapping ourselves with this week, a lot of us are still desperately trying to be thinner.

So…given all that….what, then, is normal?

And if I’m not clear on the what, how on earth do I find the how?

I don’t wanna be a camel. I want to be a car. Cars have it pretty easy – they have a gauge right on the dashboard that tells you how full or empty they are. (They even have a little arrow to tell you WHERE TO PUT THE FUEL. Well, unless you’re Nissan, then SCREW YOU, I guess.)

Actual gas gauge from actual rental car. Actual WTF moment.

And once you get the pump set up? It automatically SHUTS OFF when the tank is full. It’s nearly* idiot-proof, stopping when the car’s had “enough.”

*Yes, I still occasionally get gas on my shoes. Because I even overfeed my car. I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM.

It’d be hella easier if we had dashboard gas gauges. Maybe I can get one installed with the next upgrade.

Until then, we’re stuck trying to tame the food monster. Which makes a harmless, innocent cookie…

Ginormous cookie served BETWEEN lunch and dinner at a recent conference. Because OBVIOUSLY sitting on your duff learning about the Affordable Care Act works up an appetite. Note size of cookie relative to pen. Yowsa.

…look a bit menacing.

ROASTED RED PEPPER REVENGE YO

I’m not sure I can wrestle the monster back into its cage. I think after 30 years of having unrestricted freedom, it’s gonna put up a fight. And frankly, I’m not sure I’m ready to invest the effort and energy to work on containing the beast.

But I do know that food isn’t a monster. Food isn’t the enemy.

The enemy is the one staring back at me in the mirror. And she’s gonna be pretty tough to tame.

The Artificial Tang of Banana Candy

Posted on October 25, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Despite the overabundance of Christmas decorations you see in every retail shop in America, this is NOT the “most wonderful time of the year” for HR.

Why? It’s because, in addition to the normal chorus of Stupid Employee Tricks, it’s the time of year where everything is due at once. Right now I’m working on a few of the following:

Annual AAP and EEOC reporting (the latter is finished. The former? SHOOT ME. I mean, I’m all about diversity. It’s the mind-numbing minutiae of government documentation that makes all of us approach this task with the enthusiasm and vigor of preparing our taxes or heading to a root canal.)

Open Enrollment – the annual event where HR pulls you all together and shoots confusing terminology and abbreviations at you for a full sixty minutes. The end result of this meeting is the expectation that you place you order for your own personalized combo platter of a pre-tax alphabet soup that you’ll pay a couple thousand dollars for. On the menu are PPO, with or without FSA (dependent care, medical, or BOTH); OR HDHP, with or without HSA (so study those co-insurances and copays, folks!); LTD and STD, the latter of which cannot be cleared up by antibiotics, and you really DO want, just in case, and and let’s not forget to remind ourselves of the benefits of our EAP and 401(k).

(Side note – Seriously, folks. You’re probably spending upwards of $2000 on insurance – take an hour or two and READ the stuff HR gives you. We don’t print it because we are budding novelists desperate to see our names in print. We do it as an attempt to educate you on what we know is an overwhelming, confusing, and expensive topic. I’ll bet the last time you bought an electronic device, or a new appliance, you spent HOURS poring over Consumer Reports and Amazon reviews, determined to get the best value. And that likely didn’t cost you HALF of what you’ll spend on insurance. So take a stab at actually using the tools HR gives you. This is a much bigger – and more expensive – decision than whether you need a built-in ice maker or not.)

Performance Reviews: Ah…my favorite. And by “favorite,” I mean “time of year I most frequently question my career choice.” And by “choice,” I mean “where I accidentally landed after discovering that most people lack the chutzpah to tell someone when they’re getting canned.”

Anyway.

Your performance review is supposed to be the time of year where you get dedicated attention from your boss – where she actually has an in-depth conversation with you about your job performance, your career potential, and your future with your organization.

What it often ends up being is a quick meeting where you get a pencil-whipped checklist from your boss, where you were arbitrarily rated, like wine, cheese, or earbuds, on a scale of 1-5. This scale is meant to capture the full spectrum of performance, with a rating of one meaning “unable to safely operate a crayon” and five being “not only walks on water, but turns it into wine when he’s done.”

Often, you and your peers are force-ranked – this means that your company has set quotas on how many people can sit in which seats on the rank bus – so most of you are solidly in Seat 3, which is Neutral, or Neither Agree Nor Disagree, or “Does my boss even know my name?”

Suffice it to say I’m not a huge fan of performance reviews. What should happen is that you have clear job expectations, and you receive frequent feedback from your supervisor so you know EXACTLY how you’re doing every week of your job. Feedback should be an ongoing process, not a once-a-year event.

But I’ll let you in on a little secret – most managers completely suck at managing. (OK, admittedly, that’s not much more a secret than water being wet.) Most of them are pretty candy-a$$* about telling you when you’re doing something wrong.

*I tried to find another word here, because although in real life I swear like the mechanic I was raised by, I try to keep my blog pretty clean. But Thesaurus.com didn’t have ANY synonyms for “candy-a$$” – it came up empty: “Did you mean cantatas?” Uh, no. Choir peeps may SOUND all innocent when they’re blasting through Vivaldi’s Gloria, but don’t let the robes fool you – they will TOTALLY cut a b!tch. Especially the altos. Those chicks are dark.

The point here is that if HR didn’t force managers to write down how you’re doing once a year, you’d never actually know, well, at least, not until the day you get called to HR and your boss is waiting there with the exit packet.

So that’s why your company does performance reviews. And that’s also why your review tastes oddly like banana candy.

Laffy Taffy - bite-size banana - tub of 145:

Bananarama / Banana Runts - Bulk:

Banana Candy SHOULD be good. I mean – SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR. Right? It’s sweet. It has a fun, bright color that should signal a party in your mouth.

But it just doesn’t taste good. The sweetness is cloying. The flavor is…odd. Unpleasant.

And it certainly tastes NOTHING like an actual banana. It’s totally fake. I mean, it has the COLOR of a banana, and because you’re told that it’s supposed to taste like an actual banana, you eat it and play along.

But if this candy was, say, blue, and shaped like a prickly pear? No way would that shiz stay in your mouth. You’d spit it out. You’d agree pretty quickly that it was nasty, artificial crap that has absolutely no business being called food.

But when we’re told that it’s supposed to be something we normally find palatable, we dutifully nod and swallow it.

You see how this is much like your annual performance review?

It’s supposed to taste just like a banana.

Incidentally, this is how I’m feeling in my marriage lately. I’m trying to recover from the “incident” from a few weeks ago, and I’d been doing remarkably well, actually.

Then I made the decision to go back to therapy. I had my first return visit on Friday.

As it turns out, I’ve been feeding myself a whole heckuva lot of banana candy.

That whole inner peace thing I’ve been carrying around like Fall’s must-have Tory Burch backpack? Fake. Forced. Surreal.

I’ve spent the last two days in the uncomfortable spot of really feeling the feels. Oh, and eating them. I demolished a 26-oz bag of this in under 24 hours. (Add THAT to the list of “can never buy again.” Curse you, Costco.):

can't buy THIS again, either. EVER.:

For you math geeks, that’s almost two pounds of popcorn, folks. 3,640 calories.

Now THAT is one big-azz banana.

Yesterday, the hubs took me for a massage. (Which should have been nice. But all the nice things he’s doing for me lately feel artificial, too. Despite his insistence on the authenticity of his actions, I can’t accept them as acts of love; they feel like guilt gifts. Obligatory offerings. Choco-flavored maraschino-esque balls of goo.)

I cried for much of the massage. As the masseuse worked my shoulders out of my ears, I watched big, fat tears of heartache fall through the face pillow and onto the floor. I wanted them to take some of the anguish with them, but all they did was broadcast it, displaying my hurt for everyone to see.

I spent the rest of the day hiding under a cold, dark cloud that I pulled over my face and head to shut the world out.

My homework from therapy is to let myself experience the emotions I have. I guess now that the popcorn bag is empty (EMPTY. seriously @(#@#WTF*$@!!!!) I can start to do that. Dr. P encouraged me to sit with these feelings. They’re admittedly (and obviously) unpleasant. But eating doesn’t lessen them, nor make them disappear. It only postpones them. They lie in wait until you’re ready to deal with them. It’s like sheets in the washing machine. Eventually, if they sit there long enough, you’ll need to rewash them once in a while. But they won’t get dried and put away until you begin the arduous task of taking them outside to dry on the line, hanging them one corner at a time.

I hate feeling this way.

I don’t want to have these feelings any more.

I’m really, really sick of this damn banana.

But I guess if I want to really heal, I need to eat every stinking bite of it. I’ll need to force myself to choke down one piece at a time, brown spots and all.

When the Heart’s Desire Is a Little Backwards

Posted on October 18, 2015 by KatieComeBack

So it appears that there’s a Harry Potter marathon on TV this weekend.

Of course, upon making this discovery, we immediately abandoned our plans (which, admittedly, weren’t any more ambitious than to order takeout and to bingewatch Season 4 of Friends. But Friends is on Netflix ANY time, right? Okay, Harry Potter probably is, too, but it’s just DIFFERENT when you can’t pause it AND it’s peppered with commercials for fast food, pharmaceuticals, and feminine hygiene products, and it’s ONLY THIS WEEKEND so we HAVE to watch it NOW NOW NOW!)

<cough> Anyway.

Since we’re ordering takeout today, I’ve already wasted much of the morning agonizing over THAT Big Life-Changing Decision – what to get, how much to get, do I splurge on pizza or stick to steamed veggies and chicken, and don’t even THINK about ice cream….

If you live in this hell, you know the drill.

<strums guitar> Come on and join me in the campfire singalong!

Can I eat this many calories today?

Will the sodium bloat me for a week?

Will the kids notice if I only eat half of it?

Will I be able to only eat half of it? (HAHAHAHAHA no)

How long will it take to run this off?

Can’t you all just shut up and let me freaking EAT?

Um…What’s for dessert?

Compounding the struggle to complete this mental exercise is the painful guilt bruise I’m sporting courtesy of last night’s food bender. In addition to a balanced, healthy dinner (OK, it was Taco Bell, SHADDUP) I managed to stuff both a 6-serving bag of cheese popcorn AND two Hershey bars down my pie hole. (This dalliance will take at least three runs to burn off. UGH.) So I shouldn’t be eating much today. But I should eat SOMETHING, but I don’t know what, or how much, and I’m ~~not even~~ have no right to be hungry anyway, right? RIGHT?!?

And dammit, none of this is worth the energy I spend on it. It’s just food, not deciding which kid to feed to the dragons first. (Although today one is sporting a significant ‘tude that might make THAT selection pretty simple.)

While I was arguing passionately with the voices in my head, a scene from the movie (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) interrupted the melee and momentarily silenced the crowd.

Harry’s skulking along under a camo tarp that makes him invisible, spying on his teachers (we ALL wanted a peek at what REALLY goes on in the mysterious Teacher’s Lounge, didn’t we?) when he stumbles upon a magical mirror. When he peers into it, what he sees reflected back is an image of himself – WITH his parents. Now, Harry’s parents were killed by the Main Scary Evil Villain Dude when Harry was a baby, so he actually has no memory of his parents…but there they are in the mirror, looking back at him, smiling away all normal like they’re ready to toss him a football and bake him some cookies or something.

Harry eagerly brings his token redhead buddy to the mirror, excited to show proof that he didn’t self-generate from an unfortunate chemical spill. But Copper Mop doesn’t see Harry’s folks in the mirror. Instead, he sees himself actually passing gym class, or something. (Lame.)

But it wasn’t some evil ginger magic that broke the mirror. We learn this from the Grand Poobah Wizard Bro, who swings by in a few and says when he looks in the mirror, he only gets to see himself holding a pair of socks. (Lame, but less lame than gym class. I mean, socks can have, like, penguins on them. Penguins trump gym class any day.)

So it turns out that the mirror is rigged to reflect “only the deepest desire of our hearts.”

But now that the cool trick is revealed, the Head Honcho in a Poncho says he’s going to go off and hide the thing in a land far, far away. Because people are stupid, and lack willpower, and will sit in front of the blasted contraption for hours, days, even WEEKS, going bonkers, dying of starvation, or both, while obsessively staring into the glass, seeing exactly what they want to see.

(So, basically…it’s TV tuned to Say Yes to the Dress, or Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Come on, TELL me you haven’t lost HOURS of your life riveted to that drivel. Ah well. Since so many establishments deliver food via text or emoji nowadays, at least we won’t starve to death.)

(AND AND AND. Come on, Dumbledore. “I’m gonna hide it, but don’t you dare try to find it, because it’s bad for you.” Dude, that didn’t work on any kid, EVER, for shiz like Christmas gifts or Halloween candy; how exactly do you picture this working for something as SUPER AWESOME as an enchanted mirror? Clearly you don’t have much experience with the prepubescent set. I guess that’s why your magic school doesn’t start with pre-K.)

So it’s clear that this mirror is powerful, but dangerous. Dumbledore says something fairly profound about it:

Wait. What?

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Remember that.“

Whoa there, Sorcerer Santa Man. That hits pretty close to home.

All this extraneous noise in my head – how big are my thighs, how much food did I eat, what do I weigh today, can I eat anything else, when can I eat again, when will I get a grip and stick to a diet and finally lose weight – isn’t that dwelling on dreams? Shooting for a fictional figure, a meaningless number? Aiming for a target that darts and hides, and gets smaller and smaller, shrinking and reducing itself as I do?

Aren’t all these voices – with their commands and beratings, with their taunts and threats – distracting me from real life? From what should truly matter? From what I really could be?

I’ve been staring into this mirror for the better part of thirty years. It’s a permanent fixture in my spiritual home; it has a featured spot right in the entryway to my funhouse.

And it’s kept me from truly living.

I understand now why Professor DumbleD was trying to hide this thing. It’s been a major time-suck and hasn’t done me a lick of good. I’ve wasted years of my life stuck right in front of it, starving myself and sacrificing my sanity in an attempt to match the reflection.

If only I could get my hands on a house elf. Maybe, when he gets a break from washing the windows, he could get that sucker unloaded on eBay or something, and buy me a nice, benign, limited-edition Kinkade to hang in its place. A painting that, when you pass it, lets you stop and gaze for just a moment, recharging your spiritual batteries instead of draining them. A thing of beauty that gives you a small serving of light and peace, packed lovingly in a to-go box so you can carry it with you, taking small nibbles as you need them as you go about living your day.

That sounds like a nice change. Soothing. Healing.

If only I could tear this mirror out.

Breaking a mirror is rumored to bring you seven years of bad luck.

I’m holding a sledgehammer and preparing to swing.

You may want to back up a bit. This might get messy.

Renovating the Funhouse

Posted on October 16, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Having an eating disorder is a bit like living inside a funhouse.

Remember the funhouse at the local carnival? You voluntarily handed over your ticket, and left all reality behind as you entered a world where gravity, balance, and perception shape-shifted, bent, and distorted, constantly causing you to question your instincts as you jumped, blinked, and were thrust unceremoniously into the wall.

Except this funhouse was, well, FUN, because it was temporary, and because eventually, someone would let you out and you’d go get a funnel cake and some cotton candy.

As part of my attempt at recovery from the food-issue funhouse, I’ve tried a few different things. But regardless of what I attempt, the well-established distortion I’ve been living with is difficult to work around.

For example – books. I’ve read tons of books on eating disorders. After story upon story of experiences with intubation, heart attacks, and grieving families, my reaction isn’t ANYTHING like “Oh. Wait. This shiz could kill me if I did it right.” Nope. It’s more like “gosh, if I just had more willpower, I could finally, REALLY, be thin.” And, I’m embarrassed to admit, occasionally I wonder if eating cotton balls really WILL fill me up. (No, I haven’t tried it, and I don’t recommend you do it, either. But part of the funhouse effect is that stuff that appears to be TOTAL craysauce to normal people starts to actually sound logical. Think I’m joking? How many of YOU have tried Slim-Fast? Or the Cabbage Soup Diet? See? SEE?!?)

I also have flirted with trying meditation. In my quest for inner peace, I have discovered that

Wait, what is my cat doing over there?

Can I get MY leg over my head like that?

I haven’t eaten chicken in awhile. Maybe I’ll make paprikash next week.

Suffice it to say I sort of suck at meditation. NEXT.

I did attend therapy for awhile, too. Was it helping? Hard to say. Like exercise, it was exhausting and painful, so I didn’t exactly look forward to GOING.

Yet – also like exercise – once I finished a session, I was usually glad I had gone.

That didn’t make it any easier to keep scheduling appointments. You don’t get the warm fuzzies until you’re done wringing out your brain…and you don’t exactly look forward to the inevitably draining part that has to come first. The relief at the end is barely a consolation prize, much like a small lollipop for getting a tetanus shot.

So why did I quit? It’d be easy to say “well, I was busy.” But if I’m honest with myself, I think it’s more because I was actually making some progress – I was beginning to redecorate the funhouse. Yet I wasn’t quite ready to part with that mental ottoman and its contrasting overstuffed sofa, nor start to repaint some of the walls I’d grown accustomed to seeing.

Not that therapy got me any further than the redecoration equivalent of picking out a toilet paper holder. But it was a start, and starting is closer to finishing. And I’m just not ready to let go of things like attaining my dream weight or wearing a certain size. Nor am I ready to embrace the possibility of being comfortable wearing a few sizes BIGGER than what I wear now. (Just typing that got a rousing “Oh HELL no” outta me. Which got me some glances from my compatriots at the airport. Move along, folks. There’s PLENTY more interesting to see around here, trust me.)

Maybe I’m not quite ready to commit to recovery. I have a lifetime of destructive habits, thoughts, and patterns to renovate – that’s a TON of work, and I’d be fooling myself if I thought for a moment that it’d be easy. After all, I’ve been this way since I was 10 years old and one of my brother’s friends said I was getting as fat as he was. I don’t remember caring ANYTHING about my weight before that.

But from that instant, it was all that mattered. Well, for the most part. Looking back, I did actually have a couple of periods in my life where I just didn’t CARE so much. And I’m not entirely certain why I didn’t.

First up: 1993. This was the year I got engaged and married (to my now-ex.) I just wasn’t thinking about dieting, exercising, binging, starving…any of it. I had just finished college (well, I finished GOING, anyway. The actual degree came later, technically. But that’s a story for another day.) I ate what I want, when I wanted, and indulged frequently and often. Fast food? Yes please. Fried food? Why not?

Looking back, I wasn’t really binging – I was eating heartily and lustily, and enjoying it.

It was nuts.

I actually remember attending a family reunion with my then-newly-wedded spouse, and a relative of his commented on how many brownies I was eating. I told her “Meh, I’m married now, it’s all good.”

<brrrrrrrrrp> WHAT.

I WASN’T EVEN DRINKING DIET SODA.

I’m more than a little horrified at how out-of-control this sounds.

Topping out at about 180 or so, I got married in a size 16 dress that nicely framed my hourglass figure, and kept up with the wed-and-fed bliss until about a year into the marriage, when I realized that the marriage sort of sucked, and to deal with that I lost about 65 pounds.

That actually brought me to a healthy weight for my height, and I maintained that weight before and after two pregnancies.

So I looked healthy…but the patterns were etching themselves back on the funhouse walls. The thin wallpaper I had hung to disguise them was faded and torn.

Fast forward about thirteen years to the year my divorce was being finalized. I started to date again…and dating typically means a LOT of happy hour beer, nachos, and cheesecake. (I suspect the kids do it differently nowadays….?) As I started to date the now-hubs, I wasn’t thinking about my weight all that much. Yeah, if you asked me, I’d readily admit that I could lose some weight, sure. But I was happy, and he certainly had no complaints.

During our courtship, I did gain weight, and this time, I got married in a Jessica McClintock halter-style number that again showcased my curves nicely.

I was about 150 pounds, and I felt beautiful.

So why now, at nearly 40 pounds below that figure, do I feel fatter, wider…bigger? And why am I less satisfied with how my body looks?

It’s because the funhouse feels like home.

I really like wearing a small size. When I go to a store, and the smallest size fits, it means I’ve won. And next time, it should be too big for me. #bossstage.

I want to be the smallest and thinnest. Second place just isn’t good enough. Try harder. Eat less. Run more. Win.

I know that in my funhouse, the couch cushions are ripped. I’m aware of the chips in the end table. I know the floors have a definite tilt to them; you can see it when you set down a glass or drop a marble.

But it’s home.

I’m not quite ready to get a modern sofa. My TV will look outdated if I replace the carpet.

However, I know I desperately need to replace the windows so they keep in the heat and let in the light. The current ones are draining me dry.

But if I do this, will I adjust to the new view? With more light in the room, what will I see? What will I have to address? What will cry out for repair? What else will I need to replace?

Sigh. With an older sofa, I don’t have to fret about spilling red wine, right?

I do recognize that all this mind-chatter is a complete waste. I mean, with all that I could offer the world, why is THIS what I focus on as my life’s directive? Given an alternative outlet, maybe I could have cured cancer by now. Or at least given SOMETHING of value back to the planet. Right?

Since I seem to have my butt firmly planted in this decrepit, ancient funhouse recliner, I’ll read you a fairly tale.

Once upon a time, there was a bright-eyed, energetic girl named Katie.

One day, someone gave Katie a cookie.

With a smile, she politely said, “Thank you!”

She ate the cookie and went on with her life as if nothing had happened at all.

THE END

I know. It’s just a fairy tale.

Throwback Foodday and a Day (of Food) in the Life

Posted on October 9, 2015 by KatieComeBack

As you already know, I have some “food issues”* that I’ve been dealing with since I was ten, when a solitary comment from a friend of my brother caused a seismic shift in food’s role in my life.

(“Food Issues” = currently read: EDNOS, or Eating Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, or, re-read: Eating Disorder, Not Committed Enough to Qualify As A Real Illness. There’s actually a whole alphabet soup of different subtypes of eating disorders – you can read about them here. I have a wardrobe full of ’em myself. A few fit me better in high school than they do today, but I keep them around and try them on once in a while just for giggles. Bulimia is the bell-bottom of eating disorders, anorexia is menswear – just when you think they start to look ridiculous on you, they come back into fashion and all the models are sporting them on the cover of Vogue.)

Before that time – when I was a kid, and didn’t know any better – food was a calm, tranquil creek. When life had some hard edges, I could visit a favorite snack for brief moments of joy and delight. (Not that life was all that dramatic when I was ten. My biggest issues were probably the indignity of having braces and wearing really thick glasses AT THE SAME TIME. Trust me – highly traumatic, especially when you’re ALSO in band. It’s the grade-school trifecta of uncool.)

Food was comforting when I needed it, and unobtrusive when I didn’t. It was like a favored toy, satisfied to patiently wait on a shelf until I might want to take it out to play.

And play I did – heartily and often, with frequent trips to the convenience store for any one of the Hostess frosted confections (or those amazing little donuts with the crunchy bits on them!) topped off with an RC Cola or a Veryfine Papaya Punch. (Which, sadly, no one seems to make any more. Boo. It was refreshing, not too sweet, and was the color of sunsets. The perfect accompaniment to BBQ Corn Nuts. I haven’t had a beverage with calories in years (except wine, duh) but I still wish they had it, because I might want it SOMEDAY, ya know?)

oohhhh….yeah, baby….

There was more. Pizza and Pepsi every Friday. Homemade Tollhouse cookies. A large casserole of scalloped oysters at Thanksgiving, and a fruitcake at Christmas, “because Katie loves them.” (As I write this, it suddenly strikes me that these were treats that Mom loved, too. I wish she had realized that it was perfectly OK to make them even if SHE was the only one who wanted to eat them.)

And there was always good food at Grandma’s house. From Dad’s mom: chocolate pudding – the kind you cook on the stove, of course – made with marshmallows and served warm, with milk, in Depression-glass dessert dishes. JiffyPop served in green glass bowls. Frosted chocolate-walnut refrigerator cookies (which, despite reading many recipes and attempting several trial batches, I have never been able to replicate.) Smokehouse almonds and 7-Up. Cashews after piano practice.

Mom’s parents also fed us well. Grandpa was a fisherman (who, as I’ve mentioned, used to nail salmon heads to trees), so Saturday dinner at Grandma’s place meant a fish fry, complete with her famous yeast rolls:

Man, I could eat four of those during a meal. FOUR. And one or two for snack later on. Makes me realize how innocent I was….I had absolutely no idea about the frightening number of white-flour calories I was ingesting. (Nor did it occur to me to care. Ah, youth.) My sister, the quintessential picky eater, pretty much lived off these rolls – these, plus Grandma’s deviled eggs, filled her plate for every holiday meal.

Grandma’s house also meant dessert. (Obviously. What’s Grandma without dessert?) The aforementioned rolls, with homemade jelly – strawberry, grape, or sometimes tomato. (Only once. Because yuck.) Homemade apples, stewed with Red Hots. And fruit crisps: Rhubarb, of course. Apple. And, interestingly, zucchini.

Yes, zucchini – the vegetable that you only grow if you have a TON of friends, and if that ton of friends are people you want to have avoid you all summer lest you share the crop that keeps on cropping.

Photo from https://u.osu.edu/buckmdblog/2015/05/27/veggie-vitals-zucchini-the-great-houdini/

Even if you’re not a fan, you have got to try zucchini crisp. Really. It’s surprisingly good. If you like apple crisp, you’ll be all over this.

Zucchini Crisp
 
 3-4 Cups zucchini (peeled & deseeded), cut in thick pieces.  

Cook in 1/3 C lemon juice until tender.
 
 Add:
  1/4 tsp cinnamon
  1/8 tsp nutmeg
  1/2 C sugar
 
 Cook 1 minute; will be very juicy.
 
 Mix together: 
  1 1/2 C flour
  3/4 C sugar
  1/4 tsp salt
 
 Cut in:
  1 1/4 sticks margarine
 
Press 3/4 C of mix in bottom of 8X8X2" pan. Bake 10 min at 350.  
Pour cooked squash over baked crust.  
Cover with rest of crumb topping. Bake 40 min. at 350.  
Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

OMNOMNOM. I actually made a version of this over the summer – without butter, of course, because butter is terrifying, and with honey instead of white sugar. And it was delish all the same. I promise this isn’t some cruel joke, like raisins in cookies or white chocolate in your Easter basket. It’s legit awesome. And reminds me of Grandma.

For the first ten years of my life, food was a celebration. Food was an expression of love.

Food was joy.

And then one day, suddenly, one comment turned food from friend to foe. From best friend to mortal enemy.

Food – the security blanket I turned to when craving love and affection – responded to this spasmodic paroxysm by transmogrifying from a much loved teddy bear to a hulking, sinister bully. It recruited the scale as its dictator and judge, and together, the two mocked, harassed, and tortured me.

(And you thought Decepticons were terrifying. Sure, stuff blew up, and people died. But Megan Fox was still skinny. AND HER WHITE PANTS STAYED CLEAN. I wasn’t even allowed to wear white pants until I was…well, by then I was too fat for white pants. Besides the fact that they do nothing to smooth, soften, or minimize, you also have to plan your undercrackers carefully, because you can see the print – stripes, polka dots, and baby ballerina whales – RIGHT THROUGH most of them. So no white pants. But I digress.)

So what does a day of food look like now?

Well, it looks a lot like this:

Now, normally, I don’t eat quite this much packaged food. But I wasn’t going to be home for lunch or dinner, so I had to pack food that could travel. Otherwise, dinner would likely be something predictably healthy, like baked fish and a veggie. Or a stir-fry. (And I couldn’t show you a picture of tonight’s dinner, because, well, it was SUPPOSED to be curried squash and potatoes (465 calories,) but I had 45 lives hoarded on Candy Crush, and it’s level 492, which is HARD, and somewhere between “hey, I got time” and “is something burning?” I cooked those cubes which I VERY painstakingly chopped into uniform pieces down into a gargantuan wad of bright orange wallpaper paste. Despite its attempts to resemble fluorescent mudding compound, it was actually pretty dang tasty. Just not terribly photogenic.)

Anyway. The point here is that 1200 calories is…not a whole heckuva lot of food. The breakdown:

Breakfast (178 calories): Smoothie.
Lunch (370 calories): Madras Lentils (300) and a nectarine (70).
Snack (80): Dried plums. (That’s hippie talk for “prunes.” Which your grandmother ate. I only eat dried plums. Now get off my lawn.)
Dinner (460 calories): Quinoa salad (340), cheese stick (80), clementine (40).
Snack (100): Yasso bar (frozen yogurt.)
TOTAL: 1188 calories.

And, if I stick to this very religiously (as I explained here), I can expect to lose roughly a half pound a week.

With maybe four exceptions to the 1200-calorie-a-day rule (seriously, I can count on ONE hand how many meals have been off the boat, and have one finger left over. GUESS WHICH ONE) here’s how this has played out in reality over the last few weeks:

Week 1: down six pounds (Six, yo. Salt much???)
Week 2: flatline.
Week 3: one pound gone!
Week 4: donut.
Week 5: GAINED A F%(^!N& pound (My body haaaaaaaaaaaates me)
Week 6: Lost SIX pounds (on the Ashley Madison diet. 10/10 would not recommend)
Week 7: Gained two pounds. (FML)
Week 8: Goose egg (FUUUUUUUUUUUuuu)

Hmm. Wait a sec.

As maddening as this roller-coaster ride has been, I guess I HAVE lost ten pounds in eight weeks.

Whoa.

I BEAT MATH.

I’m…MAGIC.

And a magical being needs magical hair…right?

So I treated myself to some color today:

Color makes me happy. Color brings me joy.

AND IT DOESN’T WEIGH ANYTHING.

Unfortunately, it isn’t cheap. Neither is a bad shoe habit. Or new clothes. Or all the nose rings I want from RockYourNose (which you should check out – her stuff is amazeballs.)

But with all the drama as of late, my ego has taken a beating. So, while I haven’t found the exact recipe for the perfect frosted chocolate-walnut refrigerator cookie, or a palatable low-sugar, gluten-free fruitcake, I think it’s perfectly OK to indulge in some pretty, shiny things here and there.

Little morsels of joy, fat-free.

A Kitten of Schrödinger

Posted on October 2, 2015 by KatieComeBack

Remember Schrödinger’s cat?

We all learned about this from Big Bang Theory, right? Essentially, you have a cat sealed up in a box, maybe with some poison. The theory is that, as long as the box remains closed, you don’t really know whether the cat is alive or dead. (Let’s assume this is a soundproof box, and one too heavy to lift and shake. Because otherwise, the cat would make its displeasure quite obvious, and if it didn’t, we’d all be rattling the box trying to get the thing to respond. Or opening cans of tuna. Because any cat not responding immediately to the mechanical crunching of a can opener is obviously dead.)

I realized today that I have some weird, mutant form of this thought experiment kitty going on in my marriage. With my spouse’s revelation last week, I’ve spent a lot of time in a thick fog, unable to visually articulate whether my marriage is dead, or alive.

And right now? It’s kind of…both.

Because it’s been all I’ve written about for two weeks, you already know this, but to recap: the hubs told me that he had, about two years ago, opened an account on Ashley Madison. He claims that, while he spent over $250 freaking dollars on it <insert colorful expletive of choice> he never actually met up with anyone. He had some fairly surface-level electronic conversations…but that was it. Eventually, he closed the account and walked away.

That was that…until the news broke of the security breach. At that point, he knew he had to tell me, before one of my less-trusting or drama-seeking friends “accidentally” found out, and felt compelled to let me know.

I’ve been struggling with whether to believe him or not.

And I’ve come to discover that it doesn’t really matter all that much.

Now, before you examine my cranium for dents, let me explain. It’s basically that philosophical feline, both alive and dead because it is neither.

Not actual thought-experiment cat. Not suspecting any sentient thought at all. Cat eventually proven to be alive when he passed gas and startled himself. Keepin’ it classy and highbrow, ya know.

I have a choice here. I can spend a shiz-ton of time examining, inspecting, and analyzing every nuance and detail of every exchange and communication over the last two years, trying to find the golden nugget of information that will lead me to a conclusion.

Or, I can accept him at his word.

Either way, the sooner I can get out of this dark cloud of over-thinkingness, the sooner I can choose to forgive him. The sooner I can forgive him, the sooner I can get on with life – MY life – whichever direction that may be.

In other words…it kinda looks like this:

The hubs and I spent a lot of time talking last weekend. We had our first counseling session, where he spent a full hour eating crow, barely choking on the feathers. On Saturday, I said I wanted to be outside, so he took me to one of the most gorgeous spots I can get to in under two hours.

You just can’t waste a day like this, ya know? And when the thinks and the thoughts try to smother your joy, there’s nothing like sunshine and giant rocks to bring your inner child out to play.

We hiked up and down the rocks for nearly four hours. On the way, we spotted some really cool ‘shrooms. It’s kind of neat that God’s crayon box is open even to the lowest fungi.

Author’s Note: No mushrooms were harmed, or licked, during filming.

Some of the rock formations formed natural “potholes” (although they look more like tunnels to me):

And there were several cliffs and bluffs, most of which were clearly made before the 80s (when we could learn by reading, instead of by, say, life experience or common sense, that it was not safe to use your toaster in the bathtub and that coffee is generally served hot) because there aren’t any guard rails or restraining bars. Theoretically, you could gently nudge someone to Absolute Enlightenment, or pay your own tuition to harp school, with a little chutzpah and a committed shove.

(Don’t think I wasn’t tempted to wing out an elbow.)

And eventually, we ran into this cool little fella. He didn’t have a whole lot to say. (The truly cool never do. They just hang out lookin’ fly while you wish you could be them.)

I was going to try to pick him up, but I don’t know enough about snakes to know which ones can kill me, so I opted out of THAT little adventure. I found out later that it was probably just a harmless milk snake, and the worst he’d probably do is try to hug you to death, and really, aren’t there worse ways to go? (Like having your deranged spouse kick you in the left kidney, sending you tumbling down a rock face into a murky river where you’re run over by a dinner cruise teeming with drunken nuns? Did I mention I was tempted?)

(Side note: I did add a snake pic to my Facebook page. In which I promptly tagged my spouse. One part passive-aggressive…forty-seven parts immensely satisfying. Heh.)

I still have a lot to work out – with myself, with my spouse, with the state of my marriage. But you can’t spend a day in THIS and not be able to think that somehow you’re gonna be okay.

I put my toe on the edge of a bluff. Not ready to make a decision, this is as close as I can stomach to stand to the edge.

Yeah. I’m chicken.

Calm, overwhelmingly blue skies above. Exciting river of energy below. A few rocks to clear that keep you grounded in rugged reality.

Every direction is intriguing. I have all the time I need to choose which way to go, and if I take my time and plot my course carefully, I can easily turn around if I want some different scenery.

I can’t speak for Schrödinger, but MY cats sure as heck ain’t gonna starve to death any time soon.

I think I’ll just breathe for a while and take in the view.

Carrots in My Carryon

My emotional baggage is packed with food

Category Archives: Personal Recovery

Ordinary Folks, Powerful Feels (Part 2 of 2)

Ordinary Folks, Powerful Feels (Part 1 of 2)

Dissecting the Funk Frog

‘Tis the Season to be…Gelatin (Part 1 of 2)

Fueling the Food Beast

The Artificial Tang of Banana Candy

When the Heart’s Desire Is a Little Backwards

Renovating the Funhouse

Throwback Foodday and a Day (of Food) in the Life

A Kitten of Schrödinger

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: