The Warped Playback of My Own Demons

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I mentioned in my last post that I spent Easter weekend with my family, and that I had had a pretty good week, recovery-wise, until I went there.

Family is always tough.  Visiting your folks is like some sort of twisted time machine – you immediately forget what a capable, mature adult you are, and instantly regress into the persona you wore as a teenager.  In our normal, everyday lives, we’re psychologically on trend with midi skirts and fringe, but step into the kitchen of your childhood and mentally you’ve teased your bangs, popped the collar of your polo, and pegged your jeans.  I don’t know WHY this happens, but it’s pretty common.  It doesn’t make much sense, though – my psychological leg warmers were itchy, and didn’t warm the parts of me that really needed some heat….but in my mind, I’m reaching for them every time.

My childhood was, on the surface, quite tame and non-dramatic.  Two parents, married to each other.  No drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancies, or arrest records.  (Well, there was that one cousin who gave us gossip fodder at family potlucks.  But it was pretty minor stuff, relatively speaking.)  I have a sister and a brother, and our biggest issues were spending too much time on the phone (sister) and occasionally stretching curfew (me, because my siblings didn’t have one, not because Mom and Dad were unfair, but because my sibs had the sense to come home at a decent hour.)

What is clearest about my childhood (given my issues, it’s pretty obvious) is the dieting dichotomy.  We had a dual-food household – meaning, Mom dieted, and Dad did not.  We had two of everything in our fridge:  real butter and diet margarine, soda and diet soda, Miracle Whip and Light Miracle Whip, whole milk and skim.  By middle school, my brother was a bit chubby; and one of his comments was what sent me down the path of messed-up eating.  I got a bit too skinny in high school; I suppose, in hindsight, that may have been discussed by the relatives.  I remember being called down to the guidance counselor’s office once, and I fed her a complete BS line of eating healthy and exercising, and never got any more flack for starving myself.  I also remember being dragged to the doctor once.  He very helpfully encouraged me to eat more.  My blood pressure at the time was 80/40.   (Yeah, I’ll get right on that cheeseburger, doc.  Thanks for being clueless so I can continue counting how many Cheerios I can eat today without pesky interference.)

So my brother and I dutifully counted calories and watched our belts all throughout high school.  My baby sister, though….well, she was the pretty one.  Petite, blond, and blue-eyed, she ate WHATEVER THE HELL SHE WANTED and just did not gain weight.  She was a notoriously picky eater, often eschewing our family dinners for a bowl of cereal.  As she got older, she’d supplement these meals with Burger King runs, and she drank non-diet soda, and snacked on Fritos dipped in Miracle Whip.  (I am totally not kidding here.  FRITOS. And MIRACLE WHIP.  !!!!!)

Suffice it to say there was significant resentment there.  I didn’t help matters much; I found out which boys she had crushes on, and dated them.  (Yes, I realize that this makes me a horrible person.  I feel bad about this to this day.  But if I couldn’t be the pretty one, I could be the fun one, and high school boys were pretty receptive to the funny girl who was forward enough to ask them out.  I was just desperate to be pretty, to be acceptable.)  The end result is that my sister and I barely spoke for nearly eight years; we didn’t reconnect until I filed for divorce and found my voice and stopped competing/comparing myself with her and got to know both who she was, and who I was.  We actually have a pretty solid relationship now, and I’m so thankful for that.

It didn’t occur to me until I tried therapy a few years ago that perhaps my childhood wasn’t as happy as I recalled.  The only “benefit” I got from that therapist was the realization that my mom favors my sister over me.  Honestly, I think I was happier not knowing this.  Because now, every visit is punctuated with that realization.  Every slight and favor is highlighted with neon-green clarity.  It hurts my heart, and I either eat my feelings or resolve to starve so I can fade away into nothing.   This visit, I chose to eat everything in sight, because if Mom made gluten-free Chex mix and sweet potato casserole and peanut brittle, I can show her that I love her best by accepting her offerings, right?

On Sunday mornings, my folks usually go out to breakfast.  This is good for my dad, who is recovering from two strokes and a massive heart attack he had in December (he’s doing really well; not quite 100% where he was, but considering he should have died, the fact that he gets up, gets dressed, and works every day is nothing short of miraculous.)

So on Sunday, he was asking Mom when they were going for breakfast.  I was awake, as was my son.  My daughter and my sister were still asleep.  Mom got dressed and ready to go…but as we were getting our shoes on, I found out that she wasn’t going to breakfast, after all.  Why?  Because she didn’t want to leave my sister alone.  My sister, WHO WAS ASLEEP and most likely would STILL be when Mom got back.  (Plus, my daughter, who is a champion sleeper, was home too.)  But Mom decided she’d rather stay home with my unconscious sister than spend time with me.  It is what it is, I guess….but yeah, that stung.  My son and I did take my dad out to breakfast, and I cherish that time spent with him, since we really don’t know how much more time we’ll get with him.  It was just soured a bit by Mom being really obvious about preferring my sister’s company.   (And yes, she WAS still asleep when we got back.  Sigh.)

Anyway.  Back to childhood.  My sister was beautiful in high school.  (Let me clarify right here that throughout this, my sister was, and is, and will always be, beautiful.  This is more of an outline about weight….and while her weight has changed over the years, her soul has only grown, and she’s a gorgeous person and always will be.)  When she went to college, she, like so many of us, gained weight.  And, sadly, entered the club of hating her body.  I watched her gain the Freshman 15, and a few more.  She lost some weight before her wedding, but being married to a guy who loves his food…well, it’s HARD because dudes can eat a LOT and not pack on the pounds.  <whine> IT’S NOT FAIIRRRRRRRRRR  Her hubby had decided long ago that he was going to enjoy life, and if that meant he was fat, well, then, he was going to be fat.  And it’s tough to pick at a salad when the hubs is downing nachos, ya know?

About three years ago, she lost the extra weight.  All of it.  She now weighs what she did in high school.  And she is gorgeous.

The end, right?

Sadly, no.  Her struggle with her weight gave her free admission into the “I hate my body” club.  And I hate that for her.  This is a club that isn’t terribly discerning about accepting members…but once you join, it’s nearly impossible to leave.  <cue Hotel California>

I honestly didn’t realize the extent of her struggle until we were driving home on Sunday afternoon.  We made a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts, because the kids NEEDED coffee (read:  coffee-like drink laden with cream and sugar that is basically dessert in a to-go cup) and a donut (because Dunkin is THE BEST. No Krispy Kreme for this family.  Their offerings sit like a wad of lard and concrete in your gut, and who wants to eat something with the name “Krispy Kreme,” anyway?  It sounds like something you dropped jelly-side-down onto a dirt floor.  Bleck.)

My sister came into the store with me to buy a diet soda. (Don’t we always start out with that sort of good intention?)  Once she faced the rack of freshly-baked donuts, she HAD to have one.  She made her selection, and then proceeded to put on her verbal boxing gloves and give herself a prize-winning flogging.

I don’t need this.  I’ve eaten so much this weekend.

I’m not even hungry.

I’ve gone over my calories for the day and I haven’t even eaten dinner yet.

I can’t keep doing this….the fat will come right back.

And on and on and on.  It’s a song I know well; one I have memorized and perform pretty much every time I eat.   And, like any well-rehearsed performer, I wanted to sing along.  But this wasn’t the part I knew.  It was as jarring to me as putting Rhett in a dress and having Scarlett utter “Frankly, my dear….”  It was as unnerving as hearing Britney Spears attempting to channel the Rolling Stones.  (Don’t click this.  Really.  It’s bad and there isn’t enough ear bleach to scrub it out.)

But I tried.  I parroted to her the things I was used to hearing.  Enjoy it and start over tomorrow.  You’re beautiful.  It’s just a donut, not a statement of your self-worth. 

Words I’d heard, but never believed.

Words I firmly believed were true for her….but not for me.

I love my sister.  I love her so much that I wish we didn’t have this in common.

I wish there was a hypnotist or a lotion or a hug that would make the self-doubt and hate go away.   If they made a pill for this – only one – I’d give it to her with a big glass of water, and I wouldn’t leave until she downed that thing.

No one deserves admission to this version of hell.  But after hearing this from her, this thought hasn’t left my mind:  Am I causing my husband this much pain when I break out into a chorus of the same song?

I’m trying to be more aware.  Trying to censor these thoughts a bit; trying not to share every insecurity out loud.  Because maybe it’s not all about me; maybe it tears at the joy of those around me.

Maybe someday, I won’t have these thoughts at all. Maybe I’ll be OK with what I look like, even if that body has been through childbirth and a few too many chocolates and pizzas.

Maybe that gift will come with smaller thighs and a rainbow unicorn.

<sigh>

Purging the Pollutants and Poisons

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So…in case you’re wondering (and I’m sure all three of you who read this have been waiting with bated breath just DYING to know how this turned out, ha ha) – I gave him the letter.  I did it.  I actually did it.

I had had a night of very little sleep when I wrote that post.  I saved it, and rushed off to church (of COURSE I was late. If I show up anywhere early, assume aliens have taken possession of my body, and what you’re seeing isn’t me, but an imposter, and shoot me with a green laser gun before I take over the planet.)

After church, we sat on the couch and talked.  Well…I tried to talk.  I was too upset to say much.  Finally, I told him, “I wrote you a letter.  I don’t want to give it to you.  It may be hard to read.  Some of it isn’t very nice.  But you need to understand it comes from a place where I am hurting.  I hope you can read it in the spirit in which it is intended.”

He asked for the letter.

He read the letter while I cried.

Then he said, “I love you, and I want to talk about this.  But first, let me change my shirt.”

And then he went to his closet and THREW THE MEAN SHIRTS AWAY.  ALL OF THEM.  Every last one.

And then we talked.  Really talked.

I was stunned – still am, frankly – that he actually threw those shirts away.  He must really love me.  I’m overwhelmed by that.  How can I mean so much to him?

He really is an amazing guy.

I walked around for the next week feeling like I had removed an eighty-pound backpack that I’d forgotten I was carrying.  Drama is like that – it starts out as a flashy new bag, which is hip and cool and fun to show off as you twirl and strut.  But as time goes on, it collects rocks and dirt and lead and concrete. It gets heavier and heavier, and for some reason, you keep carting it around like you’re doing it a favor.  As if it benefits you in some way.  It’s only when you eventually unload it that you realize how soul-suckingly bad it was for you, how much of a drain it was on your energy and your joy.

So I spent a full week feeling almost normal.  And then things went sideways again (due to a visit with my folks…doesn’t visiting your parents always remind you of the ways you’ve failed them?  I may write more about that later.)  Suffice it to say I had plenty to talk about in my appointment with Dr. P this week.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with is accepting myself at a higher weight.  I hate saying this, because I KNOW how lame, pathetic, and first-world-problemy it sounds. Really.  I’d totally be rolling my eyes (and mentally slapping her) if anyone ELSE told me how hard it was for her now that she’s eaten her way out of a size zero and is ALL THE WAY up to a size two now.  Boo freakin’ hoo, right?

But when it’s your own body?  When the sign of success you previously had (BMI of 18, yeah!) has faded away? When your clothes are getting tighter?  When no one gasps at how skinny you are anymore, and the one thing you used to be good at, the ONE AREA you could excel in, the ONLY area that anyone in society seems to value (and certainly the one that’s the most prized, yet least attainable, by you) is now an area where you’re not in the best 5%?  Where you’re now just…normal?  It kind of sucks.  It feels like failure.

AND THAT’S STUPID.

Intellectually, I know I am not a fat monster.  I can’t be.  The numbers do not add up.  Even if I looked 20 pounds heavier than I am, logic tells me I cannot possibly be a huge beast.  But when I look in the mirror, my thighs are bulging out in all directions, and my stomach poofs out in an unflattering not-sure-if-she’s-pregnant bloat.  Flesh hangs over the tightening waistband of my pants (hello, back fat.  Who invited YOU, anyway?)  Pants in the smallest size are uncomfortably snug and emphasize every flaw.

Ah, yes, the pants.  I have clothes that have been hanging in my closet, unworn for several months, mocking me.  You can’t wear me.  I cut you sharply across the waist; I stretch in a most unflattering fashion across your thighs.  I’m here to remind you that you will NEVER be good enough. You will never be perfect.  What a shame that you lack the discipline to stick to your diet.  How pathetic that you have so little control.  I’m a prize you don’t deserve to have.

How ironic.  Apparently, it wasn’t just my husband who had hurtful things in his closet.

So, during my session with Dr. P, we decided that I’d clean out my closet.  I had mixed feelings about this.  First and foremost (if you’re female and have ever struggled with your weight, you’ll guess this one) – “WHAT ABOUT WHEN I GET THIN AND CAN WEAR THEM AGAIN?”  I know I’m trying to learn to accept myself at a healthy weight, but I’m not ready to say that I will never be 107 pounds again.  And that’s OK – I’m not there now, but I’m not ready to let go of that quite yet.  In the meantime, the pants don’t fit me well now, so why keep them when all they do is make me unhappy?  And, as Dr. P reminded me, “if you do need that size later, you’ll want to buy new stuff anyway.”  Good point.

And today I did it.  I went to my closet and ruthlessly pulled out all the size 0 pants.  I went through EVERYTHING (and I have a BIG closet, folks.  As if I would live in a house with inadequate closet space. AS IF.)  and bravely deposited in the Donations bag a grand total of…

<drum roll, please>

one skirt and two pairs of pants.

<cue sad trombone>

Wait…that’s it?

All that fuss for TWO FREAKING PAIRS OF PANTS?

(Wow.  Drama much?)

I stared at my small offering in disbelief….Yup.  Out of an entire wardrobe of “clothes I’m too fat for,” I had two – TWO – pairs of pants that are a bit snug to be flattering.  And you know what?  THEY NEVER ACTUALLY FIT ME WELL IN THE FIRST PLACE.  The brown pants were too short in the rise <coughcoughcameltoecough> and the black pinstripe pair were flattering but were always gave me a bit of back fat.  The skirt was skin-tight, but always had been, really, and I hadn’t worn it much because it was borderline inappropriate – a little too Jessica Rabbit for the office.

What’s amazing me about this is the power that these unworn pants had.  I mean, I have like 10 pairs of other pants – that FIT – and I wasn’t enjoying them because I had two ill-fitting pairs in my closet?  And WHY WAS I NOT BLAMING THE PANTS?  I can’t possibly expect every pair of pants to fit well and be flattering.  But…isn’t that what I’ve been doing?

The mean pants are in the donation sack, ready to leave my life completely tomorrow.

And, just like that, I have a closet full of pants that fit.

All my clothes fit.

That sort of feels…good?  Wait, that’s not the word.  More like “not a failure.”

I’ll take it.  It’s not my usual style, but the cut is surprisingly comfortable, so I’ll try to work it into my wardrobe.

Preparing My Speech

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Time for a serious talk at home.

Last night, the hubs told me, “I feel like I’m losing you.”

It shook me to hear that.

Hard.

But he’s right.  I’m drifting further and further away from the once rock-solid relationship we had.

And it hurts, and it breaks my heart.

I have a couple of choices:  Pretend that things are fine, or address this stuff head-on.  The former clearly isn’t working – apparently, I’m a terrible actress – so maybe I need to try again to get this stuff out in the open.

Maybe working out here what I need to say will help.  Or maybe it’ll give me enough of a mental buffer to throw a lacy tablecloth over the elephant in the living room and pretend it’s not there for just a bit longer.

Here goes nothing.

Dear Hubs:

Last night, you told me you felt like you were losing me.  What struck me about this wasn’t that you were right – because I think that’s fairly obvious – but that you still actually cared.  You sounded like you really DIDN’T want to lose me.  And I have to admit that surprised me a little.

I know that’s probably hard to hear.  And, to be fair, you’ve always been affectionate, and you tell me all the time that you love me.  But…there are times when you don’t SHOW me that you love me.  And it’s hard for me to reconcile the words with the actions.

Let’s jump right to the root of this thing:  we have very different opinions on faith and spirituality.  When we first met, and earlier in our relationship, we were quite good at respectful disagreement.  Or at least I thought we were.  Perhaps we just avoided the issue.

Lately, though, I know you’ve been going through a spiritual awakening of sorts.  You’ve always been agnostic, and willing to question your own beliefs in pursuit of the right answer.  In the last few months, however, your focus has shifted.  You feel that atheists are not embraced in society, and you’ve appointed yourself a beacon of light for all others who share your beliefs.  You’ve done this by writing a thesis of sorts on how irrelevant, violent, damaging, hateful, and inaccurate the Bible is, and you’ve posted this on the internet for all to see.  (Well, that was your plan; I honestly don’t know if you finished it or published it.  Since it hurts my heart to think about it, I don’t ask.)

Additionally, you’ve acquired a collection of T-shirts that boldly state your stance.  Some of them say things like “skeptic” and “freethinker” – those I can handle, mostly.  (Although I’m not a fan of “freethinker” as it implies that those who don’t agree with you are the opposite of free thinkers, when really, in many cases, they are people as articulate, intelligent, and educated as you, who researched the same materials and simply came to a different conclusion.)  It’s your other shirts I take issue with.  I know you’re going for shock value.  For an in-your-face message that you are NOT Christian, or Muslim, or any other organized religion.  I just wish you could find a way to express that without taking pot shots at the sincerely held beliefs of others.  I wish you could find a way to raise awareness without needing to step on other peoples’ faiths to elevate your own belief system.

Because without mutual respect and understanding, no one can hear you.  Your approach puts everyone on defense.  They know, just by reading your shirt, that you’re not open to a frank, honest discussion.  Your mind is MADE UP – and their minds are WRONG.  Period, the end.

I’m digressing a bit – I really wanted to talk about US, not everyone else.  But there IS some relevance here.  A couple of weekends ago, we went out together, and you had one of those T-shirts on.  And you made a point to tell me that a couple of folks commented on it, and really liked it, and that “lots of people really like my shirts.”  I believe I responded with something like “everyone but your wife.” I didn’t press further – but it saddens me that validation from complete strangers is more important to you than your wife’s feelings on the subject.

You know I hate these shirts, but you wear them anyway, and I suppose I need to find a way to deal with that.  Just be aware that you do so at the expense of some emotional currency.  Initially, you said, “Well, I’ll only wear them when you’re not around.”  WHICH MISSES THE POINT ENTIRELY – if you truly feel this way, it doesn’t matter if you’re wearing it on your chest or not.  It still hurts me that you don’t have any respect for my beliefs, whether you parade that in front of my face or hide it behind my back.  (If you didn’t like me taking diet pills, would it be OK if you didn’t watch me swallow them?)

It’s hard for me to feel close to you when I’m staring down a logo that I know is meant to inflame.  This is hard to admit, but it’s also difficult for me to feel attracted to you when how you feel about my beliefs is quite literally staring me in the face.

While I’m talking about respect, I need to also talk about blasphemy.  Not swearing – I can drop a good F-bomb as well as anyone else.  I’m talking about your need to invoke religion into the mix.  You know I hate it. I’m not used to hearing it, I don’t like it, I’ve TOLD you I don’t like it, and I find it completely disrespectful that you continue to DO it.  But you told me quite recently that when you get really mad, nothing eases your anger like a good “F*** you, God.”

(Side note – this doesn’t even make sense.  Why are you saying “F*** you” to someone you believe to be imaginary?)

THIS IS NOT OK.  It’s beyond disrespectful.  It’s telling me that your outbursts are more important than my lifelong, sincerely held beliefs.  I’ve cultivated them for years; I’ve tried to fertilize them, prune them, and encourage them to grow – and here you are, barreling over them with the lawnmower, rendering them into insignificant scraps.

It eases your anger…but you’re paying for it with our relationship.

Is it still worth it?

I’m scared to death that the answer is “yes.”

Yesterday we were shopping for paint.  And as you were loading the trunk, you noticed, for the first time, the ichthus fish I had affixed there a couple of weeks ago, and you said, “I just noticed your Jesus fish.  GREEEEEEEAT.”  Wow.  You actually sneered.  You have many, many emblems and stickers on your car screaming your views to the planet.  I don’t love them, but it’s your car.  And I respect that your views are different from mine.

Then a song came on the variety show on NPR – it was a gospel group singing a capella 4-part harmonies.  Now, I know gospel isn’t for everyone.  You could have changed the station.  Instead, you commented on the “ridiculous subject matter.”

My beliefs are “ridiculous subject matter.”

My beliefs are ridiculous.

I asked myself again yesterday if I could continue to live like this.

And yesterday, the answer was no.

My heart is breaking. I don’t know if this can be fixed.  All I know is that I never would have married a man who owned T-shirts like this.  I never would have married someone who couldn’t respect my beliefs.

Yet, nearly eight years later…here I am.

So there it is.

I desperately want to fix this.  Please, please help me fix this.

I love you.  Always.

Wish me luck.

Basking In The Blessings You Were Born With

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During therapy this week, Dr. P and I did a little work on body image. (I realize that there’s quite a bit of work needed here; it might be quicker to melt an iceberg with a hair dryer.  But ya gotta start somewhere.)

She’s asked me in the past what concerns I have with my body.  (I love how she asks this like she can’t possibly understand how I would have any issues with my physical self.  I suppose they teach acting in 2nd-year psych, right?)

I describe those issues in great detail:

“My thighs.  I hate my thighs.  The skin is loose, I have stretch marks and cellulite, and they’re too big here on top.  The worst are the saddlebags.  They sit right below the pot-belly I have – it’s my FAT EQUATOR.  So if I could lose ten pounds RIGHT HERE, that would help.  I look horrendous in a swimsuit.  I have to wear a skirt, to cover my legs, and it has to be a one-piece because of my belly…and you know, with a skirted one-piece?  YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.  Everyone KNOWS you’re fat when you have to wear a skirted one-piece.”

And so on, and so on.

Dr. P:  “So…what do you LIKE about your body?”

Me:  <blank stare>

Dr. P:  One thing.

Me:  …um…Sometimes, people have said I have nice eyes.

Dr. P:  Good, I agree.  (She clearly got an A in that acting class.)  Eyes.  Tell me about them.

Me:  <pausing to think a sec> <shrug>  I dunno.  They’re eyes.

Dr. P:  Hmm.  Anything else you like?

Me:  Eh.  My face is OK.  I mean I have a really strong jaw that sticks out too far, and it’s pretty square, and I have an unusually large head, which looks really ridiculous next to someone with a small head. And I have a very distinctive nose.  But I do OK with what I have to work with…I mean, I don’t make small children cry, but I don’t exactly inspire poetry here.

Dr. P then proceeds to point out to me how detailed and descriptive I am when it comes to talking about the parts of me I don’t like…but when it comes to the parts I DO like, I’m really quite brief.

Dr. P:  Like with your eyes.  You said “they’re eyes.”

Me:  Well…they ARE.  I mean, you get the eyes you’re born with.  You can’t really make them smaller or bigger or change the color.  You get what you get.  No point in trying to change them much.

Dr. P:  But you could, if you wanted to.  You can put on makeup…I have a sister who spends a lot of time on her eyes, playing them up. You can even get contacts to change the color.

Me:  Meh. It’s like feet.  You can’t really fret much about how big your feet are.  Not much you can do if you’re genetically stuck with a pair of flippers.  Your shoe size just is what it is.

But I couldn’t protest too long…because she did have a point.  Then she told me that she thought I had a lot of really nice features.  For one, I have great hair.  Now on this, I do agree.  But there’s a story behind my hair.

I have impossibly thick, coarse, wavy hair.  It’s been a burden for most of my life.  My mother had thin, straight, fine hair…and absolutely no idea what to do with her daughter, who had the equivalent of a Brillo pad growing out of her scalp.  We had no conditioner, and no brushes – only those small pocket-sized combs (which I spent a lot of time running away from.  No conditioner, no brush?  You can imagine the spectacular snarls that grew – and the tears shed as she tried, every few days, to work them out.  I recall the combs were ironically printed with “Unbreakable” – I had the misfortune of proving them wrong more than once.  This was even more entertaining when the broken piece got completely lost in my hair, only to be recovered with the next combing or shampoo.)

Growing up, I suffered through several years of hysterically bad haircuts.  True, it was easier to comb when there was less of it, but every wave and bend insisted on marching to the beat of its own drummer.  I took “Extreme Bedhead” to new levels.  My cowlicks had cowlicks.  My baby sister, trying to be kind, told me, “You look like Janet on Three’s Company!”  Great.  Every little girl wants to look like the “smart” roommate, right?

In high school, I got a brief reprieve.  It was the 80s, after all, and BIG HAIR was in.  I could totally rock the mall chick bangs, and hardly needed any teasing or hairspray to make them sky-high.  (I did, of course, USE hairspray.  Aqua Net Extreme Hold.  We called it Aqua Rock or Aqua Helmet. I’m sure that decade is at least 72% responsible for the hole in the ozone later.  I hope my grandchildren accept my apologies.)

But soon, waves were out, straight locks were in, and I was back to having hair that didn’t fit.  I gave up on haircuts for the most part, and wore it long.  Secured behind a headband, or in a ponytail, it generally behaved.  (Although it was heavy.   I couldn’t secure my hair in any sort of clip – they didn’t make any large enough.  I had to gather a ponytail and stick the barrette through the top third of it in order to get it to work.)  Every few years, I’d chop a bunch off, just for a change – and I instantly regretted the decision every time.

(To give you an idea of how much hair I have:  At one point, when I decided to chop it off, I thought maybe I should donate the hair.  It was natural, and I had PLENTY of it, so why not?  You could probably feed three full scalps with the harvest from my head.  The stylist couldn’t get my hair into a ponytail – there was too much of it.  So she split the mass in half, making two tails to cut.   She started to cut…and dislocated her scissors on the first tail.  After some cussing, and a new pair of shears, I had two very thick ponytails to donate.  I put them into the package to mail, and took the envelope to the postage machine at work, just to ensure I’d have enough stamps.  The package rang up at NINE OUNCES.  Yes – that is OVER HALF A POUND OF HAIR.  Don’t look at me like that.  EVERYONE with food issues reweighs themselves after a haircut.  Admit it.)

I had been living in the Midwest for a few years before I had the guts to try cutting my hair again.  This time, though, things were different.  I hopped on the interwebs and discovered that there were other people who had hair like mine, who not only got frequent haircuts, but LOVED their waves.  So I hit up a salon that specializes in curly hair….and now MY HAIR IS FABULOUS.  What a difference a skilled cut and the right products can make!

So now, I flaunt my curls, because you know you’d HAVE to pay good money to get curls like these if you weren’t born with them.  I play with the color, too – I vary between reds and blonds; every shade between copper penny and honey is fair game and was probably on my scalp at one time or another.

And the shape!  I love my cut.  It’s super short on one side (yes!  short hair DOES work on me!) and chin-length on the other.  (Imbalanced, like the rest of me.  Heh.)

Here’s what it looks like (note – while I have fabulous hair…I do not possess exemplary photo-editing skills.  Ah well, we can’t be good at everything.):

FabHairYo

And the best part?  It’s wash-and-go.  Scrunch, arrange, done. My hair can be done in under 3 minutes.  Fabulous AND low-maintenance.  WOOT.

So what’s the moral of the story, kids?  Make the most of what you have?  Don’t waste energy on the things you can’t change?  Or learn to love what you were born with?

I’m not sure.  But if I can learn to LOVE my hair, after it gave me over 35 years of misery…maybe there’s hope for my Fat Equator to one day not be a hostile territory.

Pulverizing My Poisonous Provisions

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So I had therapy on Wednesday.  I know you’ve been sitting here, waiting with bated breath, biting your nails and bouncing your foot on your knee, just DYING to know if I did my homework and threw the peanut butter away.

Well, I won’t keep you in suspense.

It was Tuesday morning.  I knew my next appointment was in twenty-four hours, and I was wrestling with a couple of things:

  1. I don’t like to follow directions.  You tell me to hurry up, I’m suddenly exhausted and need a nap. So since I was asked to throw away food, there it sits in the pantry.  I’d have been more likely to chuck it if no one had TOLD me to.
  2. I know I’m going to be held accountable to this.  And I hate letting my boss, teachers, etc. down.  My therapist is going to be VERY DISAPPOINTED in me if I don’t do this.  And if I DON’T get it done, who knows what I’ll get asked to do next??  Steal someone’s baby?  Knock over a bird’s nest, swipe the eggs, and make an omelet I eat while looking out the window where Momma Robin can stare at me eating her young? File my taxes again?  Give up my shoe collection, INCLUDING my teal cowboy boots, which are the cutest things ever?  NOOOoooooo….I better get to it so I don’t have to do something less comfortable as penance.
  3. IT’S JUST FREAKING PEANUT BUTTER.<sigh>

So, after my morning run, while the hubby was in the shower…I DID IT.  I NOT ONLY scooped out all the chocolate peanut butter with a spatula and washed it down the garbage disposal – I ALSO (being an overachiever when I’m being graded) threw out a mostly-eaten bag of kettle-cooked potato chips.

VICTORY IS MINE!  BWA HA HA HA (You TOTALLY need a sinister laugh when you’re running the garbage disposal.  It makes the process so much more empowering.)

So I was delighted to be able to report to Dr. P that I did complete my task.  And I was impressed that she was prepared enough to remember to ask me about it.  (Note to self:  My therapist apparently prepares for my sessions.  It would seem that she either has an enviable memory, or actually reviewed my file.  Either way, I wasn’t expecting anyone to be that invested in me and my sad, weird first-world problems.  I suppose for what therapy costs, I should expect this level of attention, and the fact that this was a pleasant surprise probably speaks volumes about our health care system.  But I digress.)

We talked about this food-chucking for a bit. I told her what I had thrown out.  She totally called me on putting it off until the last minute, too.  Good for her.  Being held accountable made me actually change my behavior and take action, so we know that works.

Dr. P asked me how I felt about it.  It was odd; after all the energy I invested in avoiding the task, getting around to actually accomplishing it was pretty anti-climatic.  I didn’t feel stressed, or anxious….  I actually felt somewhat relieved, to be honest.  These two items – unfinished remnants of a binge – were no longer hanging around just waiting for me to fail again.  They were reminders of times I’ve failed in the past – but they were also a promise that I’d mess up again later.  Who needs that kind of pressure?  OFF WITH YOUR HEADS, toxic (yet delicious) chocolate PB and nutritionless (and enticingly crunchy) greasy potato chips.  Out you go.  We only have room for fabulous here!

Her other question, though – why did I hide this from my husband?  I thought that was a fair question.  Really, as much as I gripe on here about how much I hate his T-shirt collection, he’s been nothing but supportive regarding my “food issues.”  Dr. P wondered if the hubs saw me actually throw out food, would he think I was suddenly “cured” of my aversion to tossing things, and nag at me when it wasn’t so easy next time?

I really don’t think that was the issue.  I really just wanted to avoid questions.  For one, the hubs really would like me to gain a couple of pounds – so if I’m throwing “fattening” food away that he knows I can eat large volumes of, would he maybe wonder if therapy was good for me – or if I was going at all (maybe sneaking off to Weight Watchers instead?)  Or would he start to wonder what food I actually DID eat, and what I threw out when he wasn’t looking, so I could fast/starve while making it appear I had eaten much more than I actually did?  (He knows I used to do this all the time in high school. Dang courting phase of the relationship where I spilled my deep dark secrets.)

So, since therapy is fairly new for me, and since I think it’s helping somewhat, I didn’t want to upset the apple cart by introducing new opinions.  It’s just me and Dr. P for now, with guest appearances from my pantry’s evil villains.

Incidentally, this was the first therapy session I had where I didn’t bawl my way through an entire flat of tissues.  Progress?  Yeah baby.  I’m wearing my victory like a sassy new pair of heels.  <strut strut>

The real test will come in our next session, where we are going to talk about the hubby’s T-shirt collection and how I can better handle the wearable hate mail…but that’s not for two weeks.  I have time to ride the victory wave.

P.S.  Did I just write 900 words about throwing away a jar of peanut butter?!?  Seriously??  I’ll take “Things That Only People With Food Issues Understand” for $500, Alex.

Letting It All Go To Waist

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So let me give you a glimpse of what the insides of my thoughts look like when I’m stuck in the eating disorder vortex. I’m going to try to organize this into outline form, but it’s tough, because when you get stuck in this thought pattern, different snippets are flying at you like missiles at hundreds of miles an hour from all different directions and it’s exhausting to try to duck out of the way.

I’m currently stuck in an airport for a couple of hours with free Wi-Fi.  I have a few options to kill time:

  • I could take a brief, energizing walk, followed by a healthy snack and some Internet browsing
  • I could arrive at the airport and panic because
    1. I’m totally starving, which is an issue because
      1. I really have NO BUSINESS being hungry, because I had an ice-cream sundae for lunch – one of those enormous, ridiculous heaps of goo and glob that are simultaneously reminiscent of childhood and totally delicious – Friendly’s, I both love you and hate you for this – and the plan was to not eat for the rest of the day, and
      2. I ate TWO PACKETS of peanuts on the plane, which I’m kicking myself for – gah, two tiny packets of insignificant volume and ONE HUNDRED FORTY CALORIES, ugh, and
      3. there really aren’t any decent gluten-free options at the airport, and I’m tired and I’m stressed and
      4. CANDY CANDY CANDY CANDY
    2. Surrounded by empty wrappers, the harsh fluorescent lighting reflecting the guilt back at me like Hell’s disco ball…I hate myself.
  • Repeat the 2nd bullet above, 1-3, about six times.  Pace around for about twenty minutes while repeating this cycle.
    1. While trying to break the cycle, I realize – Hey, there’s a Wendy’s.  I can have chili.  That’s decent, right? Oh, and a baked potato.  Because potato is a vegetable, or a starch, or something, as long as it isn’t fries, and if I get it without the cheese that’d be OK, right? I know I’m over my calories for the day, but I’m supposed to not be obsessing over this stuff, and OOH LOOK CHOCOLATE <slaps self> Chili. And a potato.  NO CHEESE.  That’s too much.  This together is about 345 calories and I KNOW you ate too much today but I PROMISE this will NOT make you fat.  Yes, I know you’re already fat.  But just EAT THE DAMN CHILI so you don’t completely crash here, you’re coming off the sundae and I KNOW it feels like you’re losing your mind but I PROMISE it’s just the sugar and YES you will be OK if you eat the potato and the chili.
    2. Burn 87 calories walking through the airport.  (Yes.  I measured.  That’s what smartphones are for, after all.)  Get the freaking potato.  Get asked twice “are you sure you don’t want cheese?”  Gee, thanks.  Usually I only need enough willpower to make my order.  <eyeroll>
    3. Eat the chili and the potato.  Note that it would have been much better with cheese.  Feel virtuous at the sacrifice.  Scrape bowl thoroughly with spoon and tip dish up to face to get every last morsel.  To the horror of others waiting at gate A33, proceed to lick out bowl.  (Dude. If this isn’t your first time in the airport, undoubtedly you’ve seen weirder.  Deal.)
    4. Sit and write, because as much as you’d rather eat your feelings, you know you’ll feel better if you get some of them out.

So, to the rest of the world, I can pretend today was the first bullet – but anyone with food issues could have written bullets 2 and 3, which were my reality.

I’ve been putting off writing this week.  I had therapy last Friday, and dang it, therapy is HARD.  It’s an hour of crying, and I don’t even really know why….

Interestingly, my therapist says I do not have an eating disorder.  To which my first response was, “oh yeah?  I’ll show YOU!”  And I measured every bite I ate this week, and ran 14 miles, and was on my way to proving her wrong until I fell off the fence a bit today.

I also have some homework from therapy.  And since I go back on Wednesday, I best get started on some of it.  (I always was a pretty good student.  The pressure for straight As pales to the pressure to be thin.  In comparison, school was kind of a breeze – much easier to get an A on a paper you can finish – hand in and hand off – than to work constantly towards a goal of perfection that you can never reach.)

My homework is based a bit on what we talked about – that I was having a hard time stopping the evening binges lately.  I seem to have a need to fill the time between “home from work” and “bed” with food.  She wondered if I was self-medicating (wow.  Sorry, but duh) since I was primarily stuffing my face with carbs (kettle corn, with cheese popcorn if I’m out of the former, and chips.  This is progress, sort of.  It’d be entire boxes of cereal if I allowed myself to bring them into the house.)

We also discussed my need to finish things off – when I’m in binge mode, I can’t stop myself by throwing things away.  I have no idea why this is – I’ll be eating, and feel sick and stuffed, and KNOW I need to get away from the food because it’s no good for me – but I canNOT throw it in the garbage.  It’s baffling.  Occasionally, I can save some for later (yay!  another opportunity to binge and hate myself!) but why can’t I throw it in the trash?  It’s not like I get charged more if I don’t finish it.  No one comes to my house and fines me.  I don’t get a refund for an empty container.  Why I insist on wedging it down my pie pit is beyond me.

But I do.

So the homework was:

  1. Write in the evenings.
  2. Go for at least one evening walk with your husband each week.
  3. Change self-talk to “I don’t feel comfortable….” (instead of “fat” or “this weight doesn’t work for me”)
  4. Throw away some food.

This was a week ago Friday.  Since then, I’ve come up with some great excuses as to why I haven’t done this stuff yet.  (Hey, good excuses DO take some effort!)  I was really busy at work and didn’t get home until after 7 most nights.  And I didn’t binge once this week (today excepted, kind of.)  And while we didn’t walk in the evenings, we did go for four morning runs this week.  (Okay, okay, my prime motivation here was weight loss.  But IT TOTALLY COUNTS because a good run clears my head…right?)

Sigh.

I won’t even get in to #3.

This leaves me with #4.  Throw away some food.  When she suggested this, instantly my mind went to the remnants of my last binge:  a bag of kettle-cooked potato chips, about 2/3 empty, and a jar of the most dangerous and delicious food on the planet – dark chocolate peanut butter.  (WARNING – viewer discretion is advised.  This shiz is addictive and dangerous.  Really, don’t click this.  Just.  Do.  Not.  Go.  There.  Unless you’re one of those people who is all like, “I don’t really see what all the fuss is about chocolate,” in which case I don’t understand you and we can never be friends.  But if you’re one of those people, you probably have zero interest in this blog, anyway.)  About 1/4 of the jar was sitting there, quietly mocking me from the kitchen cupboard, just waiting for me to succumb….

So I left my appointment with those two things in mind.  Throw away the chips and the chocolate peanut butter.

Guess where they are?

Still in my pantry.

Waiting.

I did eat one and one-half ounces of chips with dinner one night.  I know I was supposed to throw them out, but look at how disciplined I was, eating just a serving and a half!  I’m a model of moderation!  I can handle this!!  So they can totally stay, right??

But there the peanut butter sits.  Untouched….but not thrown away, either.

I wonder why I can’t just…pitch it?   I’m amazed by its power over me.  A small, three-quarters-empty jar of nuts, sugar, and chocolate is holding me hostage like a mouse in a glue trap.

I have three days to carry this jar six feet from the pantry to the garbage.  So why don’t I just do it?  What am I afraid I’m tossing in the trash?  What part of me am I discarding?  What becomes vulnerable if I put this piece of armor on the compost heap?

It’s just food, after all.

<sigh>

Driving in the Wrong Direction – Where Can I Turn Around?

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Rough day today.  I’m not exactly sure where things went sideways, but it was probably halfway between Expectation and Reality, when I made that sharp left at Disappointment.

Hubby and I had a whole kid-free day together.  I wanted to do…something.  The weather’s been unseasonably warm – perfect for a bike ride or a long walk.

I cooked a crustless quiche for breakfast (OK, I’m not sure if that’s really what it is.  You beat 5 eggs, add a cup of milk, and whatever spices and veggies you want.  Maybe some cheese,  Bake in a pie plate at 350 for 45 minutes.  It’s not REALLY quiche, but doesn’t “crustless quiche” sound fancy enough to be special?)  It turned out great.  OM NOM NOM

Afterwards, the hubs decided that he’d really like to go see the automobile show.  I thought that’d be fun, actually – while I drive a sturdy Toyota, it’s fun to look at Alfa Romeos.  So I went online and got us a couple of tickets, personalized – check out our special names:

Tickets

<snort> I kill me.

The show was…nice, I guess.  We saw two cars priced at over $250k (yowsa!) as well as one with a giant, hot-pink stuffed unicorn on top of it.  (Sadly, there was no price tag on the unicorn.)

As we walked around, though, I just couldn’t help feeling like I was a million miles away from my husband.  He was right next to me, but I just didn’t feel like we were connecting.  He seemed to feel something – he even commented on how much he was enjoying just being out with me.  I enjoyed it, too, but I just didn’t feel very close to him.

Part of the reason?  Yes, he wore one of THOSE shirts.  So, although I tried to look past it, I had to walk the show next to GODLESS HEATHEN.  And to further rub lemon juice into my paper cuts, he proudly shared with me that the dude at the mini donuts counter absolutely CROWED about his shirt, and that he gets a lot of positive comments on it.  Sigh.  I’m sure you do. From everyone but your wife.  But I guess that doesn’t matter.  And I guess shouldn’t matter that people will assume I love your shirt too, if I’m with you.  But I don’t.  I hate it.  I want to burn it, and the others, in a fiery pit, after shredding them with the lawn mower.

(For the record, I did not have any mini donuts.  They smelled wonderful, and they taunted me the entire time we were there.  But I’m not supposed to eat wheat, and I know that they probably have about 100 calories each, if not more, so I only would have enjoyed them for the fifteen seconds it took me to inhale the bag.  So I refrained.)

Later, we stopped at Target to get lights and a lock for my bike.  (My knee’s been bugging me, so I was hoping I could ride on the mornings I couldn’t run.)  I suggested we go back home, grab an early dinner, and get back outside.  Bike ride, walk, something.  He wasn’t feeling it, but thought if we went home and ate, he’d perk up.

So we did that, and about an hour later, he decided he still didn’t really feel like going on a bike ride, and really wanted to work on the bathroom (he’s re-tiling our bathroom.  Which is great, and I sincerely appreciate all the work he’s doing on it….but I wanted to go outside, darn it.)  So I decided to attempt to install my bike lock.

It shouldn’t be hard, right?  it’s a bike lock, not a rocket ship.  But the course was charted now; I was in a bad mood because I WANTED TO PLAY, not work.  My bike was in the shed – this alone got my blood pressure rising.  (A little history:  last fall, hubby decided that the garage was “his” workspace, and that the bikes would be perfectly happy outside.  For the winter.  In the midwest.   I threw a fit, because it’s MY bike, and I own the garage, too, and even if he thought my bike would be fine out in the elements, I DIDN’T WANT IT THERE.  I could not understand why there wasn’t room for my bike in our garage.  He told me I was overreacting and just didn’t understand why the hell it mattered.  Well, it mattered because it was important to me, but since I couldn’t seem to explain that, the bikes were evicted from the garage.  As a compromise, they were put in the storage shed.  So going out there to LOOK at my bike reminds me that it SHOULD be in the garage…and starts the downward spiral of mad.)

I found the key to the shed – it was on hubby’s key chain.  And my temper flared yet again.  Great.  He has the only key, and it’s on his car keys – so if he’s not home, I can’t ride my bike.  And right now, THIS WAS NOT OKAY.  I wanted access to my bike 24/7, it’s MY BIKE, after all.  (Not that this has ever HAPPENED, mind you.  I’ve never felt the urge to take a random bike ride when the hubby wasn’t home.  But it could, and this. was. making. me. FURIOUS.)

Breathe, Kate, breathe.

I attempt to install the bracket for my new lock.  Of course, there were no instructions, and I actually ended up futzing with that stupid thing for a half hour before I determined that one of the nut/screw combos was defective.  There was swearing.  I believe the walls of the shed started to melt, but I can’t be sure.  There was lots of throwing things and stomping.  I gathered all the little parts so I could return the blasted thing later.

Now what?

Well, since we’re not doing anything FUN, I may as well clean up the yard.  At least I’ll get some exercise, and it has to get done sometime.  I got my tools, and for the next hour, I raked and I trimmed and I pulled.  And I got madder and madder and more and more frustrated.

Finally, two large bags of yard trash later, I put the tools away.  I went inside.

And I completely fell apart.

I hate when this happens.  In the moment, I can’t explain why I am so overwhelmingly sad – I just AM.  It’s only later, when I’m writing, that I realize it’s the disappointment and frustration I’ve been bottling in has burst out like an overshaken soda.

The hubs is usually really good about this. But when I tried to apologize – tried to say I was sorry I sometimes get this way, I was sorry I couldn’t articulate things better – he scolded me.

<sarcasm>This totally fixed the problem, and I was in a GREAT mood forever and ever.</sarcasm>

He said I shouldn’t apologize because while I was sad, I wasn’t doing anything to HIM.  But…I know my moods are tough to live with.  I know how difficult it can be when your spouse just gets in a bad place.  And I just wanted to acknowledge that.

But he scolded me.  And it hurt.  So I shut up.  And moved even further away from him than I was before.

I sat outside for a while, and decided to look at the lilacs we had planted last year.  I thought they might be budding soon.  And I discovered that the lilac in front of the house – the one that promised to sprout beautiful, deep purple blossoms in the spring – was chewed up.  It was a barren bunch of sticks.  The ends of each branch, which should have been filled with hopeful hints of spring, was bitten off.  Every single bud, gone.

Except one.

They say that lilacs are very hardy plants.  I’m told you can cut them back nearly to the ground and they’ll spring back.  So maybe, just maybe, this bush I planted last year will manage to survive.  Maybe if it still has one bud, It can grow back and be something magnificent.

I don’t feel like I have any buds left today.  I know I must…I just can’t feel them right now.  I’m just overwhelmed with sad.  And I don’t know how many more buds can snap off my marriage before someone no longer recognizes it and unceremoniously mows it down when cutting the grass.

I can put a wire cage over my lilacs.  That will give them a better chance to grow.  I’m just not sure how to protect my marriage or myself.  I don’t know how to shield my soul from all the thorns, slivers, and skinned knees that make it hard to thrive.

I’ll keep trying.  I’ll keep breathing.  And right now, that’s enough.  That will get me through until tomorrow when I can start fresh and try again.

The Things We Learn From Trees

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Because the hubs and I are a hip, well-connected couple accustomed to burning up the trendiest activities on the social scene…we spend a lot of time on the couch perusing Netflix shows.

Sometimes, we have a tough time deciding what to watch.  We don’t always agree on what constitutes good entertainment.

My list:  What Not to Wear.  Friends.  Anything qualifying as “food porn” (i.e. Man Vs. Food, Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins.)  Say Yes to the Dress.  <hangs head in shame>

(Actually, wait.  There was something worse on Netflix for a while.  It was one season of this show called Bridalplasty.  If you’re wondering if the name alone should have you cringing, the answer is, obviously, yes.  It was a mix of Bridezilla, The Bachelor, and Mean Girls.  Each week, twelve hopeful brides would compete (for the life of me, I cannot remember the challenges.  Stuff like naming the designer of crystal?  Pin the boutineer on the groom?) and the winner got a full plastic-surgery makeover AND a dream wedding.  If you won that week’s challenge, you got one plastic-surgery procedure and/or a dream wedding item (dress, flowers.)  It was a dramatic, hot mess.  And the reason I know so much about it is because I watched the entire season.  I should be banned from society.  I’m clearly not fit to be around children.)

His list:  Earth and space science.  Military history.  Things that blow up.  Transformers.  Tosh.0.

So you can see there might be a slight disconnect here….Our “Suggested for Kate” list is slightly disturbing; I think the logarithm just threw its hands in the air, stuck a bunch of random 80s cartoons and reality shows into our feed, and curled up in the fetal position under the futon.

However, Netflix being a rich, untapped oil well of time-suck with a huge variety of subjects, we have been able to find a few things we agree on.  We like stories about the supernatural and the afterlife.  Documentaries about how things are made will keep our attention (especially if they’re about food, of course!)  We enjoyed Weird or What? with William Shatner (who I find awkwardly hilarious) – and right now we’re blasting through a season of Modern Marvels.  It’s one of those shows that sounds really, really boring, but once you start watching, you kind of get into it, and you accidentally learn stuff.  Plus, they had an episode ABOUT SHOES.  SHOES!  SHOES AND SCIENCE!

So one of the episodes we watched recently was about wood.  Yeah, wood.  Like from trees.  Which is odd, because wood isn’t exactly modern, is it?  But it is sort of a marvel.  For example, I marvel at how many leaves one tree can produce.  If I were that efficient, I’d be running marathons while programming robots in space to stop tsunamis and redirect the tidal energy into washing my windows.  But since I’m not, I’ll just sit here in my cozy recliner and share with you what I learned about wood.  (Don’t worry, it’s not totally lame.)

Accidental Thing I Learned (ATIL) #1:  Trees are deceptively strong and can hold many times their weight – but only from a certain angle.  We already know how trees tend to grow – barring any obstacles, pretty much straight up.  And we all learned in elementary school about the rings of a tree – if you count the rings, theoretically you’ll know the tree’s age, since they add a ring of outer growth every year.  In other words, trees essentially GROW into columns – it’s what they’re genetically engineered to be.

In certain parts of the country, where the water table is high – (think New Orleans, and…well, that’s the only one I can think of.  But there are probably more) – you can’t build houses directly on the ground; they’d sink.  The soil is a silty, clay-muckity mess.  The solution?  Build somewhere else.  But if you can’t, or won’t (humans are invariably stubborn) – use trees.  Lots of trees.  To set up a new building, you first get a ton of wood columns.  You then use a big digger/drill machine thingy (sorry for getting so technical here) to shove the mud out of the way in a hole, and then a pile driver to shove the tree-columns into the goo.  Once you line up a few dozen trees, you have a series of columns that can each support many times their own weight.  From there you level ’em off and go ahead and build your hospital or hotel or whatever.

What makes this especially impressive is that these columns are made of the same stuff that is seemingly effortless to chop in half with your bare hands.  Seriously, little five-year-olds in karate class give a shout and <thwack> they’ve totally split a board.

The secret, of course, is in the grain.  It’s pretty tough to smash through a tree by slamming down on it directly from the top.  Take a plank, however, and you’ll see the wood’s weakness – the grain.  if you want to break a board, you just line up the grain to be parallel with your hand, and while I wouldn’t recommend punching into a hunk of tree without some guidance, it’s significantly easier to break through this way.

In other words – depending on how you strike it – a tree can be overwhelmingly strong, or deceptively weak.  From the right angle, it can support great structures under significant stress and impact.  From others, it’s child’s play.

I guess we’re all like that, aren’t we?  Don’t we all have some seemingly little things that just fling us over the edge?  Give me a mass layoff at work, or a personal tragedy, and I’m a pillar of strength, being admiringly Zen-chill and waxing philosophical all day.  But a curt word from a loved one, or a flight delay, or someone leaving a dish in the bathroom (the bathroom!  Really?!) for THE ELEVENTY BILLIONTH TIME, and I lose my shiz all over the walls, floors, and countertops; I’ll be scrubbing my outbursts off the ceiling for weeks.  Those seemingly minor annoyances cut me across the grain.  While I can be strong under significant adversity, what appears to be a disproportionately small stressor breaks me in two.

ATIL #2:  Charcoal briquettes were created as a way to use up waste in the automotive industry.   Yes, the backyard barbeque gold standard wasn’t invented on purpose – this wasn’t a product to fill a consumer need; it was a manufacturing one.  Back when cars were first invented, they were modeled after carriages – so they were made largely of wood. As demand grew, so did the pile of scrap.  Eventually, someone got the bright idea to burn it down and resell it to cook meat.  A little bit of marketing, and voila!  Garbage turned into money, and Ford Charcoal morphed into Kingsford, and they still make the picnic staple today.  (Although nowadays they’re owned by Clorox.  You can read a more eloquent version of this history here.)

It goes without saying that it’s better to deal with the garbage in our lives – the emotional clutter, the mental baggage – than to let it pile up and rot.  You can only store it for so long before it starts to smell badly enough to distract passers-by.  But to find a way to turn an unfortunate event, a mishap, a broken heart into something not only salvageable, but something clean, shiny, and new that brings something positive to others who might need it?  That’s brilliant.  And probably better for all of us.  Yeah, I know – that’s one of those things that SOUNDS easy, and we all know it’s not.  But I wonder how much farther I’d get if, instead of mulling over the well-known choruses of “woe is me” and “this sucks”, I focused instead on “what positive change can I make from this?” or “what can I learn from this?” or at least “how can I share this experience in a way that’s helpful and not totally preachy?”

ATIL #3:  Wood can stay strong for CENTURIES underwater.  You’re probably thinking what I was thinking – “but wood HATES water!”  I remember from my marching band days how much damage a good rainstorm was theorized to do to my clarinet.  And we all know what a good flood does to your hardwood.  But what I learned is that surprisingly, water isn’t the enemy.  Wood can last for years out of the water, and it has a very similar resilience when submerged.  You can see some evidence of this with shipwrecks that are hundreds of years old – they’re surprisingly well-preserved and haven’t deteriorated much differently that they would have on land, save a few starfish and some globs of seaweed.

What wood DOESN’T like?  Change.  If wood gets wet and stays wet, it’s fine.  If it’s dry, and never gets wet, it’s also fine.  But take a dry piece of wood, and saturate it, then let it dry…and it’s weaker.  Repeat this cycle and wood deteriorates rather quickly.  This is best demonstrated with old wooden pirate ships.  The top half of the boat that sticks up out of the water and doesn’t really get that wet stays pretty sturdy.  The bottom of the boat, that’s always underwater? Also pretty solid.  Where the boat starts to fall apart is at that line where the boat meets the water – the constant transition of going back and forth from wet to dry to wet again causes the boat to lose its integrity.

Now, you and I both know we can’t entirely control change.  Things change when we least expect them to – you can be ambling along at an unobtrusive pace when life suddenly chucks us curveballs and trap doors and the occasional fire-breathing dragon.  But there’s a lot we can control to be better prepared.  Just like you wouldn’t put a wooden boat in the ocean without some sort of wax or fiberglass coating to protect it, neither should we barrel through life without some sort of shield.  I’m not saying you should put up walls and lock people out – that would be shielding ourselves from being human, and let’s face it, if you hide from the pain life springs on us, you’ll also miss out on all the joy, too.

But we can certainly prepare ourselves, mentally and physically, for the inevitable stumbles and storms.  We can meditate.  We can pray for peace and strength.  We can put down the pizza and the Pop-Tarts and eat more green things.  We can exercise; we can stretch, we can sweat, we can think, we can learn.  We can shut off our iPhones at a reasonable hour and rest. We can give a lot of hugs.  We can express gratitude.  We can allow ourselves to be loved, and we can return that love.  We can stop being so hard on ourselves when we miss perfection, and instead work on having a generous and kind spirit.

Sometimes the boat has to meet the water.  There’s no avoiding that.  So I’ll pack my life jacket and do my best to continue to sail.

So A Bag of Kettle Corn Tried to Kill Me….

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Please allow me to share my tale as a warning to those of you who think that this pillowy, salty-sweet, crunchy bag of delight is safe.  It’s not.   Well, it probably is, kind of like saccharin is – if you ingest it in typical, socially normal amounts, it’s probably not going to give you cancer.  But if you are prone to excess, and slog back cans of Diet Fizzy Delite by the case, it just might hurt you.

In my defense, they are selling mighty big bags of kettle corn nowadays, and do you think there’s a SINGLE warning on the stuff?  Anything like, “CAUTION: Read the bag, moron, and pace yourself.  This is NOT a single serving.  You will NOT be labeled a quitter if you use a chip clip and have leftovers” ?  Nooooooooooo.  Not a thing.  So if you use food to self-medicate – BE WARNED, kids – this one is dangerous and not to be underestimated.  And as you’ll see – this wasn’t ENTIRELY my fault.  I was provoked.  I needed help coping, and the kettle corn was readily available….

Let me give you the back story:

Last weekend was the first one in a couple of months where the hubby and I had a weekend together.  No kids, no plans.  I really wanted us to have an old-fashioned date.  I wanted some quality time where he and I did something together other than get groceries or home-improvement supplies.  I suggested the local science museum, the art museum, the comedy club….

His reply was “anything sounds good.  You pick.”  GAH! I HATE THAT.  Does that mean that everything actually DOES sound good and he really does NOT have a preference?  Or does it, as I fear, mean that he really would rather do something else that I haven’t suggested yet?

The lack of enthusiasm caused us to bleed away Saturday futzing around in indecision.  I rested.  We ran a couple of quick errands.  It was OK, but I really wanted us to, you know, reconnect, and this was one item I was unable to find at Home Depot.  I was sad, listless, and a bit lonely.  So I opened the new bag of kettle corn that I had just purchased from Costco the night before.  (Yes, I should know better.)  I stuffed my feelings back with bite after bite of cane syrup and popped corn.  I chewed and I swallowed my emotions so they could leave me alone for just a little while longer.

On Sunday I tried to fly the “date” idea again.  After lunch, we (read: I) decided it’d be fun to go see Lark Toys.  I’d read about this place, and thought its retro toys and carousel would make a nice day trip.  (Trust me.  I know the creepy Santa on their home page would lead you to believe it’s a trap, but it gets lots of good reviews and is locally quite popular.  I swear it is not a trick meant to lure you into the lair of creepy gnomes and possessed antique dolls with pale skin and glassy, unblinking eyes….)

Hubby agreed to drive, and I agreed to let him.  And the drive was actually quite pleasant – he toned down the testosterone display (he usually drives like a rabid cheetah in search of a fresh kill), so I could actually enjoy the ride, as opposed to “tolerate” it (read:  death grip on the door handle and praying for a divine dose of Xanax.)  The drive was really pretty, too – lots of cliffs and bluffs, lakes and rivers, and several small towns one could only describe as “quaint.”

The toy store was lovely.  Not an electronic toy in sight.  It was filled with all sorts of whimsical things – dinosaurs, wind-up tin toys, puppets, building blocks and logs, and active toys to catch, throw, and jump with.  These are the sorts of toys, I’m sure, that parents think are good for kids…unfortunately, given the choice, our little cherubs end up gravitating towards iPads and X-Boxes, and sadly, even the best of us get tired of fighting them and eventually just let them plug in.

The hubby and I had a pleasant day, mostly.  But there was, frankly, something bugging me.  The hubs had decided to wear one of his “special” T-shirts.  I think I mentioned previously that he had recently acquired a collection of in-your-face anti-religion T-shirts, and he decided to wear one today.  Now, to be fair, it was one of the more minor ones…but dang it, he KNOWS I hate them.  And I decided to take it personally that he chose to deliberately wear one on our DATE.  I thought about mentioning it to him before we left – but honestly, what good would that do?  He’d probably change into something else, but it would certainly irritate him and the mood would be dead, and it wasn’t easy to break our inertia to actually get us headed on some sort of a date in the first place…so I attempted to suck it up and try to enjoy the day despite staring into the flame-embellished “HERETIC” written across his chest.

And I guess I failed.

We got home, I cooked dinner in a very quiet house while he played some video game (the current favorite is Destiny, which I call Density, because it’s funny every.single.time.  I am so clever. <chuckle>)  I made a very nice, healthy dinner of Italian stuffed peppers (I use this recipe, and it’s great.  Note, this EASILY makes enough filling for 3 peppers, and I invariably have a spoon or two of filling left over that will only fit in my pie hole.  (Can’t waste it, ya know.)  I don’t put the sauce on top, and I mix up the cheeses depending on what is 45 seconds from going bad in my fridge.  But if you like bell peppers, these are really good.)

And later, I sat on the couch, feeling the same listless, lonely emptiness I’d felt the day before, now highlighted with the fly-in-the-otherwise-lovely-salad disappointment of the day and the fourteen-shades-of-blue Sunday night blahs…and I once again reached for the kettle corn.

And I finished the bag.

I FINISHED THE BAG.  THE ENTIRE FREAKING BAG.

TWENTY-FOUR (!!!) SERVINGS OF KETTLE CORN DOWN THE CHUTE IN TWO DAYS.

I’m not sure if I should be pitied, embarrassed, or high-fiving myself.  (I’ll go with Door #2, Alex.)

So on Monday, I had a well-deserved food hangover.  I was bloated and puffy and had a bit of a stomachache.  (And I’m sure you’re thinking, “Dude.  DUH.  You ate a bag of popcorn meant to feed a small village for a week IN TWO DAYS!”)

Otherwise, it was a normal day.  I worked.  I came home from work.  I made a tuna melt.  I did a load of laundry.  I called my kids, who were at their Dad’s.

About five minutes after I hung up the phone, I suddenly went into labor.

Now, this is concerning for a number of reasons.  One, I’m in my 40s.  Two, I’m not pregnant, to my knowledge anyway.  I had my tubes tied about ten years ago, and if I remember biology correctly, if I AM giving birth right now, this baby has only had a two-week gestation period. Three….it f@$(#@ HURTS LIKE HELL.

I didn’t mull this over for very long (see #3 above) before I told the hubby that I probably needed to go to the hospital.  In about 10 minutes I had blown past “maybe this is just gas” to realizing that the pain was not only THE WORST THING I HAVE EVER FELT, but that it was coming in waves.  Every 3-4 minutes or so, I’d get a brief, 5-7 second respite where I didn’t feel like ripping out my uterus with a fork would be a relief.

The next couple of hours were a blur.  I’m not sure how the wheelchair appeared.  I remember shaking quite violently from the pain.  Somehow, they got an IV started (they must have a sniper on the needle ward.)  I recall being asked how bad the pain was, on a scale from 1-10.  (I believe I said “fourteen.”)  There was morphine.

And then there was relief.

All of the usual tests were run. CT, ultrasound, tubes of blood.  This all took a while….Interestingly, for the CT scan, they had me drink the contrast instead of injecting it.  The nurse said – AND I QUOTE – “because you’re skinny, this will help us get a better view.”  SHE CALLED ME SKINNY.  <swoon>  I may marry her.

By now, it was well after 3 AM.  The doctor came in to deliver the diagnosis:

“Well…we don’t know.”

EXCUSE ME?  I nearly DIED here.  (Ok, cue the melodrama.  To my credit, I was in an insane amount of pain.)

“There is no definitive cause for your pain.  There are some things that may have contributed…but we can’t say why exactly this happened.”

Possible Cause #1:  My bloodwork showed that I was a little low on potassium.  Potassium deficiencies can cause muscle cramps.  So this could have been a Charley horse in my babymaker?  REALLY?  Who does this stuff HAPPEN to???

Possible Cause #2:  “You did show a moderate amount of stool in your colon.  Sometimes, in very thin women, the wrong mass in the wrong place can cause a significant amount of pain.”

(I cannot believe I just wrote that on the Internet.  Humiliation, party of one.  But – did you notice?  SHE CALLED ME THIN.  That’s TWICE now.  It’s OFFICIAL!!!)

“Have you eaten any high-fiber foods lately?”  I shook my head innocently.  “No…nothing I don’t normally eat…?”  (NO WAY was I admitting to my gluttonous debauchery.  NO.  WAY.)

Possible Cause #3:  It’s a virus.  You should feel better in a few days.

Treatment Plan:  Drink this potassium solution to boost levels. (This, for the record, was not yummy.  It was fluorescent orange and tasted a bit like an orange popsicle…that is, if you also blended in the stick, the paper wrapper, and some earwax.)  Take Milk of Magnesia to see if that helps.  And take Advil for pain. (That’ll be $4500, please.)

So we got home at about 4 AM.  And I realized that my spouse had been sitting by my side, holding my hand, for SIX HOURS.

Six long, grueling hours, in the middle of the night, surrounded by germs and doctors and nurses and tests, knowing he needed to work the next day, and not complaining even once.

He was there for me.  In exactly the way I needed.

It’s funny how, just when I think maybe he’d be better off without me, perhaps we’re not well-suited for each other, and maybe he’d be HAPPIER without me sighing and pouting and disliking this and frowning about that and HATING THOSE STUPID T-SHIRTS…something like this happens that shows me in high-definition, high-resolution clarity how much he really does love me.

Even if sometimes, I do stupid things like eat too much kettle corn.  Even if I give an obnoxious T-shirt far more power than it deserves.

He does love me, and this week, that’s been enough.

***************************************

Post Script:  If you’re interested….I guess it really WAS a virus – but the kettle corn certainly, uh, contributed.  On Tuesday I took my Elixir of Expulsion like a good little patient.  (It actually tasted pretty good…like the filling of chocolate-covered cherries.  Yum.  Highly recommend as a beverage of choice over the oral potassium.)

Later that night, I had a similar pain episode, but I headed it off with about 6 Advil and a heating pad, and it subsided after about 30 minutes.  That night, my stomach made some unholy noises reminiscent of demonic exorcism.  (It made the cat jump about a foot.  That was freaking hilarious.) There was no more significant stomach pain after that.

I spent most of the week resting.  I slept a lot, and my stomach kept subtlety reminding me NOT to challenge it.  I started to turn the corner at about 3ish on Friday (just in time for the weekend!  yeah!) and today I broke out in a viral rash – this is something that little kids get, but I didn’t start getting until my 30s.  <insert obvious immaturity jokes.>  My typical pattern is that I break out across the torso once I’m over the worst and the virus has started to wind down.

So I’ll live.

But will I buy kettle corn again?

<sigh>  Don’t hold me to “never”….I can be a really slow learner.

Sealed With A Sunset

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Last week, I had the opportunity (read: I was, as we like to say in the business world, “voluntold”) to attend a conference for work.

The bad news:  The conference was about Worker’s Compensation and Safety.  OSHA and EH&S.  Holy snorefest, Batman.  This conference is clearly the equivalent of the ZONK prize on Let’s Make a Deal:

<cue cheesy game show host>

“Congratulations KATE!  YOU have been chosen for a two-day, two-night all-expense (as long as they’re under our woefully antiquated per diem) paid trip to learn things YOU already know about The.  Most.  Booooooring subject on the planet!

“You will receive flight accommodations on the most economical option available, allowing YOU to spend QUALITY TIME in America’s FINEST airports eating the LOWEST QUALITY FOOD money can buy for under $25 during your extended layovers!  Aaaaaaaaaannnnd NOT ONLY will you arrive exhausted, frustrated, and 17% homicidal, you will, at our leisure, be shoved into a crowded airport shuttle where a driver of questionable skill will terrify you with his bob-and-weave rush-hour traffic skills!  Once you arrive at your hotel, you’ll be greeted by the following:

* A broken elevator!

* A room with PLENTY of Keurig coffee, but NO coffee mugs!  And….

* TWO FULL DAYS OF LECTURES in a fourteen-degree conference hall, where you’ll spend nine hours a day hearing ALL ABOUT workplace safety and OSHA!  Congratulations KATE!!!!!”

The good news?  The conference was being held in San Diego.  I live in the Midwest, and it’s the middle of winter here.  Days where the high is in the double-digits are few and far between until April or May (when it VERY RUDELY has continued to snow – IN MAY – for the past two winters.  Even the diehard Minnesotans and Wisconsinites are growing weary of the seven-month gift from Canada.)  So I figured San Diego HAS to be warmer, and warmer = better.  And the conference hotel was right on the beach.  Even with my “economical” flights, I had a good shot at getting to my hotel before sunset the day before the conference.  I hadn’t been to the beach in…um…(carry the one, subtract…uh…twenty years?  Can that be right?  Wow…yep.  Probably more like twenty-five years.)  Too long, in any case.

So the day before the conference, I spent six (!!) hours on an airplane.  Word to the uninformed:  Work travel is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, glamorous.  If you’ve been on a plane any time in the last ten years, you’ve likely rid yourself of that delusion.  But if you haven’t – just know that it kind of sucks.  You arrive at the airport.  You wait in a long line with people who are grumpy, smelly, whiny, or all three.  You remove any extra layers of clothing. You separate your liquids, electronics, and shoes into bins.  Your personal belongings get scanned.  You wait while the person in front of you – clearly an inexperienced traveler – gets sent back through the X-ray for attempting to smuggle dangerous contraband like a cell phone, water bottle, or <gasp> a jar of peanut butter past security screening.

Eventually, it’s your turn for the X-ray, and YOU get scanned. (Yes, TSA can see an outline of your netherbits.  But it’s not a good picture; your clandestine objects look just like everyone else’s, so try not to think about it.)  You rush to join the logjam on the other side of the scanner and, while the plastic bins are coming out faster than the candy in Lucy’s factory, you do your best to quickly jam your personal belongings back into your one allowed carry-on and your one permitted personal item, wedging them in just so, ensuring that everything will still close and fit in the overhead.  (It’s a good thing I was so good at Tetris back in the day.  I have mad packing skills, yo.)

Mad dash to find your gate.  (This COULD be a leisurely stroll, but I’m a horrible procrastinator, and probably didn’t leave home until the last possible minute.  I guess I like living on the edge….)  Sit and wait.  Find out that flight is delayed.  Wait some more.  Line up by caste ranking, but as close to the front of the line as you can, so you aren’t separated from your carry-on due to full overhead bins.  Get your bar code scanned.  Find your seat.  Buckle up.  Ride to de-icing.  Park.  Wait some more.  Insert a variety of potential delays – flat tire, ground stop, weather, or JUST BECAUSE IT’S TUESDAY, and eventually take off for your next destination – a two-hour layover.

Are we having fun yet?  I think, after flying for so long, I now know how cattle feels.  Except at the end of the trip, I don’t go to slaughter, I go to work.  Not sure who is getting the better deal here.

So I FINALLY get to San Diego.  But as travelers know, the airport isn’t really your final destination. Now you have to find your shuttle, and it’s rush hour (of course.)  It’s another hour before I get to my hotel.  And part of the trip involves high-speed travel over a very long, very narrow, very HIGH bridge.  (This bridge is sometimes called the Suicide Bridge. It’s 2000 feet above the water.  That’s a long, long way down….)  Clearly, our driver has a teenage fantasy about NASCAR, or Bump-N-Jump, or maybe the local ordinance prohibits staying in one lane for more than 500 feet at a time.  It’s a white-knuckler over the span, that’s for sure.  And me without a paper bag to breathe into, or a parachute, just in case.

By the time I get to my hotel, I’ve sailed past grumpy, dashed by cranky, and completely missed irritable.  If I was a cartoon character, you’d see FOUL MOOD in an aura-like cloud radiating off my head like steam.  So I get to my room, unpack…and then have my meltdown.

After about 15 minutes of an unspecified rant of I HATE EVERYTHING <stomp stomp stomp> I take a deep breath and notice that there’s still daylight.  I wander down to the beach.

Sunset1

Aaaaaahhhhh.

I kick off my shoes and roll up my yoga pants and head to the shore.  I climb out on the rocks.  I watch the surf.

I breathe.  For maybe the first time all day.  I breathe in, I breathe out, and I just soak in the calm and the beauty.

I spend the next hour or so walking up and down the shoreline, marveling at every shell, rock, and hunk of seaweed.  I stick my toes in the cold surf and let the sand ease away all the baggage I’d been carrying around in my head.  I sit on the rocks, dangerously close to the icy, crashing waves.  And I breathe.

And then…I see it.  I SEE IT.  I cannot believe what I am seeing:

ZOMG SEAL1 Is…is that what I think it is?

SEAL!  SEAL!  ZOMG A LEGIT ACTUAL SEAL IN REAL LIFE!!!!

ZOMG SEAL2I’m awestruck at this little dude, and watch him for a few minutes as he flops up on shore, barks as the bewildered tourists, and then casually heads back out to sea.

And then:

Sunset2

It’s getting colder, but I just can’t tear myself away from this.  The sky lights up in pink and periwinkle and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

And as the sun continues to set, I receive the most fantastic gift as the sky explodes in color:

Sunset3

I’ve never seen anything like this.  It’s indescribably beautiful.

I’m overwhelmed by what I’m feeling.  It’s…peace.  Peace and joy.  I’m refreshed and renewed.  What started out as a boring, frustrating, work-required inconvenience was something I needed badly.  So very badly.  More than I ever knew.

Sometimes, God throws you a small reminder that He’s out there, even when you forget to look.  I’m holding this reminder close to my heart, to remind me that life really can bring joy.

Just keep looking.

This is life’s love letter to me.  Dear Kate, you are loved.  Sealed with a sunset.