epiphany

Twelve years and twenty-five pounds later, I think I've had an epiphany.

I've spent a lot of time yearning to "go back". Back to the years when the bathroom scale would confirm that I'd made my peace with food and weight. Back when I ate almost exclusively to satisfy my natural, God-given, physical hunger signals. When I liked the feeling of lightness in my stomach and knew just exactly where the line between "too much" and "just right" lay.

Sure, those days I often woke up with the very same thought that greets me every single awakening morning that I've had since.

"You're Fat."

But in those days, the scale that I mostly ignored and shunned would confirm in a factual sum that I was indeed very not fat. And so, I could move on. The hard numerical facts and the clothes that continued to fit verified that all the hard mental work I had done to overcome my compulsions and disorders had indeed paid off.

Fast forward to catastrophic event in my personal life. To surging, edgy, skin-crawlingly intense anxiety. To a magnified feeling of helplessness. And terror. And disbelief.

Then interpersonal conflict, word flinging, and fragmented relationships.

The strangest thing began to happen. I had a figurative space at the back of my throat that opened into a chasm of terror and anxiety. I needed not to feel hungry. It frightened me. I felt completely conflicted about my body. I wanted to be thin, but I felt guilty about it. As though it were selfish (snobbish, superior, threatening) somehow. The hole at the back of my throat wanted to eat more food. I, meanwhile, feared the results, all the while feeling conspicuous in my smaller size, but dreading growing larger.

And so the years of conflict ensued.
I ate more because my body asked for more.
I wanted to want to eat less.
I tried everything to convince myself that I wanted to eat less.
I wanted to be thin again, and to not want, and I wanted the anxiety and conflict to go away.
I wanted to stop growing in size and I was afraid of what it all meant. Afraid that I was just dangling inches above a terrible chasm.

But all the while, I was figuring things out, bit by tiny bit. I figured out what different pieces of the conflict were really about. I figured out how to come (mostly) to terms with it.

I eventually noticed that I really had not regressed into the full-blown horrible years of illness. I noticed that my body was asking for more, but just that. Not endless, bottomless, piles of comfort stacked and scooped in bowls and platters. My body simply did not desire the sense of near empty lightness that I'd loved in the days before. It wanted to be solid to the ground, and not in a physical place of anything that felt like lack.

And so I grew.
Alternately accepting my sense of self, my size, and my voice and then feeling terrified and ashamed of them.
Despising the impossible pressure to be successful, thin, hungry, full, fit, perfect... and then making new resolutions to become all those things.

Push.
Pull.

In recent years, I've noticed a new, fledgling voice. A voice that resonates with one I heard in real time at one of my outrageous dress-up parties for women.

We were standing outside in the frost, wine glasses in hand. We were proposing toasts, and then flinging our wine glasses at the porcelain claw foot bathtub that resides in the back yard.

My friend raised her glass and proposed a toast that has rung in my ears ever since:

"Here's to never being hungry again"

.

She was really and truly quitting. Marching straight into herself with eyes wide open, grinning ear to ear. She refused ever to go hungry again in order to become a size that she felt she ought to be. She decided that maybe her body knew.

.

That it was time to be. To eat. To partake.

.

I think my entire insides momentarily paused as I heard her words. They were so simple, so courageous, so terrifyingly tantalizing.

.

I've been thinking about them for almost a year now.

.

Meanwhile, I've continued on my quest of psyche- detangle-ing. I've read a lot of books, always hoping that I'd get the sort of return on my investment that I'd received back in the eighties when I discovered Geneen Roth and her wonderful, life-changing words. Re-reading her work led me to discover that I was in pretty good health, mentally. I was no where near back to where it had all started. (thank God...)

.

On a more recent Amazon search, I ordered the book Transforming Body Image : Learning to Love the Body You Have by Marcia Germaine Hutchinson. I liked the intro. I liked that she didn't fit the typical bill of perfectly nipped and tucked women who go on Oprah to pretend they don't believe in the lies of the beauty myths. This author was not thin, and she'd worked really hard at establishing how to live out her life fully in the vehicle that she'd been given.

.

I skimmed through some of the guided imagery exercises, and skipped past a section entitled: Worksheet: statement of intent. But after thinking about that idea for a few days, I went back to it. What did I in fact intend? Did I want to be thinner? well... yes and no. Not thin at the cost of crazy. Too expensive. Did I want to "straighten out my head" so that I could go back to being thin? well, that's what I thought I wanted. It's what I thought I've wanted for all these years.

But as I stared at the blank spaces beside numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, it slowly dawned on me.

1. I want to live in conscious awareness.

And that was it! I wanted to stop trying to talk myself out of where I was. Where I am. Who I am. Where I'm going. I wanted to be aware of being afraid and then be gentle in my reply.

I want to stop being afraid that I'm wasting my life worrying, and just listen to the worries. Notice. nod. Skip the lectures. Sit with my own self. Take my time.

And when my mental apparitions arrive in their hazy shapes of disapproving humans, I want to notice that too. Remember they've got their own boo-boos that make them a bit crazy and a touch judgemental. They probably need a touch of the same kind of gentle that I do. Their harsh edges don't have to be absorbed by my own fear of lack and fear of disapproval.

I might be hungry again, and I might not.

But I intend to stay awake for every nuance, every new piece that becomes part of this picture called woman. May I invite you to come along?

A toast then. To women, wherever you might be.

Some Party Thoughts

The abundance of hilarity poses as the baseline of all these wonky parties. But there is another thing that goes on, that a person could miss if they chose not to tune in. There's something a lot deeper than the acrylic nails, cheap nylons, and under-elastized snakeskin minis.

Somehow in shedding our typical wrappings, we lose something else - our safety in whatever packaging we've grown accustomed to. We're given the gift of making new friends without the distraction of superficial judgements based on what "life grouping" we may assume that people belong to. As "cougars", we shared an imaginary identity that opened gateways for exploration that we may not have uncovered at an epicure party in our Sunday best. (not that I have any issue with eating dips for hours on end, dripping mayo on my Sunday School blouse and rayon skirt...)

And one of my favourite things was the joy and beauty we found in each others bared midriffs, lycra-ed thighs, rounded bellies, and plungeing necklines. It was a bold embracing of our femininity. A recognition of our God-given beauty as women without the shame and confusion of inappropriate or unwanted sexual attentiveness. Women too often react in fear to their own bodies, and the bodies of their fellow women. We envy. We covet. We criticize, torture ourselves, condescend to one another.

But on November the tenth, we celebrated. And it reminds me of one of my favourite passages in Geneen Roth's beautiful book: Feeding The Hungry Heart.

"...I have a fantasy that I repeat to myself, instead of turning to food, when I need comfort and nurturing. I am at a celebration with hundreds of other women. It is a summer evening, about dusk, when fireflies begin to play. It is warm and the smell of honeysuckle is strong. We build a fire and set tables around it covered with lovely embroidered cloths. We bring out a glorious array of foods: roast chicken, turkey, potatoes, yams, large colorful salads, nuts, hot wheat breads, platters filled with fruit- pineapple, papaya, mangoes, apples, bananas, figs, dates- whipped dream, cakes and pies, wine and rich coffee. A feast for women, not one where the food is prepared for men to enjoy- or one of those horrible parties where the women gather guiltily around the food table and pick furtively. We eat and enjoy every bite. I add various pleasures, depending on my mood; sometimes we pile all the Cosmopolitans, Vogues, Seventeens, and Playboys on the fire and sing as they crackle and spew. Always we dance and sing, and finally I lie back on the cool fragrant grass. (on a great vintage quilt, I would add) The fire warms the night air. Staring at the stars, I know that this world is mine. I feel the food in my belly, feel it nourishing my body, feel the laughter and strength in my bones; and I am completely and overwhelmingly satisfied." (Rachel Lawrence)

~

Thank you, my friends. Thank you who came, and you who I thought of. You have enriched my life. You have taught me so much. You have expanded the table that is my life, and piled it high with sumptuous, guilt-free indulgences. Not the sort that leave you feeling light-headed, full, and hungry. But the sort with substance, subtleties, bold spices, and life-giving nourishments.

Things that Make you Say.... Hmmmm.....

Going through cupboards the other day, I came across some forgotten bottles of vitamins and supplements. It made me wonder why they had been purchased, and what I had hoped they would remedy in me. Were they related to my medication? Were they purchased to counteract side-effects? It struck me again that my memory had seemed particularily unreliable of late, that I had actually frightened myself by forgetting a common word, and wondered if I would land up being that young mother in a brodey chair in the nursing home dying of ALS or something and my children having to come in three times a day to spoon feed me and wipe up my saliva and pee and everything.

So I called up my old friend google.

Turns out that I had forgotten everything that I had previously researched. Most of my problems could be blamed on the said medication. Excessive yawning, sleepiness, insomnia, farting, constipation, vertigo, vivid dreams, sweating.......... could all be blamed on the treatment. Plus a half dozen or more side-effects that I could still look forward to.

Oh. And there is anecdotal evidence of impaired memory. So, whatever brain power is available after having been awake, sweating and farting from 2:00 until 5:00 am last night, will be further compromised by this other, tiny side-effect.

Maybe I should try to remember to take those vitamins.
Although, I find it even more challenging to remember things when I'm sleep deprived.
I wonder if there is a medication or supplement that I could take for that? And what would its side-effects be?!

Daycare

Proposed poster (hand scrawled in pink crayon) to hang in local grocery store and bank may read as follows:

Lady in Town opens home daycare.
Its all she really knows. She never finished her degree, which probably has to do with her fear of success and fear of failure issues. On the topic of issues, she probably has a great many. Where a normal person could look at events and quickly categorize them, she has the uncanny and entirely useless gift of mulling things over for years on end. She can take the average monday to friday problem and turn it into a bonified disorder and create drama with very few props and only a slight hint of a story line.

Her brain is multi-faceted and fragmented. This means that she can walk past a stack of fabric scraps on her way to picking up a Robert Munsch story book and get so distracted by their colours and designs that she forgets that she ever invited children into her home to read to in the first place. Hence, when she calls; "Just a minute....", its helpful to think of the Biblical passage that refers to a minute being a thousand years and vice versa. She simply cannot be trusted.

She will burn the last pan of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies every single time. And garlic toast. Having placed said item into the hot oven, her mind will tell her that the task is complete, and she will wander off, distracted by some pattern of light on the wall. In time, she may moan; "Dr Penfield.... I smell.... burnt toast", but by then she's probably scrubbing the bathroom sink with her pants down around her ankles. Having gone into the bathroom to pee, she probably noticed that many life forms have set up colonies and governments in the streaks around the faucet and mirror, so after rising from the throne, she likely has begun to evict them before her bottoms have risen to the level of her own sagging bottom.

As she scrubs, someone begins banging on the door, and she herself fights the urge to bang her own head against the wall. This reminds her of the possibility of other latent disorders and she remembers that she and half her offspring need Dr appointments for various undiagnosed anomolies. On her way to the phone, she notices the stack of information given her by another medical professional. She really should sift through that, make some phone calls, make some decisions and follow through.

But the kids are hungry and the laundry has been hanging in sun and the rain for two days now. All she really wants to do is wander down to the local junk shop to see if there are any more scraps of fabric with distracting colours and prints on them. Then she could wash them and fold them and imagine making things out of them while she is busy tripping over the stack that she folded last week thats sitting on the floor beside the oven.

Right. But I think this was supposed to be about childcare. Right. Okay, so......
About the kids. Hmmmmm...

Right. She's home anyway, so if you needed somewhere to leave the kids because you finished your degree, your kids will probably be happy there. There are tonnes of toys and no one has to be careful about the couches because they are so ugly that she's hoping eventually just to throw them in the trash and find someone else's cast-off that's still in way better shape than her ancient germ-infested lumps. They'll be relatively safe because bad things never happen to her, and she'll never be critical of your parenting style since she's so preoccupied by her own. Sometimes she'll sleep in and not hear you at the door, but then because she's obsessive compulsive, she'll feel so lousey that she'll make you an apple pie and deliver it to your house warm from the oven. And she'll apologize repeatedly. Then she'll wear the guilt and humiliation for so long that she probably won't expect you to pay for the childcare for about three weeks after.

So, anyway. I forget why I was writing this. I think I'll wander down to the thrift shop. Its tidier there.

What's a Girl To Do?

There are at least two separate and complete people living inside my head. And I'm not sure which parts of which one to try and kill off, nor am I sure of what weapon to engage. They have both been with me for at least thirty years and so we've become close and familiar, and we depend on each other a great deal. They have both grown and evolved over time and yet they can't functionally continue to co-exist as the space in my head is crowded and neither is truly willing to move out.

One of me is very nearly forty, and more than "okay" about that. I like laugh lines, I like that I'm not dating any more, I like being a mom, I like my job. I like where things are going for me in terms of life quality. I'm not preoccupied with skin care products, sagging boobs, enlarged pores, or wrinkled hands. I quite like the air of maturity that they project. I'm drawn to people who live like they don't care what others think. People full of compassion, and love for their fellow persons, but not trying to keep up with the Jones's (or the Friesens, as the case may be). I like the idea of learning all the time, at my own rate (which isn't the speediest) and finding people both like- and unlike-minded to learn from and appreciate. I like to think of myself as non-judgemental, patient, and genuinely caring.

I'm good with all that.

But, somewhere around grade six, this other embryo began to grow and develop. It was fueled by fear and insecurity, and a desire for some kind of control; a tangible "thing" that I could be responsible for, something that I could excel in and not fail at as I did with so much else, at least in my eleven year old opinion. And so I began to f* around with my body and its intake of food. Or not. I managed to play my game quite well, and stay away from any diagnoses outlined in the DSM right on through the remainder of my public school career. That's six years of flirting. Six years of feeding jekyl and hyde before they in turn began to eat me alive.

Things didn't go well from there, but that's another post or twelve. Suffice to say that I've provided enough background to explain where my alter ego came from, and how long she's been a part of me.

Fast forward to now. Thirty-nine-and-a-half. Pissed off at North American commercialism built on women hating themselves. Annoyed at consumerism that depicts happiness as thin. Disgusted by diet groups dangling carrots on sticks so that women will empty their wallets and fridges to reach out for that elusive, thin happy place. Bored by the idea of women guiltily hunching over low fat dips and berating their hungers.

But I want to be thinner.

I'm up twenty pounds from who I think of as "me". I don't like the way my clothes fit. I don't like going to my closet and being constantly reminded that I have put on weight. I know that losing twenty pounds is too much for my age, and my time and place in this life. But I could really stand to drop ten or fifteen. I've been working on setting my brain right for far too many years to go and join a weight loss scheme. I happen to know that those are poison for me. I hate aerobics and I know that I'll never sustain and activity that I don't enjoy. I'm not willing to give up wine or cheese or ice cream.

I feel like for the past eight years, I've been back at the initial flirting stage. And believe me, I had years and years after my very hard earned recovery period where I experienced total peace and maintained a body weight that I was happy with. That's when something yucky and traumatic happened in my life and I lost an awful lot of ground with my alter ego.

But I'm going to be forty soon. If I'm lucky like my parents, I could have another entire lifetime before I die. I don't want to spend forty years, forty months even, wishing I were a different size and not knowing how to get there without landing up nuttier than a hot fudge sundae. But I don't either want to be this size for another forty months or forty weeks or forty minutes.

Crazy, eh? Doesn't match up with my other person at all.
What's a girl to do?

Fragile But Strong

Bad stuff happens to everyone. People lose children, siblings, health, the sanctity of their marriage. Finances crumble, friendships end, hopes die. And so there is nothing unique about pondering the likelihood of caring for my aging parents. There is nothing unique about feeling hollow and frightened that my brother died before I was quite used to his diagnosis. Still, a wise friend pointed out, its the first time its happened to me, and that makes it unique.

I, and my world, are forever changed. I want to navigate all this "properly", deal with stress appropriately, remember and rely on the one word that God impressed upon me some two years ago: REST. And so in ways I feel strong and determined.

But in other ways, I'm a stupid little kid in water wings, trying to swim upstream.

Who Are We, Really?

The believer-of-Jesus in me cringes a little posting something with a title like that. But only because my less evolved self fears the disappointment I must be to my more godly friends. Ah well, I can only be me with any sense of authenticity. I kind of know the church answers to this question, and I don't think that's really what my core question is anyhow. A favourite blogger of mine is currently dealing with the painful reality of surrendering her mother's mind and personality to that shameless thief: Alzheimers disease. In the post, she raises the question of "who are we without our memories?" I "hmmm-ed" thoughtfully at the question, as I have worked for some years with people harshly changed by dementia and alzheimers. I only ever knew them as ill, since it was their diagnosis which brought them into the care of medical personnal. Still, I often stared into the photographs on their bureaus and walls to try and get a whiff of who they once were. Mother. Father. Professional. Funny, gifted, brilliant, flashy. All was in the past. And it made me wonder who, or what a person is. We describe people by their character, or behaviors, or talents. But is there a core to what a person is? Are we simply bodies with chemicals coursing through us that direct our choices, attributes, and personalities? I mean that question entirely apart from the question of "soul" and "spirit", since they transcend the physical and have everlasting qualities. I'm talking more about the here and now.

This question first exploded in my head some years ago when a close friend experienced her first bipolar induced mania. Her body carried on, but SHE was not directing it. She was gone. My friend had died, but her body walked among us. It held within it some memories of when its rightful owner occupied it, but the memories were polluted and poisoned. Instead of providing a familiar place for loved ones to meet, they twisted and tainted what once was, and perceived old friends as newly identified enemies.

The agony was worse than death. And it begged the question: Who are we really? Chemicals held together by synapse and sinew? A portable lab? A sort of "matrix" existance where we see what we want to see, but can't or don't acknowledge its fragility? If I have more or less of a particular chemical, would I become a person who struggles with rage? artistic excellence? Would I become more, or less likeable? socially acceptable? deceived?

If I were involved in an accident involving serious head injury, my personality could become permanently altered. Is that then the "who" that I am? How do we know that the original "who" is the real one? Is there something entirely untouchable, entirely "core" that can define us regardless of life's cruelties?

And what about something more mundane and innocuous like all the millions of little decisions we make in all the millions of moments that make up the years of our lives? As they develop grooves of familiarity in our grey matter, they shape us into who we are. Are we then the culmination of chemicals, culture, and choices?

And why does this feel like such a scarey thing to question?

Simple Living

The mania of our current society has created renewed desire for the less complicated times of the past. There are many publications out there for you to access that secret information on simplifying your life. But if you want to listen to them, you'll have to get up from your warm computer chair right now, transfer your sorry self out to a cold vehicle, then drive to Chapters where you'll be tempted to spend your hard-earned money on a latte while you're perusing the aisles. While you are there, you'll likely run into that old boyfriend from high school who always makes you feel nervous and stupid. You'll probably see a lot of books and magazines on self-improvement that make you feel really lousey about your current self. You'll notice people who have regularily left their houses since 1981, and notice that maybe that's totally irrelevant because those really wide elastic belts are back in fashion, especially with long, clingy, vertically striped acrylic sweaters. Then you'll kick yourself for having thrown them all out just last week when you went about trying to simplify your life without the guidance of a published author. The affect of these stressors will likely engage the compulsive componant of your mind and you'll soon find yourself in the mall, tossing throw cushions, sweaters, and ottomans into your shopping cart with great abandon whilst casting nervous glances at your watch because you really should get going on that list of stuff that you should have been working since 7:00 am this morning.

So, lets keep it simple, shall we?

Lets get started with the kids bedrooms. Keep them in cribs or toddler beds for as long as possible. They come enveloped in heavy plastic which eliminates the need for absorbant sheets and mattress protectors. If the precious kiddies have little OOpsies in the night, the urine, drool, and vomit will simply roll off the edge and save you a lot of laundry the following morning.

A lot of televisions is worth the initial investment. A minimum of one in the kitchen, bathroom, family room, living room, and all bedrooms is a sensible place to start. It completely eliminates the need for teaching and learning social skills. Since much tv programming now is also educational , it will also help to free up any time that you have been using to instruct your children on life-navigating skills. You will also be able to give away all books, games, messy craft kits, cars with sound effects, tiny lego pieces, and electronic pianos. Hence you have eliminated clutter, and dealt with noise pollution.

When the tv's get a little dull, try the kids on the computer. Google earth is an excellent place to begin. Early on even the smallest of children will learn to spin that virtual globe round and round and round at a dizzying speed. Hence, they've recreated the mania of our actual lives, but without the noise and clutter of hockey lessons and equipment, a large cumbersome piano, and ballet leotards, (we don't want to bother with the inconvenience of body image problems either).

The very, very most critical way to simplify your life is to keep your relationships to a minimum. Banking cards have eliminated the need to engage with tellers, mail keys simplify access to your bills, blogging can substitute for relationships with real people, and the tvs should take care of any marital instability. When you are forced into relationships, keep things as minimalistic as possible. Stick to the safe, simple responses to most questions, and smile pleasantly at most times. "I'm fine", and "No problem" are excellent choices for most concerned inquisitions.

If you have problems implementing any of these concepts, please don't come crying to me.
I'm trying to simplify over here.