Tag Archives: vanity

Step-Ball-Change and Jazz Hands

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There was one other thing that Dr. P and I talked about in my therapy appointment on Friday.

Dr. P asked me what else, other than the art fair, I wanted to do for my “birthday weekend.” (Other than weigh 15 pounds less and have my husband pay attention to me, you mean?  Sigh.)

I mentioned that I had been toying with the idea of getting a new piercing.  I love body art – I have two holes in each earlobe, a helix piercing, my navel’s done (yeah, I know, that’s SO 2003) and I have two tattoos. I’d been thinking about getting something else done – maybe a second helix piercing, or the tragus (here’s a chart – I like to SOUND hip, but in reality I always have to look up the actual names of the ear parts.) But what I really wanted – and have wanted since I was 18 years old (which was about 150 years ago, I KNOW) – was to get my nose done.

Dr. P was enthusiastic about this.  Overly so, in my opinion.  I threw out the usual excuses (i.e. I work in “corporate America”; not everyone is as free-thinking about body art as I might be.)  However, my current workplace PROBABLY wouldn’t mind…maybe.

Dr. P encouraged me to go for it, reminding me that the worst that could happen is that they ask me to take it out or cover it up.  True.  I do, however, work in HR, and as luck would have it, I JUST updated the company’s dress code LAST MONTH, and one of the (many) changes was to replace the “no visible piercings or tattoos” part with “piercings and body art must be tasteful and in line with the company’s mission and values.”  All of the executives heartily approved the policy, but if I run out two days after I issue it and get my nose done, they’re gonna feel like they were set up.

I said I’d think about it.

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to the art fair.  It went about as I expected.  The hubs came along – eager at first, of course! – and I have to admit he was a trooper.  I actually got about 3/4 of the way through it before he actually said out loud that he was bored.

But, kudos to me and for standing up for MY needs – I told him he could go home if he wished, and I’d call him when I finished.  He actually opted to stay…and I actually opted NOT to feel guilty or rushed about taking my time to enjoy MY day.

Go me!

Despite a gloomy forecast, the weather was BEAUTIFUL, and I found some gorgeous things at the art fair, so I’ll give the artists a shout out here. Yes, of COURSE I bought jewelry. But, like a grownup, I ALSO bought art.  Legit art for the walls.  Wow, I’m so, like, sophisticated and fancysauce here. <raises pinky>

So here’s the haul:

For the bedroom, we bought three prints by Mary Johnston (the ones with trees and leaves, in three different themes/color schemes.)  Our bedroom is lilac (hey, the hubs picked THAT color out!) and these will look really sharp above the headboard.

We also bought Joy, Peace, and Perpetual Motion by Chris Ann Abigt.  Scroll down on the page, past the trees and the rocks, to the whimsical paintings at the bottom.  The colors are amazing – they remind me of Dr. Seuss!  They will be lined up side-by-side over our TV.

I know bupkas about art, but these make me smile.  So they’re mine now.

And for jewelry….it was so hard not to buy ALL THE PRETTY PRETTY SPARKLY THINGS.  I showed an impressive amount of restraint, thankyouverymuch.  After much deliberation, I finally selected an Open Circle pendant by Spirit Lala (side note: that is ACTUALLY her name. FOR REALZ.  I mean, how could you be anything BUT an artist then?)

These are really unique pieces – the fronts are original drawings, and the backs have motivational or inspiring phrases.  The pendant I bought has several colors – orange, red, yellow, blue – on the front, and on the back it says, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

A good reminder, I suppose.

I hope I can do more than just wear it.

P.S.  Oh…one more thing.

I DID IT.

nosejob

I recognize that this may be what we refer to in HR as a CLM – Career-Limiting Move.

But F it. It’s my birthday.  🙂

Two Steps Forward…Three Steps Back

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Last week was a hell of a week.  First, work was absolutely frantic, and I was feeling substantially and simultaneously overwhelmed and underqualified.  Even though I’ve been in this field (Human Resources, super duper exciting, right?) for over twenty years, and I know, intellectually at least, that my boss appreciates the work I do, I kinda have this imposter syndrome thing going on where I’m sure one day someone will notice that, like the infamous Emperor, I’ve essentially been parading around naked, and they’ll all realize that I’m woefully inadequate for the gig and will hand me a box to pack up my things.

Anyway, in addition to work being a chaotic mess, I’ve been sucking wind on the recovery/eating side, too.  I’ve essentially been on a week-long binge that started when I was trapped at the airport last week.  By day, I ate healthy snacks, but once I got home, I was a human backhoe, shoveling food directly from the pantry into my pie hole at an alarming rate.

Which, of course, did nothing for my weight, and hence my self-esteem.

So I ended the week anxious, stressed, and exhausted.  And to top it off, my birthday was Saturday, I had nothing special going on, and I WAS GOING TO BE FAT FOR MY BIRTHDAY.

(Yes, I realize how pathetic that sounds.  I really do.  But suffice it to say it was causing me a great deal of heartache. Rational thought be damned.)

I had another therapy appointment scheduled for Friday.  I came very close to cancelling it.  I mean, by this point, I’d been in therapy for just over three months, and all I have to show for it is a two-pound gain.  WHICH IS UNACCEPTABLE YO

But since I’ve already met my deductible, it wasn’t going to actually cost me much to go.  (And how often can you say THAT regarding ANYTHING involving health care anymore?!)  I decided I’d show up, and if I wasn’t getting anything out of that session, I could always leave…right?

So I went.

And she wished me a happy early birthday (SHE didn’t forget.  My auto insurance company called me to wish me a happy birthday, some clinic where I received two facials in 2008 sent me an email birthday wish, and my THERAPIST noticed it was my birthday.  But my husband?  STILL NOTHING. And yeah, STILL BITTER, party of one, sitting here typing.  But I digress.)

Dr. P asked me what I had planned for my birthday weekend.  I told her that I don’t really “do” birthdays…but that I was kind of disappointed that the hubs hadn’t really planned anything for our upcoming weekend together.  Again.

(One of the things that’s been weighing me down is hubby’s hyperfocus on everything BUT me these days – he’ll spend hours working on projects or playing video games…but when it comes to dates?  Nada, zip, zero.  Even though Saturday and Sunday come at relatively the same time every week, in his world it apparently pops up out of nowhere and he’s struck with the brilliant, innovative plan of “uh…I dunno….I got nothing…what do YOU feel like doing?”  Sigh.)

So, as a preemptive strike, I did some Googling and found that there was an art fair in one of the suburbs.  I love art fairs.  They close the streets and regional artists come to showcase their wares.  You can find pottery, jewelry, handmade clothing, paintings, jewelery, fantastic metal sculptures, jewelry, photographs, leather goods, and jewelry.  Did I mention jewelry?  PRETTY SPARKLY THINGS EVERYWHERE that you just can’t find at Mall of America.

So, since the hubs hadn’t planned anything, I decided that I was going to the art fair. The hubs said he wanted to come along.  I knew he’d be bored in short order.  But, dammit, it was MY BIRTHDAY and he certainly hadn’t offered up any alternatives.  So that was MY plan and he was welcome to join me.

Then, we talked about my week-long binge.

Dr. P:  So, how many calories do you think you ACTUALLY ate last night?

Me:  <panicking at not wanting to say THAT NUMBER out loud>  Um. Well.  1500?  Maybe?  <ha, well over 2000, easy>

Dr. P:  Uh…are you sure?  Because that’s a lot of calories, and…

Me:  Well, fine.  Let me tally it up for you.  First I got home and made a turkey sandwich.  200 calories for bread, 75 for turkey, 110 for lowfat cheese, and I didn’t measure the mustard this time but it was easily 4 teaspoons, so let’s say 20.  That starts you with 405 calories. Then came the chips, 130 calories per serving, 7 servings per bag, I ate over half the bag, so about 500 calories in chips. Then a half jar of salsa, which is 15 calories per serving, 14 servings per jar, that’s 210 calories, so say 100 more, where are we, 1000 right there, and then I ate these little chocolate blueberry things, 5 of them are 230 calories, and I know I ate at least three servings, probably four, so 690 calories if it was three which is 1690 calories but could have been more.

Dr. P.  <blink>  Oh.  So you really DID eat 1500 calories.

I don’t know how anyone can specialize in treating folks with eating disorders and have any doubt that WE KNOW EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE EATING.  I’ve been counting calories for thirty-four years by now, chica.  Trust me when I pitch you a number that I’m not embellishing for the sake of added drama and glitter.  (Interestingly, on my initial intake form, she said I didn’t have an “official” eating disorder.  She may be eating those words now.  Hopefully with some crow and chocolate syrup.)

The good news is that, although I’ve been binging, I’ve been keeping it down.  Not that I haven’t been tempted by the calorie-cleansing benefits of a good hurl – but that’s a very dark alley I can’t even peer into – once I stick a toe in THAT whirlpool, I may as well give it up because I’m gonna drown.  It’s a black hole…a point of no return.

But I DO need some tools to help me stop a binge before it skates off the rails and into the wall – some sort of virtual air horn that bleats “STOP” before I’ve eaten enough food to keep a room of gamers full on a tournament weekend.

Dr. P reminded me of HALT – don’t let yourself get too

  • Hungry
  • Angry
  • Lonely or
  • Tired

While I’ve known of that acronym for forever, and actually rattled it off with her, it’s a good reminder; I think this week’s been a combo platter of all four, and I need to start helping myself to a different buffet.

She gave me some excerpts from a book called Hunger Pains, too.  I asked her if I should read the book, or if it’d be “triggering.”  She hesitated – I think she was a little surprised that I knew that word (thank you, pro-ana sites, for educating me so I look at least somewhat legit when I clearly weigh too much to actually have an eating disorder.) She said she wasn’t sure, and that she’d review the book before recommending it to me fully.

So far, the excerpts aren’t exactly mind-blowing.  They’re useful tips like “think about your feelings before you eat” <eyeroll> and “exercise daily and buy nutritious foods” <are you for real?> and “learn to use hunger to regulate your eating.” <choke> HAHAHAHA WHAT?  I suppose the “Smoking Pains” book is equally useful, telling you not to buy cigarettes and to avoid lighting them?

Much like quitting smoking, I don’t need someone to tell me my food issues are bad for me. I don’t need someone to tell me to stop.

I need someone to tell me HOW.

But, as of today, after my non-birthday and the resulting disappointment, I’ve done a full 180 from stuffing my face uncontrollably, and I’m back on the restricted-food bandwagon.

Binging is SOOOO last week, anyway.

I’m over it.

For now.

Sigh.

Can someone bring this emperor a kimono?

Observations from the Airport

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I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that I travel quite a bit- about every two weeks or so. This is one of those things that sounds quite glamorous and worldly…until you actually have to DO it. 

Today I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of being trapped in one of America’s busiest airports for four long, freezing, germy, frustrating hours. In one of the few airports with NO FREE WI-FI.  OH THE OUTRAGE!!  HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN IN AMERICA. 

Initially, when I got off my first flight, I was thoroughly enjoying the irony. Historically, when I’ve taken this airline, I have a 90-minute layover. But United likes to keep it interesting, so my first flight is 45-75 minutes late – EVERY TIME, bringing my connection to a paltry twelve minutes. (My 5k PR has NOTHING on my time getting from gate E26 to C4. NOTHING.)

But today?  My first flight got in early…and flight #2 is 170 minutes late, and counting. <insert array of colorful expletives>

So here are some observations. 

1.  Even in my travel-disheveled state, I must look OK, because some dude chatted me up.  He was as hairy as a pool ball, had a ball cap resting atop his dome at a jaunty (read: misjudged how low the plane ceiling was) angle, and was dressed in more flannel than the Chicago metro area had seen since  probably buildings were invented, and he was THISCLOSE to asking me to join him for dinner when I just sort of nonchalantly wandered off. Thank goodness I had a cell phone to pretend to be interested in.   I know, rude. But I’m married. And flannel. 

2.  There are no good gluten-free options in this airport. And by “good”, I mean pizza. Or a sandwich. It’s Sunday  night – I get CRANKY on Sunday nights, people! -I’ve been on a sugar bender all weekend (including a particularly naughty threesome involving me and my two favorite men Ben and Jerry) and ALL I WANT IS A FREAKIN PIZZA YO. Or a sandwich. A nice sandwich. NOT AN EFFING SALAD.   Salad is NOT food. It’s what you eat when you’re pretending to eat. 

The oh-so-helpful menu guide on the interwebs tells me that there are some good gluten-free friendly options here. Like… McDonalds. WHAT. OH HELL NO

After wandering around for two hours in a sugar-crashed stupor (nope. Can’t eat that. Not that either. Don’t want this.   Can’t eat that. Really, Chicago- hot dogs, gluten-laden pizza, and Starbucks is the best you can %#%@&$?! do?) I started to quasi-hallucinate. I became <insert angelic choir> One With Foodstuffs. I realized that Food Is Magical and if I wished really, really hard, all the gluten would magically disappear and I COULD EAT ANYTHING I WANTED. 

3.  Magical thinking is dangerous.  Urghhh…never again. <urp>

4.  Magical thinking should probably NOT be followed up by a ginormous bag of Raisinettes. 

5.  Binging in the airport?  Stupid expensive. Sorry, kids- I guess you’ll have to sell plasma and a kidney to pay for college. 

6.  4th flight delay announced. Man sitting next to me blasts out of his seat and storms off in a huff. (Where he’s going in such a hurry, I have no idea. Maybe he spotted an abandoned Segway; it’s certain no actual PLANES are going anywhere anytime soon.)

The seat is very quickly taken over by someone roughly my father’s age. He’s  got his hands on the seat on either side of him, and while he isn’t making eye contact or small talk, I notice that every time I look, it seems like his hand is just a touch closer to my thigh than it was before.

I have to be imagining this, right?  I mean, since WHEN is travel-rumpled post-sugar binge anxiety a freakin’ pheromone?  The vibe I’m casting is slightly less cozy than “F OFF” or “FALL IN A PIT AND DIE”…yet the hand is creeping closer. 

I have no choice. Because I have to defend myself…and more honestly, because I just ate wheat for the first time in 18 months.

I take a deep breath, tighten my diaphragm, and release an abdominal-rippling belch that rattles the pens on the desk six gates over.

And, like a satisfied smoker inhaling her first post-relaxation puff, I exhale a cloud of pepperoni and garlic in Creepy Hand’s direction. 

He quickly jerks his hand away and sits straight up in his seat. (Which I may have melted slightly.)

Success!

And the plane is boarding, finally. I guess Chicago is done with me for today. The airport is ready to spit me out into the workweek-  a bit weary and bleary-eyed, and wary for the next round.

See you in a couple of weeks, Chicago. Next time I’m bringing a full supply of snacks, sneakers, and sarcasm- be warned. 

P.S.  Official arrival time: 3 hours late, on the nose. Bonus: the plane smelled like diapers. Travel is soooo glam. 

Let Them Eat Cake

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Dear Jerkface Coworker:

(OK.  That wasn’t very nice, I’ll admit.  Let me try again.)

Dear Busybody Employee:

(Better.  Maybe.)

I feel the need to address you again after our brief conversation in the break room on Wednesday.

Allow me to refresh your memory:  It was around noon, the day we had our quarterly employee meeting.  As you may recall, refreshments were served.  (This is common; if employees are stuffing their pie holes, they’re more likely to sit and listen vs. make snide remarks or check Facebook.  I know this because even though I work in HR, I’m an employee too, and am probably doing the same thing when the CEO isn’t looking.)

So. Refreshments.  We had coffee cake.  And it appears that the Activities Committee ordered a bit too much, because they were cutting “slices” that could clearly feed a third-world country for a week.  We also had fresh fruit available.

Later, the extra coffee cake was placed in the break room.  (This is where all “meeting room food” goes when the meeting is done – anything you put up there with a “free” sign magically gets eaten before the day shift leaves at 3 PM.)

I wandered up to the break room at about noon to get some hot water for my decaf herbal tea.  I noticed two large cake boxes on a table.  I went over to have a look.

I opened one of the boxes.  There were four gargantuan pieces in there, each likely adequate to choke a blue whale.  I inhaled.  I’ll admit, that cake smelled wonderful – warm, toasty, buttery; vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar.

Our finance dude came up next to me and took a slice.  He added it to his vending machine stash of a sandwich, a candy bar, and a soda, carrying in one handful more calories than I get in two days.  (Side note:  Do men have ANY IDEA how good they have it?  Between their metabolisms, steady hormones, no monthly “surprises”, and earning a dollar for every 78 cents I earn?  It’s no wonder we’re occasionally mad at you for no discernible reason.)

I closed the lid and walked away.

Then, uninvited, you joined the conversation in my head.

“Go ahead.  Have a slice.”

I paused.  I said, very politely, “Yeah…no thanks.”

Let me point out that in normal, polite society, this is where the conversation would end.

But you’re not normal, polite society, are you?  I’m afraid not, as you continued:

“Why not?  Have some cake!”

Why not?

Well, the simple answer is that I don’t eat wheat, and cake is typically a carrier.

But it’s just not that simple.

Cake is full of sugar.  Sugar completely effs with my mood, my psyche, and my inner peace.

And cake has lots of calories.  Fat, sugar, carbs.

So, this torrid threesome will sit in my guts, punching me from the inside as my body tries to digest it.

It will poke the sensitive sections of my brain, judging me for being weak while simultaneously begging for more, more, more – demanding candy and chocolate and cereal and donuts and cake and SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR which you might as well eat since you’re a hopeless, worthless lump of fat anyway.

This single slab of cake will alter my vision, so that when I next step in front of a reflective surface, my wide, flabby thighs and bloated, shapeless gut will be magnified, swallowing up every last bit of self-confidence I carry.

So.  How do I answer your question, rude as it was?

Well, I do speak American.  Specifically, I speak American Woman.  So, biting my tongue (who really wants to tell you to F off, and by the way, rethink the navy tights with the white sandals, OK sweetie?) I sigh, and say,

“Do you know how far I’d have to run to burn that thing off?”

Seeing understanding nods from the other ladies at the table, I turn my back and tend to my tea.  I think we’re done here.

But you’re not done.

You sneer.  I hear you snort.  (Legit snort.  Are we twelve?) I hear you roll your eyes.  And you say, “yeah, RIGHT”, dripping with so much sarcasm I’m afraid you’ll slip, fall, and make me file a worker’s comp claim.

And then you approach me, and repeat yourself.

“YEAH.  RIGHT.  SUUUUUUUURE.”

I’m making my tea and trying not to throat punch you.  That would be, as we say in HR, a career-limiting move, even though you’ve clearly earned a right hook at this point.

I look up. You’re pretty much up in my grill now.

“And exactly how far DO you run every day?”

I can tell by your expression that you’re trying to call me on my bluff.  And suddenly, I realize something.

This isn’t about me.

It’s about YOU.

This is about YOUR insecurities.  This isn’t about whether I run or if I eat cake.  It’s about you, and your struggles.

It’s about facing, every day, the impossible job of being an acceptable-looking female.  It’s about the media-created fantasy where you desire to be able to bake the treats in Good Housekeeping, yet still look like the front cover of Vogue.

It’s knowing that this is impossible, but wanting it anyway.  Because that’s what society tells us to be.

It’s about you wanting validation that it’s OK that it can’t be done.

And somehow, if you can prove that I wear the size I do while lounging on a recliner eating hunks of cake the size of a politician’s ego – if you can show that there’s no correlation between what you eat and how you look, because some people are just born that way – you’ll feel better.

But I’m still mad at you – or, more accurately, I’m frustrated and exhausted by my own demons so I don’t have time or energy to help you with yours.  So I shatter your small light bulb of hope and let you know that I do, in fact, run 3 1/2 miles several days a week.  And I once again decline the cake.  “But, if it makes you feel any better, I did have an orange this morning.  So I suppose I’ll have four Cheerios instead of six for dinner.”  And with that, I leave the room.

I’m not proud of this.   Hey, I’m human; sometimes painfully so.

But now that I’ve had time to think it over, I wanted to say that I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that you, like me, have your own demons to wrestle.

I’m sorry that sometimes, your own voices tell you you’re not good enough.

I’m sorry that you allow the airbrushed, exaggerated media to help define you.

And I wanted to also say thank you.  Because, really, if I think about it, you gave me a tremendous compliment:  You not only think I look pretty good, but apparently, you think I make it look easy.  Like it comes naturally.  And while that couldn’t be further from the truth, it was, at its core, complimentary.  With a little more patience and social maturity, perhaps, in the future, I can respond with, “I will choose to take that comment in the spirit in which I’m sure it was intended, and say, ‘thank you.'”

We women have a tough path – trying to balance career and family, trying to nurture our husbands and children while depriving ourselves, all while attempting to live up to impossible physical expectations.

The best thing we can do is lift each other up. We can lean on each other.  We can applaud our victories, share our joys, and pass out wine and tissues when we’re hurting.  We can work to love our souls and sign peace treaties with our thighs.

We’re all on the same team here.

So, while I can’t eat the cake just yet, I will have just a small dish of frozen custard tonight.  And instead of forgiving myself, I won’t apologize in the first place.

And I hope that the next time there’s cake, you take a piece just because you want one, and enjoy every buttery, sugary, joyful crumb.

Nurturing My Inner Athlete

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So now you know why I’m not the most athletic person (see my previous post.)

But today, I’m getting up early, ON PURPOSE, to run a race.

Deliberately.

By my own free will.  No threats, no guns.

Getting up early.

On a SATURDAY.

To run.

So how did I get here, after a lifetime of being convinced that I was just not athletically inclined?

After high school was over and behind me, I only had to get through some minimal physical education credits in college before mandatory movement was FINALLY BEHIND ME FOREVER.  First, I took aerobics, which graded on attendance – and hey, I can tell time, so I passed!  Of course, I couldn’t follow a lot of the moves, but that didn’t matter – as long as you kept moving, marching in place or some such, you got credit for being there.  March in place?  Heck, I was in the marching band for YEARS – I can march the shiz out of anything.

Next, I signed up for racquetball.  After a few classes, the instructor gently took me aside and said that, given my abilities, if I preferred to just run the track upstairs instead of hitting the ball around the court, he’d give me a C and we’d call it good.  (Apparently, there’s a level of “horrifically terrible” that eclipses your own performance; once you’re so pathetically bad that you’re a hazard to others, it’s a whole new box of goats.)

After that debacle, I generally shied away from voluntary activity.  Oh, occasionally I’d dip a toe into the fitness pool – not because it was good for my heart, not for stress reduction – oh, no – but only because it burned calories.  My distaste for physical activity was trumped only by my need to be thin.  But eventually, laziness, time, boredom, and the fact that I was MUCH better at starvation than I was at exercise led me to abandon the effort.

Then, a few years ago, I tried again.  Years of a poor-quality diet had left me feeling…well, gross.  Sluggish and flabby and…kinda greasy. At this point I had been having mysterious stomach issues, and had begun trying a number of things in an attempt to feel better.  I was cooking – actually COOKING – things with vegetables in them.  I was cutting back on processed (albeit yummy) packaged food.  And it seemed to helping, just a little bit.  And I figured “well, everyone says exercise is healthy – so maybe that’ll help just a little bit, too.”

We live in the Midwest, and the winters can be brutally cold – so exercise had to be something that could be done indoors, or it just wouldn’t happen between November and April.  (Even the heartiest of athletes tends to balk at outdoor workouts when the temperature is 10-20F below zero.  Don’t ask about the wind chill – you don’t want to know.)

The hubs had an old skiing contraption in the basement – a manual-action, dusty, rusty metal thing.  (He had acquired it at a garage sale years ago; how he managed to sneak it into the house without me noticing is a mystery to me.)  It was…kind of big and foreboding.  But, with a little WD-40, it was serviceable.  It was something I could do for a half hour while listening to the radio.  I turned on the local morning talk show and moved my arms and legs back and forth for thirty minutes.

It was something.  It was a start.

I kept that up for nearly two years.

Then, I convinced the hubs to start taking walks with me.  We mapped out a two-mile route and started walking several mornings a week before work.  It wasn’t hard (well, except getting out of bed – that’s always a struggle.)  It gave us a chance to talk; it got me outside in the fresh air.

It didn’t FEEL like exercise.  It was easy.  And I found it quieted my head – just a little bit.

After walking for a couple of years (alternating with the skiing device when the temperature dipped below 15, of course) I thought maybe we should step up our game and try running.  You see, I’d heard that running “burns the fat right off ya” – that was the ONLY thing that was appealing, but for a woman with food and body issues, that was all the motivation I needed.

We didn’t follow any formal program.  (I’ve heard wonderful things about Couch to 5K, and know many people who learned to run through this program, but I hate following directions, and tend to rebel when there’s a process in front of me.  I’m not the instruction-manual type.)  This wasn’t a fancy effort.  We’d walk for a while to warm up, then we’d run until we couldn’t run any more.  Then we’d walk until we were ready to run again.

Learning to run was an interesting and challenging process.  Sometimes, I’d feel like I could run FOREVER, but just wasn’t able to get enough oxygen.  Other times, my breathing was fine, but my legs just could NOT run another step.

(And one day, I found seven dollars!  SCORE!  Ok, not a life-changer, but I was disproportionately thrilled about finding it.) 🙂

Gradually, over time, my legs and my lungs caught up with each other, and I was running more and walking less.

And I kept doing it.

Did my body change?  A little bit, sure.  It wasn’t the promised magic pill to physical perfection – I still struggle with the lumps and bumps; I still frown at the flab, the pooch, and the back fat.

And I don’t look forward to running.  I don’t blast out of bed in the morning like Mary Freaking Poppins, singing a happy song about what a glorious day it is now that I get to go run.  (The day THAT happens is the day you need to lock me up but good.)

But I run.

And when I’m consistent with it…it actually helps.  It clears my mind – just a bit.  It burns off some the cortisol that anxiety and stress have built up in my system.  And when I finish my run, I feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Something I was told I could never do.

Who can run three miles without stopping?  Who can run each mile in under ten minutes?  This girl.  The girl who barely passed high school gym class.  The girl who got kicked out of racquetball.  The fat fifth-grade physical-fitness flunkie.

Who’s a runner?  THIS GIRL.

I am a runner.

I’m running a race this morning.  And I already know I’ve won.

Retail Therapy = Instant Gratification

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Had another therapy session on Friday.  And none too soon, I might add.  I had been stressed and irritable all week – very much on edge, like a cat that you’ve repeatedly pet backwards from tail to head.  As the week went on, I was bristling more and more, flexing my claws and waiting to lash at the VERY NEXT PERSON who DARED utter something mortally offensive, like “Hi” or “What time is it?”

Therapy is one of those spinach-and-broccoli exercises.  You don’t really want to chew and swallow what’s in front of you, but you know it’s good for you do to so, and besides, there isn’t really a more effective way to clean it off your plate.  It’s not like some mental Labrador will come by and happily lick it off for you and make it magically vanish.

So I went.  And we talked about how I had cleaned out my closet, per our last session.  We then went back to talking about my marriage and our relationship.  Although things had been better since he threw out the shirts, I just didn’t understand why I was so angry and irritable this week.

After some back-and-forth, it came out that I’m simply not getting enough attention.  Yep.  Like a spoiled child, I need more focus on ME ME ME to be happy.

I just want some dedicated focus from my husband.

Back story that I should explain – the hubs is, we suspect, on the autism spectrum.  His older boy has the official diagnosis, but in all honesty, he’s just like his daddy.  Back in the day <cue old fogey music and bored teenagers rolling their eyes> they didn’t diagnose all these disorders and spectrums and so forth.  You just sat in class and did the best you could, and if you slipped up, you got whacked with a ruler.  WHICH THEY’D TOTALLY ARREST YOU FOR NOW.

Anyway.  So one of the behavioral markers for autism spectrum disorder is an intense focus on certain items of interest.  Need new shoes?  Drop everything and ORDER IMMEDIATELY.  Think you might need a new car?  Be first in line on Saturday to test drive, after staying up all night reading back issues of Consumer Reports.  Got a new video game?  MUST PLAY UNTIL VICTORIOUS WITH ALL CHARACTERS.

This trait makes the hubs really good at programming.  (Some companies specifically recruit those with autism/Asperger’s to program.  Really.  Check it out!  Diversity is something that a lot of companies claim to embrace, but until they take a swing at neurological diversity, they have a ways to go yet.)

This hyperfocus is also EXCELLENT when we have a home improvement project.  Recently, the hubs redid one of our bathrooms.  It was something of a HGTV “Before” picture – gold-flecked sink circa 1970, dark brown vanity and cabinet that had a thick layer of chocolate brown paint (obviously a failed refinishing project, unless they MEANT it to look like a half-melted, lint-covered Hershey bar,) and mauve tile 3/4 of the way up the wall, with lovely “accent” tiles featuring shiny gold outlines of fish.  The fish even had little bubbles rising from their mouths.  Except HALF OF THEM WERE UPSIDE DOWN so the bubbles were heading south.  (“Mom?  What exactly is the fish supposed to be doing here?”)  Anyway.  Hubs decided we’d redo the bathroom, and he’s spent nearly every waking moment since then ripping out, destroying, re-tiling, grouting, and painting the bathroom.  It’s just about finished now, and looks beautiful, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing.  There were days he got frustrated:

We call this one "Anger Management."

We call this one “Anger Management.”

This is what happens to naughty tile that won’t cut in a straight line without chipping.  (I have no idea what the garage wall did, though.)

So, as of late (several months, at least) – this laser-focus attention has been on the bathroom, the floors, the garage, the kids, the video games, work….but not on me.  And apparently, I miss that.  I miss having him want to spend time with me so badly that he stays up past 10PM.  I miss the dates we used to have – the outings he’d plan, where we’d go to a baseball game, or stroll the art museum, or watching the British Arrows Awards (if you haven’t heard of this, you’re missing out.)

Nowadays, I seem to be more of an afterthought.  He seems to enjoy my company, but not to the point of planning activities for us, or making “us” time a priority.  It makes me sad, sure, but it surprised me to discover that it also inflames my food issues.  Why?  Because when I was ten pounds thinner, I got WAY more attention – because he was worried about me, sure, but it was dedicated attention!  (And the behavioral experts are always telling us that negative attention is better than being ignored; children will misbehave just so someone notices them.  Apparently, I misbehave by slowly starving myself to death.)

Now?  I’m…average.  And average doesn’t get attention.  It’s beige in a world of glitter and rainbows.  It’s flat, dull, and uninteresting.  Blah.

So my homework is to tell the hubs (and we worked on how to say this so I don’t sound whiny, thanks Dr. P!) that I love spending time with him, and back when we were dating, it made me feel very special, valued, and very loved when he’d plan activities for us to do.  And that I enjoy his company thoroughly, and would love to have him plan an activity so we could spend time together building memories and enjoying each other.

(Barf.  I know.  But I need to say it, because it’s something I need, and I need to find my voice and use it vs. silencing it with fistfuls of popcorn and chocolate or shouting over it that I’m disgustingly fat and gross.)

So, therapy was Friday morning.  And since I wasn’t feeling up to any big conversation, and since I had a couple empty hangers in my closet, I decided to go shopping.  (Dr. P approved; even though we realized that it might be an experience that soured quickly, if I could find something I felt good in, in the size I wear now, it might help.)

Shopping?  Don’t have to ask me twice.  <screech of tires and whiff of rubber>

Miracle of miracles:  I found not one, but TWO pairs of pants that fit me PERFECTLY and that I didn’t look completely hideous in.  Seriously, I actually didn’t feel the need to sob uncontrollably, take a flamethrower to the dressing room, and dive headfirst into a pizza.  A MIRACLE, I TELL YA.

I also found this…dress.  I think it’s a dress.  It may be the abandoned love child of Cookie Monster and Big Bird.  I didn’t buy it, so if you head to Saks Off 5th, it can still be yours for the low bargain price of $805.  <choke>

CookieMonsterBigBirdLoveChildDress

Clearly, I will never understand high fashion.

Oh, but don’t worry, kids.  I did get the shoes.

Have I mentioned my love for shoes?  I big-puffy-purple-glitter-sparkly-heart LOVE shoes.  Especially heels.

So after spending considerable time “just looking,” this cute little pair followed me home last night.  How could I possibly say no?  CHECK OUT THESE DOPE KICKS.  I’m in love.

  FABULOUS SHOES

I’m nearly 5’10” in these shoes.  BOOM.   And – of course – they were 40% off.  SOLD.

I realize that shopping didn’t magically fix my issues – it was only a detour on the way to working through some things; a procrastination tool to delay a more difficult conversation.

But, like a mini-vacation, it refreshed my spirits just a bit.  I had fun…and I can’t stop smiling at my feet.  A little burst of happy at a great price is always a fantastic value.  It’s a small investment in my soul.

Be Careful What You Wish For

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A couple of years ago, for the first time in my entire life, I lost a bunch of weight pretty much by accident.  I was plagued by a sick stomach, and generally felt queasy for much of the day.  This was paired with some odd, dull pains in my upper stomach, bloating, and the strangest, most disturbing mushy grinding noises from my lower abdomen.  (These were actually quite amusing – often, I could generate additional noises with a well-placed poke or a brief massage.  I’d record the sounds and send them via text to my kids to gross them out.  You see what you resort to for entertainment when you stop springing for cable TV?)

This came a couple years after my marriage.  While the now-hubby and I were dating, I had admittedly packed on a few pounds, thanks to dates of late-night nachos and Molten Chocolate Cakes.  I had managed to squeeze into a size 9 wedding dress, but I was about 25 pounds heavier than I wanted to be at the time.  So the weight loss was welcome.  I lost those 25 pounds, and then ten more.  At this point, I was loving the weight loss, but figured I best check in with the doc.  You know, just to make sure I wasn’t dying of anything.

Over the next several months, I was screened for pretty much anything that can cause weight loss.  Ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer.  Celiac disease.  Ulcers.  Parasites. Cat scratch disease.  Lyme disease.  Pregnancy.  (Three times.)  The results were inconclusive:  I wasn’t dying of anything, but something was effed up in my immune panel.  My doctor threw up her hands and said “try not eating wheat, see if it helps.”

During all these tests, I managed to drop a few more pounds.  I was loving wearing a size 0, loving when I’d walk into a store and everything was too big, but I was not loving feeling exhausted and ill all the time.

As I was going through this, I did learn that some foods managed to make me feel worse – particularly, foods with white flour and processed sugar.  In other words – FOODS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING.  Twinkies.  Nutty Bars.  Fresh Italian bread.  Those Zingers with the coconut on them.  Cake. Cookies. Donuts.  CAKE.

So I quit eating those foods, and eventually gave up on wheat all together.  And occasionally, when there was an office birthday party or Donut Friday, people would ask why I wasn’t having any. (Because, if you haven’t noticed, people are freakishly interested in what you are or aren’t eating.  I mean, I could light my desk on fire and sacrifice the company’s 2012 tax records while performing an ancient rain dance, wearing only a garbage bag and Crocs, and folks would barely blink. But skip a slice of cake at a company function and suddenly you are the most interesting person on the planet and EVERYONE wants to know what the heck is up.)

So I’d tell them:  “Oh…I can’t eat baked goods.  They make me kind of sick to my stomach.”

Invariably, the response was (I bet you know it, kids, so sing along!) “Wow, I WISH I had that problem!  Then maybe I wouldn’t eat so much!”

Well. About that.

No.  No, you don’t wish you had this. You really do not.  And here is why.

Because when eating a food makes you ill – guess what?  IT TASTES JUST AS DELICIOUS AS ALWAYS.  But after you eat a couple of donuts, or a plate of pasta, about an hour later, it haunts you.  Not just in the usual way – you feel not only fat, gross, and like a complete failure because you YET AGAIN totally blew your diet…as a bonus, you ALSO feel bloated, lethargic, queasy, and drained.  You feel like you’re trying to digest a lump of wet concrete.  (Don’t try this at home, kids.  Suffice it to say it doesn’t feel great.)  So, now you have a double whammy – you can beat yourself up both mentally AND physically with just a single slice of cake!  Two for the price of one!!

Yay.

So, in this process of trying to figure out what makes me ill, after a few years of dealing with this, I’ve come to another surprising conclusion.

Sugar messes with my head.

I’ve finally figured out why I’m such a mess on Sunday nights – because on the weekends, I let my eating “relax” a bit, and indulge – sometimes it’s ice cream, sometimes it’s a gluten-free cookie. (Which generally is not the tastiest of treats, but if you MUST have a cookie, and you don’t want to bite into a flavorless mass of disappointment, try these.  Actually, on second thought, don’t. Don’t even click the link, because you won’t be able to eat fewer than four at a time.  Don’t ask me how I know this.  Moo.)

And by Sunday night, I’m a mess.  Psychologically, I’ve completely fallen apart.  I hate myself, I’m a fat slob, I need to lose ten – no, fifteen – pounds, I’m NEVER EATING AGAIN but OH LOOK SUGAR I MUST HAVE MORE SUGAR CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM CANDY BARRRRRRRRR

<ERROR:  Circular Reference in Prior Logic>

It’s a vicious cycle.  Once I eat a sugary treat, my body releases the food demons.  I’m like a sucrose vampire.  I.  MUST.  FEED.  I.  MUST.  HAVE.  SUGAR.   (I’m visualizing a tray of sugar cookies with terrified faces cowering in fear as I lurk in the shadows waiting to churn them into crumbs.)  It’s an animalistic drive; one I can only sometimes, and only barely, control.

Not only does eating sugar make me crave more sugar, but it also seems to anger those defeating voices in my head.  The voices that tell me I’m fat, and that until I lose some weight, absolutely nothing else matters.  My husband won’t find me attractive. I’ll fail at my job.  I’m a horrible mother to my kids.  And I’m fat.  Huge, wobbly, saggy, weak, worthless, disgusting, nothing.

It’s as if sugar makes the weeds grow.  They pop up and choke out all the peace and harmony I’ve tried so hard to establish and root.  They wilt the buds of hope I was so delicately trying to get to bloom.

I’ve actually tested this theory. I’ve gone for a week or two without any sugary treats, and the stability of my mood is remarkable.  Sure, there are ups and downs, but I can speak logically to myself and back away from the ledge.

Then, once I’ve indulged…well, the baboon is out of the cage.  AND HE AIN’T HAPPY BRO.  I hate myself, and won’t be worth the air I breathe until I get my weight down to 110…105…99.  But I’ll never, ever GET there because I simply cannot stop eating ice cream and kettle corn, along with any random foodstuffs that happen to be innocently lying in their paths.

It takes a few days before I can keep my head above the waves of self-loathing long enough to really be able to see the shore I so desperately want to swim to.  It takes water and clean eating and exercise and rest.  And time.

Last night, I tested myself again.  This week’s leap into the abyss featured a DQ Blizzard.  A stupid Blizzard?  Really?  Not even something GOOD like Ben and Jerry’s or Culver’s, but a lame-o crappy Blizzard?

I’m weak.  Or so the Blizzard is telling me.

I’m working so hard right now to keep the riptide from ripping off my life vest.  I ate fruit and an egg today, and chili and a baked potato for dinner.  No candy, no ice cream, even though the mean, hateful voices in my head are telling me I’d be a size 00 if I had any willpower at all while simultaneously screaming at me to GET A $&%(@$! FROSTY ALREADY.

Sigh.

Why do I keep doing this to myself?!

Because, dammit…sugar tastes good.  The bitter aftertaste doesn’t kick in right away.

It’s still delicious.

It lies.

I wish I could bottle up this feeling and sprinkle it all over all the peanut butter cups and ice cream pints on the planet.  I wish it turned them all a sickly, neon green and make them impossible to swallow.

Until then…it’s like a bad hangover.  I know, at least intellectually, that my body WILL figure this out in a couple of days, and I just have to nurture myself with good food and rest while my body works the poison out of my system.

It takes time to heal.  Things will look better tomorrow…at least somewhat.

Hang on, Kate.  Hang on.

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.

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.

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>