Birthday Gauntlet

 

This weekend marks the last of the household birthday celebrations that all cluster around the same week at the end of April. Son turning thirteen, another sixteen, and husband turning studio 54. This week-- lovingly dubbed the "birthday gauntlet" is a predictable major source of stress for me each year. 

I think it's because I feel responsible for making my kids' days fun and special so I worry excessively and put pressure on myself-- but I also enjoy it.

The Best Day I've Had In A Long Time

In love with the color combo of these flowers from my walk

Yesterday was miraculous, but also nothing special. It was one more day that I didn't reach for the kind of foods that trigger my compulsion to overeat. Because of this, I was able to do one thing after the other, without falling into the alcoholic food trap that stops me in my tracks and sends me into a dark tunnel of self-pity and loathing. It was just an average day. I drove my son to school, did my program work, went for a walk, picked up kids, made dinner... but it was the best day I've had in a long time. 

Sultry Sugar Dance

This morning on my way to dropping off my son at school, my head was having all sorts of obsessive thoughts about food. Being the day after Valentine's and all, she entertained fantasies of buying discounted candy and the sensation of imported Swiss milk chocolate melting slowly on her tongue and the soft, spongy sweet first bite of cake. Thank God I finally realized, these are the thoughts of a diseased mind and didn't act on them.

Breaking Through

This is not going to be coherent. It's not going to be a well-thought-out essay, with a main idea and ideas to support it and a thoughtful, meaningful conclusion. It's not going to be an engaging short story about anything super imaginative. It's going to be just writing for the sake of writing. It's going to exist because the pressure I put on myself is immobilizing and I need to break though it. 

I am ready to walk toward the world, to risk becoming part of it. 

                                                            -For Today, September 15th

This is exactly what I haven't been doing. Having a blog but not posting. Drawing inspiration from events, but not sitting down to write about them, to see where those thoughts can take me. Letting the moment pass without acting. Not posting because of the false belief that I can only post a full, completely thought-out essay, and letting that expectation prevent me from even getting started. 

Writing in this blog is my way of walking toward the world. Not writing is walking away from it. To publish is to risk becoming part of the world. It's the thing that makes me feel the most alive and also the most terrifying. 

Anchors

Today, I have eight solid days of abstinence from my newest, deadliest binge foods. I call them the "lesser" salty binge foods, but almost a year of repeated relapse because of them proves they can take me down just like any of my other alcoholic foods. This is me getting completely honest in my quest for entire abstinence. I don't just want to say I'm abstinent, I want to feel that way, too. 

He Died on November 12th

Today, I am feeling out-of-sorts. I'm praying for direction. I am praying for the ability to turn away from powerful urges I'm having to screw sorting out my feelings and seek the immediate bliss of consuming some kind of food to distract me from the harrowing discomfort.