Threesome February 17, 2012

I have a confession to make.

It might shock some of you, but I’m hoping you won’t judge me too harshly.

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I’m dating two different men.

Seriously.

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Ok. So you all know Chris, the sweet, patient, exceedingly calm and easy going man who has been the center of my world for the last year? Well, he’s still here. And we’re doing fine.

During the day.

But sometime back in December I met this other guy.

It wasn’t something I planned, or was even looking for.

But it never is, is it?

Believe me, my life would easier if he weren’t around, but I don’t think he’s going anywhere and I can’t ignore what happening any longer.

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His name is Ambien Chris and I only see him at night.

It started slowly. I saw only glimpses of him once, maybe twice, in a month. It wasn’t until very recently that I started seeing him more regularly. Sometimes even several nights in a row.

He has very little in common with Real Chris.

Where Real Chris is gentle and patient and always puts me first, Ambien Chris is impatient and focused on his own needs.

Take the first time I met him, for example.

Real Chris had a broken collar bone and was in constant pain while waiting for surgery. Real Chris slept with roughly 2 dozen pillows under and around him to make sure he wouldn’t move or be moved by me.

But Ambien Chris feels no pain.

Ambien Chris wanted to spoon.

Ambien Chris wanted me to do things that would make Real Chris, with his broken collar bone, cry at the thought of them.

I tried to reason with Ambien Chris, but he would have none of it.  The more I tried to convince him to go back inside his pillow fort, the more insistent he became that his shoulder was fine.

Finally, as a last resort I burst into tears begging him just lay down and stop moving his arm.  He stared at me with a confused look  for a few seconds before finally saying, in a tone laced with irritation and confusion, “Fine then. So we’ll just go to sleep.” As if this had all been my idea.

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Real Chris is very organized and routine oriented.  Ambien Chris is illogical and possibly a prankster.

Real Chris irons his clothes every night for work. He uses a specific cup to pour water into the iron, which he keeps on the top shelf of his closet.

Last week Ambien Chris took that cup down from the closet and brought it downstairs where he hid it in the rarely used powder room. Real Chris didn’t find it for several days.

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Ambien Chris interrogates his daughter.

One morning at breakfast Real Chris asked his younger daughter what time she’d gotten home the night before.

Her: What do you mean? You were up when I got home.

Chris: No I wasn’t.

Her: Yes you were. You came down and stood with me in the kitchen and asked me a million questions.

(Chris and I looked at each other, eyes wide and our mouths open.)

Chris: You met Ambien me!

Me: OMG did he say anything weird?!

Her: No. (Then she rolled her eyes in the way that teenagers do while Chris and I laughed hysterically over what could have happened during her first run in with Ambien Chris. )

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Ambien Chris has no concept of personal space.

One night I’m laying in bed with my back to Ambien Chris. I’m drifting off to sleep and as I’m lingering in that hazy twilight between awake and asleep, WHAM! something hard slams into the underside of my ass, jolting me awake and scaring the crap out of me.

My heart pounding, I sit up wondering what just assaulted me, and slowly realize it was Chris’s knee, which he moved in his sleep.

When my pulse finally starts to slow, I lay back down in the same position and quickly drift back towards sleep. And as I enter the twilight stage, WHAM! his knee connects soundly with the underside of my butt. Again. Fortunately I have ample padding to absorb the impact, so while it didn’t hurt, it did jolt me wide awake.  Again.

Trying to contain my irritation, I slide a few inches to my left, away from him and toward the edge of the bed.

Just as I’m about to drop off into dream land, I’m vaguely aware that Chris has also moved a few inches to his left, and before I can think about that, WHAM! I’m kneed in the posterior once again.

Now I’m pissed.

I flip over onto my back and say out loud “What the hell!! Leave me alone!!” and Ambien Chris responds by snuggling closer to me.

My irritation subsides a little and I decide to try to fall asleep on my back with him curled into my side.

As I drift off to sleep, I unconsciously roll over on my left side and pull my knees up, which is my preferred sleeping position.

WHAM! Ambien Chris nails me again.

I wonder for a moment if the snuggling was his way of lowering my defenses.

I straighten my legs so my butt won’t be in his knee’s trajectory, and feel a rush of satisfaction as I hear his leg move and feel his knee barely brush me.

Point, Mer.

But as soon as I fall asleep, I curl my legs up again and next thing I know, WHAM! 

Point, Ambien Chris.

I flip over onto my back again, this time landing half on top of him. I pick up my pillow and in a fit of uncontrollable frustration proceed to beat him with my pillow for at least 15 seconds.

This has absolutely no effect.

“What is your problem!!” I cry out, as it dawns on me that I’m sleeping next to a stranger. I vaguely wish Real Chris were here to help me with Ambien Chris.  Ambien Chris reminds me of that drunk frat guy in college who would randomly pass out in your bed or on top of you on a couch and was too heavy to push off by yourself.

I brainstorm solutions that include sleeping on a pile of clothes on the floor before I decide, for some reason, to lay facing him and pull my knees up to where my butt would have been.

A few minutes pass and I see his leg begin to move under the blankets. I watch as his left leg straightens and then bends at the knee and begins its sweep up toward me.

THUD. His knee connects just below my knee, but doesn’t hurt me at all.

Ambien Chris lets out an annoyed grunt.

“HA!” I exclaim, thrilled. “How you like me now, bitch?!” I say out loud over his unconscious body, talking not to him but to Ambien Chris, who I know can hear me.

I lay back down and wait and less than  a minute later, he makes another attempt and once again, instead of the supple and warm reception of my posterior, he finds the cold hard reality of my knees. I grin against my pillow as he grunts again, and then rolls over, away from me, with an irritated sigh.

Point and Game: Mer

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Ambien Chris is also condescending and a little bitchy.

After several nights of nearly falling off the bed trying to dodge Ambien Chris’s knees and arms I decided to start fighting back.

I let him knee me in the butt twice before I punch his thigh.

“What’s wrong?!” Ambien Chris asks partly sitting up.

“You’re kicking me.”

Ambien Chris responds by rolling over onto his stomach. Then once situated, lifts his head and says, in a tone dripping with condescension and sprinkled with irritation, ”THERE. Is that BETTER?”

Clearly Ambien Chris feels I should be honored to have him knee me all night.

Another night, I was laying on my back and was awoken by Ambien Chris flopping his body down half on top of me. And not in a fun way.

I put my elbow against his chest and pushed until he rolled onto his back. Upon landing he said with irritation, “Arggh. Happy now?”

And most recently, he was doing a combination of kneeing me and wiggling his whole body so the bed shook, so I started punching him in the thigh until he woke up with a panicked “What’s wrong?!”

“You’re kicking me.”

Ambien Chris let out a heavy sign before he rolled over on this stomach and scooted over so he was almost off the edge of bed. Then he picked his head up, looked me right in the eye and said ‘How about THIS?! Does THIS work?”

“Why yes, Ambien Chris. That works just fine.”

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Real Chris has no memory of these interactions and he’s always apologetic.

But I tell him he doesn’t need to apologize for Ambien Chris. Ambien Chris is responsible for his own actions.

Especially since I’m not going to apologize to Real Chris for the bruises I give to Ambien Chris.

This Side of Normal February 8, 2012

You know what’s normal? Having a romantic relationship last a year.

You know what’s NOT normal?

This girl.

This is me. Crazy eyes.

See, Chris and I celebrated our one year anniversary this week. And unlike our 6 month anniversary, I was totally calm leading up to this milestone. I wasn’t even a little bit superstitious, afraid of jinxing it, or even particularly emotional.

See how much progress I’m making?

Yeah, don’t get too excited…

Our anniversary technically fell on a Sunday, which I think we can all agree is the least romantic day of the week, plus I was going to be gone at rehearsal for the show I’m co-directing from 1:30-5:30, so I suggested we deputize Saturday for purposes of celebration. But we didn’t really plan anything specific because it came at the end of a long and stressful week for Chris and so the most appealing option for both of us was just having a quiet weekend together.

Saturday morning we decided we’d take a trip to a brand new gluten free bakery for treats, and as we were leaving the bakery we decided to stop in at a coffee shop, sample our GF confections and do some people watching. It was perfect.

But as we walked back to the car through cold rain we started to rethink our plan of dinner in Old Town, and opted instead for Cheesecake Factory where we had our second date.

Traffic was terrible and it was a stressful drive. We waited for more than an hour to be seated, and…well, all I’m going to say about the actual dining experience was that Cheesecake Factor hates people with gluten allergies.

But returning home to the leftover GF chocolate chip cookie lifted the mood considerably.

Sunday morning we made breakfast together and slow danced in the kitchen to “If It’s Love” by Train while the sausage was browning.

And then I used the sausage to make a frittata. Which I may or may not have burned. (But the burned part stuck to the pan and the part you could actually scoop out was delicious, thank you very much).

Chris made dinner while I was at rehearsal, and we had a relaxed and intimate evening where we ate, watched most of the Super Bowl and ate our dessert of strawberries with cheesecake and whip cream in bed before exchanging sappy cards and going to sleep early, our stomachs bursting from the cheesecake and whip cream. (Ok, the truth is, I was the only one bursting from the whip cream. I kept overfilling my mouth when I sprayed it in).

It was a really, really, great weekend.

And yet…

That night as I tried to fall asleep, some weird thoughts started poking my brain.

Things like:

It WAS a great weekend. I love the fact that an afternoon spent in a coffee shop feels special when I do it with Chris.

And while things didn’t go perfectly (bad traffic, bad dinner, burnt Frittata etc.) it didn’t matter, and that is something special. I like that we’re past a point where I need to pretend his driving doesn’t stress me out, and we hardly notice a burnt frittata.

BUT at the same time, it could have been any weekend. Does that mean something?

I mean, there really wasn’t any sparkle in the weekend. You know that little bit of fairy dust that seems to cover all parts of a new relationship, when you go out of your way to surprise and wow each other? That’s sparkle.

At first, I was fine with a sparkle free anniversary weekend, in part because I still find comfortable and familiar to be novel and exciting.

Until I started worrying there would never be sparkle again.

Were we already in a rut? Is that what happens at the one year mark? Because seriously, I have no idea what happens at the one year mark. I’m so far into unfamiliar territory I feel like I should have a passport.

This makes me panicky.

Suddenly I have perfect recall of every episode of shows like According to Jim, ‘Till Death, and Everybody Loves Raymond. Shows where wives are always nagging their husbands to be romantic and the husbands are forever rolling their eyes and reluctantly agreeing while clearly resenting every minute. Shows where the comedy comes from a premise that romance and long term relationships are mutually exclusive.

Is it funny because its true? This is what I’m trying to decide at 2am.

I’m scared that, by no choice or effort of my own I will become one of those sparkle starved nagging women and Chris will become one of those lazy, anti-sparkle guys.

What if that’s as unavoidable a law of nature as the ones that make it so your boobs eventually rest on your belt, reality TV seems disgusting, and driving faster than 30mph always feels excessive?

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In the light of day I struggled for perspective.

I tried reminding myself of the facts because I like to believe this will help to quiet the crazy.

Fact. I have hit the jackpot with Chris, of this I am sure, and for the last year every day with him has felt above average and full of sparkle, so it was silly to get worked up because a weekend – which just happened to be one year from the day of our first date – had only the same amount of sparkle that every other day had.

Fact. I’m not the type of girl who needs lots of sparkle. I’m low maintenance. I like the steak more than the sizzle.

Fact. A good bra will always keep the girls in place.

This never works to quiet the crazy. I seriously don’t know why I bother.

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Part of the problem is that I’d been focused on the one year milestone for 364 days.

Every milestone I invented between days 1 and 365 were like a relationship advent calendar meant to break up the days and distract me with treats until the big day.

Getting to the one year mark represented achieving normal. It meant not being the girl whose relationship history consisted of crazy stories and responses like “Where do you keep finding those douchebags?”

I told myself that at one year I’d be able to trust that he wasn’t too good to be true and that I’d have figured out how to do the whole functional relationship thing and I could stop worrying I was going to ruin it by saying the wrong thing.

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And all of that happened, but it actually happened somewhere around the 10 month mark. At some point I just started to relax, feeling confident I was going to glide over that finish line.

Which I did. And then sailed right past it.

Into…whatever comes after one year.

I had no new goal to focus my anxieties on. No new advent calendar to start to break up the time and distract myself with chocolate.

I felt unmooered.

I felt like I was flying without a net.

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Which is why the night after our anniversary was spent with me randomly dissolving into tears.

Each time Chris would calmly wipe away a tear or hug me and ask me what was on my mind. And I would say I didn’t know while crying harder, and he would say “Ok, well, whenever you figure it out I’ll be here to listen.”

Which, to be fair, is a conversation we have about once a month. Sometimes the crazy just builds up to the point where tears are the only way to release the pressure. True story.

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Anyway, in the past it could sometimes take many hours before I could talk to him about whatever had fermented the crazy that time.

But on this night, I thought about the New Year’s Resolution that I was given to use my words more than my tears, and I worked really hard to find words sooner than later.

After only about an hour of off and on again crying, I managed something along the lines of “What about the sparkle?” And somehow Chris understood exactly what I meant, and we were able to have a good talk about feelings. And I have to say, words really are SO much more useful than tears. Who knew?

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We talked about the appropriate application of sparkle in a relationship that already feels above average.

I agreed to stop pretending I’m low maintenance, and to own the fact that I need a little sparkle now and again.

Chris explained the difference between TV and real life, and how we can decide what kind of couple we are. And also that we’ll always enjoy reality TV together.

I promised to keep working toward being able to have feelings conversations that involved more words than snot.

As I started to feel better I tried to explain a little about my unmoored feeling.

“I’m just not sure what to do on this side of…”

“This side of normal?” Chris asked with a smile.

Yes! Exactly. A relationship that lasts more than a year is normal. Being happy and secure in a mutually rewarding relationship is normal…and that’s where we live now.

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I’m so screwed.

Anniversary Self Portrait

Guest Post: 2012 New Year’s Resolutions for Me. January 24, 2012

Please welcome Tara from DoTheseKidsMakeMeLookCrazy. She let me write out her New Year’s Resolutions for her, which was way fun because I enjoy telling people what to do. Then I let her write out mine.

Now she thinks she’s the boss of me.

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But that might be ok.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mer and I have been friends for 23 years.

That’s longer than twice the length of my marriage.

It’s nearly four times the age of my youngest child.

It’s over five times the amount of time I’ve lived in my current home.

I totally wrote all those statistical-sounding facts because math confuses Mer and I want to remind her that I’m smarter than her.

Why is it important that I appear to be smarter?

So she’ll let me control her, err, make decisions for her.

Kind of like how Britney Spears’ dad gets to spend all of Britney’s money because she shaves her head and drinks a lot of alcohol when she gets sad.

But Mer, regrettably, does not have a lot of money. And she has a freakish amount of hair that she only rarely brushes, let alone shaves.

Therefore, I have to assert my influence over her via less, um, dramatic ways.

I’m writing her New Year’s resolutions.

Me. Divorced, broke, questionably employed, chronically hungry, mother of two.

Don’t worry, I’ve totally got this.

I learned it from watching her.

Are you ready, Mer? Listen up, girl.

▪ Find and make a home. A real home. Whether it’s by yourself or with your man or with a cute little kitten named Rhett. Find a place you adore and want to stay in for a long time. A place that feels like yours. It has to hold all your important stuff, like your shoes and your books and your random photos. I’d really like to add a caveat about keeping it orderly and clean-ish, but I feel that might make your place less yours, which entirely defeats the purpose.

▪ Do not text and drive. Ever. As your mom says, you need to “concentrate”.

▪ Continue to stay in touch with your body. Exercise, nourish, and strengthen it in the best way you know how. I want you to feel and be healthy for a very long time. It’s not impossible that we’ll be in the same nursing home someday and I want you to stay cute enough to rock a colostomy bag.

▪ Decorate your own Christmas tree. Like a real one, where you go and pick out at least 75% of the decorations and put a lopsided star on top. May I suggest candy canes as decoration?

▪ Get moving on this book we’re supposed to be writing. I look to you to be the leader on this project. Lead by writing, as I’m greatly influenced by peer pressure.

▪ Keep your standards high when it comes to your romantic partnership. I know this whole “grown-up relationship” thing is kind of new to you, but I really think you’re getting the hang of it. I would like to shake you really hard to ensure that you learn from all of my mistakes, but I think this long, drawn-out, whiny way that I communicate about my failed relationship seems pretty effective.

▪ On a somewhat related note; don’t be afraid that you’re going to screw up this whole love story that you and Chris have going on. You’re not. If it gets screwed up, both of you will be able to take a bow. So just . . . be present in your relationship. Recognize where you are emotionally. And please, don’t be afraid to plan ahead for the life you want to have together.

▪ Keep storytelling. It’s a gift you have and it should be shared. Most importantly, make sure to post it on youtube. If I can’t be there, then I need to be able to access it later.

▪ Consider getting a kitten. Like, one you’ve picked out yourself and named after some random fictional character or a TV star from an 80s sitcom.

▪ Self-host your blog. Get legit, girl.

▪ Tap into your insight when it comes to your own emotions. Listen to yourself. Listen for that little tingly noise that sounds when your comfort level has been surpassed. Once you hear it, do something about it. Talk to someone, write it out, sing in the car in your loudest voice. Just don’t stuff it down until it erupts in a flood of tears and incoherence. You’ve got a bunch of people who’ve got your back but we’re only useful when you communicate, even if it’s initially in a series of bumps and false starts.

▪ Leave the country at least once in the year 2012. You’re the type of person who may very well get old and become a homebody who doesn’t drive and eats ¼ cup of raisins for breakfast every morning. You need to travel while you’re still spry and can figure out how to use a bidet and tolerate people with weird accents.

▪ Make a three-year plan for your career. Map out something long-term and realistic, but challenging. It could be writing a novel. Officially becoming a freelancer. Searching the want ads until you find something that you’ll really love. I can’t pretend to guess what would be the absolutely perfect job for you, but I want you to focus on figuring it out. You are so talented and I would like you to be emotionally and financially satisfied by the work you do.

▪ Attend BlogHer’12 with me. I promise you, you will be inspired.

▪ Challenge yourself physically at least once this year. Like, run a 5K. Swim across a small lake by yourself. Go camping without the benefit of an electrical hookup. Something outside of your comfort zone that requires the use of your body.

▪ Acknowledge the fact that you are not some sort of grouchy curmudgeon who believes the worst in people. Yes, you had Drew pegged long before I did. Yes, you are better than me at ejecting people from your life who are toxic. But at the end of the day, you are this loving, positive force to the people around you. Own it. Own it enough to direct it toward yourself.

▪ And lastly, I’m going to save the best for last,and quote your very words back to you. They’re brilliant. Never waste a second of your time or energy on anyone who doesn’t immediately find you hilarious, brilliant, talented, loving and perfect just the way you are.

I love you. Now go kick 2012’s ass.

Tara

Rant January 16, 2012

I did a guest post over at Do These Kids Make Me Look Crazy, in which I lay out my suggestions for my BFF Tara’s New Year’s Resolutions. I expected people to see me as bossy and arrogant while still witty and insightful.

Instead everyone’s all “You’re so sweet!” and “Wow you’re such a beautiful, loving person!” and “OMG you’re the funniest person I’ve ever encountered in my life!”

But the thing is, I really pride myself on being kind of grouchy and misanthropic – though I can’t argue with the perceptive people who recognize my comedic talent.

So I feel the need to balance my image with a post where I’m a complete asshole.

It’s all about Yin and Yang and managing expectations. So here’s my asshole rant. Feel free to chime in with your own major pet peeves – consider this an asshole safe space.

—————-

I really don’t want to be that person.

You know the kind. One of those superior and self-righteous and “my way is the only good way to do things”people.

Because I’m not – at my core – one of those people. I don’t believe my way is the right way, about anything, but especially when it comes to my diet and specifically being gluten-free.

I’m not one of those extreme evangelical people shouting about how gluten and sugar are the new asbestos and no one is safe. If you can process gluten and sugar without any issues, then more power to you.

BUT.

(And there’s always a but, isn’t there?)

BUT. So many people complain of health problems that have a recognized connection to gluten sensitivity, and yet they refuse to even try a gluten-free lifestyle. These people drive me fucking crazy. In large part, I readily admit, because if they only have to go gluten-free, and not sugar-free as well (like me), they really have very little to bitch about.

It’s not like it was 15 years ago when my sister was trying to find gluten-free products for my nephew. That was an expensive and time-consuming endeavor which still yielded limited products of questionable taste and texture.

But now, you can walk into basically any grocery store, not even specialty grocery stores, just regular old Food Lion or Safeway and find at least a handful of gluten-free products. If you shop a higher end store, like Wegmans or Whole Foods, you will find a cornucopia of gluten-free products.  You can go online to Amazon.com or glutenfree.com and order just about any product you can think of for reasonable prices, and 95% of the time they are delicious and the other 5% of the time they are still fully edible once you get used to the texture.

Some restaurants are better than others (CPK I’m looking at you - I appreciate the special menu, but I miss my BBQ Chicken Pizza!), but pretty much every restaurant I’ve been to since going gluten-free offers at least a couple of options, if not a whole gluten-free menu.

Yes, you do have to be a little more aware of what you’re eating or what your access to food will be like at events like weddings and parties. Yes, occasionally you will need to carry your own food with you or go hungry at these types of things. But I always consider those times to be failures on my part to think ahead and be prepared. And for the people who have subtle or manageable reactions to gluten you can totally indulge in that wedding cake/Christmas cookie/grandma’s famous baked ziti. If I eat gluten I act like I’m drunk for several hours and then feel like I have the flu for 12 more hours. So almost nothing is worth that to me. But if your reaction is manageable to you, then you have even less to bitch about.

The bottom line here is that being gluten-free is just not a tragedy, and to those who act like it is I say “put your big girl/boy panties on and let’s find something real to get upset about. Like the fact that people exist who take Rick Santorum seriously.”

If I hear one more person say “Gee, I always feel kind of icky after I eat bread products,” or “Wow, your symptoms sound a lot like me… But I just don’t think I can live without pizza…” my head might explode.

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But as much as the gluten whiners bug me there’s one thing that actually drives me even more crazy.

I haven’t met any of these people personally, but I see their posts on gluten-free chats and Facebook pages ALL.THE.TIME.

They all go something like this: “I think I should go gluten-free, but I have no idea where to start?!?!?! HELP!”

Again, I really try not to pass judgement on stupid people. Maybe they’ve lived a really sheltered life. Maybe they are one of those people who grew up thinking “fast” and “frozen” are two of the major food groups, and have no idea that food comes without a bun or from a source other an a box.

Maybe they have been living in a cave or ashram in the desert for the last 5 years and have completely missed the fact that everyone and their grandmother is talking about gluten in one form or another and thus really have NO IDEA that gluten is in wheat. And that wheat is in flour. And that flour is used to make all bread and pasta products. It does, eventually, get more complicated than that, but as far as where to start?

STOP EATING BREAD AND PASTA.

How about we start there? That’s what I did. My doctor suggested trying a GF diet just for shits and giggles, just to see if it might affect some of my chronic health problems, and so the next day I had yogurt and fruit instead of cereal for breakfast, soup instead of sandwich for lunch, and chicken breast and veggies for dinner. Repeat. And when I started to feel better, then I started looking up more information about a gluten-free lifestyle and looking for recipes and trying out gluten-free products from the grocery store. But first? I just ate things without flour in them. Because getting started really is that easy.

Seriously, I want to find sympathy in my heart for these poor confused souls on these message boards. I want to believe that their story is more complicated than just the usual combination of stupid and lazy. Even as I write this I imagine offended and outraged people responding with explanations of lives spent in fallout shelters and deep-seated fears of foods that comes out of the ground. And to those people I imagine myself saying:

OK, but have you heard of GOOGLE? I know you have a computer, and I know you are familiar with the internet because you’re here posting on this message board on this website about being gluten-free. OH WAIT, or you could just read the f*&ing website you’re posting your “Where do I start?!?” question on. Hmmm? How about you just start with that?

And then I imagine the person crying and saying something like “You don’t have to be so mean!” before running off and being forever incapable of asking for help with their gluten-free lifestyle and then dying either of starvation or of a disease caused by gluten toxins.

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And then I think of Darwin and I stand by my position.

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I’ve held this rant in for a long time. Because I know sharing these feelings does kind of make me one of those people.

Maybe its the  sugar withdrawal, maybe it’s because I’m not watching enough reality TV and judging all those people all the time. But I just couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

Just don’t hate me because I’m judgmental.

Hate me because I’m mean.

Change out "Salmon" for Chicken and this just got that much easier. You're welcome.

Sugar Fast. Again. January 6, 2012

I’m starting my new year with another 30 day sugar fast. Because I was a bad, bad girl during the last 2 weeks of 2011.

But in my defense, being gluten-free AND sugar-free, at Christmas, while traveling and relying on other people and rest stops to provide food is really hard. And another opportunity for frustration, disappointment and stress in a season already chock-a-block with those things.

Plus, I totally love sugar. Yes, I learned to live without it in a carefully constructed world where I allowed no temptation, but once I was out of work, out of my routine all bets were off.

At first it was a magical indulgence, and a chocolate stolen from a box of Godiva was a treat to be savored for hours.

Then, once I decided to just give up my ban on sugar until Jan 2, instead of being constantly conflicted and guilt ridden, it was like a race to see how many gluten free sugar products I could get into my body before the deadline.

The effects of this choice were not subtle:

• Less energy.
• More headaches.
• Not sleeping as well.
• Less appetite for “regular” food.
• Being distracted by thoughts of desserts and sugary treats all. day. long.
• Bloating.
• Swollen ankles.
• Mood swings usually involving tears.
• I look like crap in most of my Christmas pictures, including really cute ones that Chris took with his new camera with a timer. My face is fuller, my eyes are dull and my skin is pale. Which means no festive holiday photo for my Facebook profile. This is a tragedy.

Somewhere around Jan 30 I accepted that I was completely powerless over the sugar. I didn’t even try to make up limits, knowing that any self-imposed sanctions applied as an afterthought would wilt against the original decree of a sugar and guilt fueled holiday.

I was honestly a little relieved to have the holidays end and be able to return to work and my carefully constructed sugarless universe. I actually came back to work half a day earlier than I needed to, and if that’s not rock bottom, I don’t know what is.

But even with all of this, it was still totally worth it.

Which I know is not a politically correct diet thing to say.

I’m supposed to follow a binge like this with loud lamentations, self-flagellation and heartfelt dramatic declarations of “AHH SUGAR, YOU CRUEL MISTRESS!! NEVER…. AGAIN….”

To which I say, “meh”.

I mean, do I love the effects of my binge? No, I’m avoiding mirrors and cameras like a vampire. Do I look forward to the sugar withdraws I’ll experience over the next two weeks? Not particularly.

But was it worth it? Um, kinda, yeah.

I mean sure, if I had it to do over again, I might not go quite as crazy. I might not shovel Santa imprinted Hershey bars and tree shaped peanut butter cups into my mouth like a drowning woman gasps for air. Maybe.

Part of my excess was due to wanting to try out all of the gluten-free sweets I’d previously avoided like cookies and muffins and chocolate dipped donuts and birthday cake.  That part was research, really, so that when a sugary treat is really needed – like a birthday, or a Christmas day brunch where I’m surrounded by bagels, coffee cake, and french toast, I can have something equivalently indulgent yet gluten-free for myself.

So were I to fall off the sugar-free wagon again, I’d probably eat those items in the same moderation I did before I went gluten and sugar-free, which is to say only on special occasions.

But here’s the real reason why I don’t regret my sugar binge:

1. I made the choice with a clear and sound mind fully aware of the likely outcomes. And as such, it feels a little hypocritical to now regret that choice. This is a good life philosophy as well. You’re welcome.

2. It was a learning experience. I saw the improved way my body processed sugar better (at the beginning) which reinforced the wisdom and benefits of a low/no sugar diet. This is only going to make this second sugar cleanse that much easier.

3. It really did make my whole holiday experience a lot less stressful and mopey. Mood swings from the sugar notwithstanding. And I know I’ve written about getting past using sweet treats as away of compensating for emotional or physical needs. But come on… I spent a total of 30 hours alone in a car over the span of about a week. I couldn’t have any of the normally fun road trip food that makes that much driving feel more like a treat than a punishment, like donuts and Big Macs and cookies the size of your head. So I had flavored coffee, french fries, and Ghirardelli peppermint bark instead. And it made the schlepping and the traffic and the butt cramps that much easier to take. Don’t judge me.

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But now I’m 3 days into my sugar fast, and so far so good. Since I broke so many routines and associations the first time it’s actually much easier mentally this time.

Physically it still has its challenges, but on the plus side, since I’m excited to be back into my healthy eating routines my creativity for lunch creations is refueled.

For example, today for lunch, I did an inventory of all the food I had on hand and ended up making a salad with beets, granny smith apples, feta cheese and walnuts. I know I’m not the first person to combine beets and green apples, but damn is that an insanely good taste combo.

what is also clear from this picture is that I will never have a career as a food photographer.

And then because I was feeling the need for something warm on this cold day, I took some frozen sugar snap peas, put them on the toaster oven tray, sprinkled some kosher salt on them, and popped them at 350 for about 10 minutes or so, moving them around once. Then I sprinkled a bit of feta on them and bam. Incredible taste explosion and satisfying lunch.

So much more satisfying than another peppermint bark or peanut butter cup… at least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself until I forget the way that peppermint bark candy melted on my tongue…

*Sigh* only 27 more days to go…

Resolved January 4, 2012

It’s that time of year again.

Time for reflections and resolutions.

In my Year in Review post from last year, I said goodbye to a year that had been filled with reluctant change and loss, and was looking forward to a year filled with purposeful changes like going to grad school for creative writing, moving to a new city, and leaving my job.

Which might be why that post reads a little like it was written by a manic cheerleader on speed.

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I’d declared that my theme for 2011 would be “No Risk. No Reward,” mostly in attempt to make me brave enough to quit my job, move to a new city and start graduate school. And even though none of those things happened, 2011 was still pretty kick ass.

After all, it’s the year I met Chris. Which would totally be enough by itself.

But wait, there’s more.

Even though I never checked back with this list after hitting “publish” on the blog post, I totally rocked my resolutions:

2011 Resolutions:

1. Do at least one thing that scares the crap out of me (aside from starting grad school).

Um, how about I let myself fall in love? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Check!

2. Seek out more performance opportunities. Try to move outside my storytelling and performance comfort zone a little bit.

I was on stage at least 6 times in 2011, which is  at least 4 more times than in 2010. Check!

3. Read more.

Thank you Kindle – Check and check!

4. Write more. Especially for money. Often the freelance stuff isn’t exciting or very creative, but it still feels awesome to get paid for words I’ve written. I never want to lose that feeling .

If we count blogging, check! But there wasn’t much money made from writing this year… although I did set some things in motion that should hopefully lead to some cash for words in 2012, so we’ll give this a half check.  

5-8. Dance more; Laugh more; Trust more; Believe more. In myself. In my friends and family. And in the Universe to know what it’s doing.

Thank you Chris, check, check, check and check!

9. Make fewer excuses.

 I’m not sure about this one actually, because I wasn’t really paying attention, so I’m just going to ahead and say sure, totally killed this one. Check!

10. Judge less (except reality TV people. And celebrities. I’m still gonna judge the fuck out them.)

Yes. I was given a lot of opportunity to practice being without judgement of my friend’s lives, and it made a lot of things much easier this year. I also watched less reality TV, so that probably helped a little too. Check!

11. Pace myself with what I commit to, so I don’t get overwhelmed and drop the ball on a bunch of things (again).

I think I did ok with this. I can’t think of any major balls that I dropped or commitments I flaked out on. So…check and mate, baby!

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And right at the end of 2011 I majorly changed my perspective on my job as well. When Chris broke his collar-bone, my boss let me use sick time – of which we have unlimited days – without so much as a sideways glance, to be with him at doctor’s appointments and during his surgery. And when I was in the office everyone was super supportive with endless sympathetic ears.

At some point when I wasn’t looking, my co-workers became extended family and my office an extended home. I’ve heard of people saying this about their work places, but I always assumed they were lying, or just had really, really sad home lives. And while I do kind of have a sad home life, that’s totally not what this is about.

Plus, the unchallenging nature of my work lets me have a lot of time to pursue other projects and freelance work to supplement my income, and that ain’t nothin’. Not by a long shot.

 All of this has gotten me to thinking that sometimes what you do to earn a living isn’t necessarily as important as how you do it…I’m interested to see what this new perspective will yield in 2012.

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Last year I ended my post by wishing everyone reading that they have the year they need, even if it’s not the year they expect, which is exactly what I got in return.

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So you’re up 2012, let’s see what you’ve got.

Bring. It. On.

Gift Therapy December 9, 2011

When I was six years old I broke my arm. It was ugly, and was the moment I first learned my body could be the cause of much pain. And trauma.

Probably more trauma than pain actually. Because the whole experience was traumatic. From walking the block home from my friend’s house clutching my wrist, to watching my little brother screaming as he was restrained from getting in the car with us, to every second at the hospital.

My god the hospital. Nothing but a blur of scary looking strangers moving too fast, talking too loud, and making my arm hurt more. My clearest memory is of being in the X-ray room and desperately begging and negotiating with the doctor for my mom to come in with me. Which was a huge effort for me since my major life goal at six years old was to talk to strange adults as little as possible.

So I think it was more the trauma than the pain that led to me cocooning myself on the coach for the first week or so. I don’t remember much about that period other than making a decision to never, ever, move my arm, or any other part of my body ever again. Ever.

My memory of my time on the couch is through my 6-year-old, prone eyes. I see the high back of the couch,  my cast encased arm in its blue sling, the blankets and pillows that surrounded me, and a bunch of small glass animals lined up along the back of the couch, along with random other trinkets and toys, because my dad kept coming home from work with presents for me.

Specifically he hit this line of little glass animals. They were probably marble more than actual glass, and they were all the same brown and white swirl, but they were every kind of animal you could think of, and each day he brought me a few new ones. I remember laying on the couch and seeing these little presents lined up all along the back of the couch, and wondering why I was getting so many treats when it wasn’t my birthday or Christmas. Eventually I figured out that they were meant to somehow compensate me for my pain and suffering. I think my most vivid memory from that time is of everything lined up on the back of the couch, my parents hovering in the background, because it was a few days before I was willing to move enough to touch them or play with them.

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Chris broke his collar-bone last week while playing street hockey. The thing about a broken collar-bone is that there’s just not much that can be done about it. We saw a specialist and he told us that Chris didn’t require surgery. He said that it was 50/50 whether surgery would make him heal better, and that either choice Chris made, surgery or no surgery was a valid choice. Chris opted for no surgery.

For him that means a sling, a prescription for oxycodone, and just waiting for the bones to start to knit back together, (which in people over the age of 30 can take as long as 6 weeks.) It means pretty constant pain and discomfort for him, because while the pain killers seem to take the edge off, he’s never completely comfortable.

For me that means just watching him suffer. It means trying not to notice when his lips turn white as he braces against a wave of pain, of trying not to flinch when he does this one kind of exhalation that he only does when he’s hurting and can’t get comfortable. It means not being able to really hold him or offer any help in making him comfortable. Above all else, it means feeling endlessly helpless.

I find myself constantly wanting to buy him presents. Because I apparently have the same coping skills as my dad.

And now I totally get where my dad was coming from. It’s really frustrating to see someone you love be broken and not be able to fix it.

But my dad had it easy. I was a six year old girl. He could buy me glass animals, doll house furniture, Barbies, anything pink. Plus I was prone on the couch, and so he could literally shower me in presents and at least look down and feel like he’s done something.

But I’m dealing with an almost 39 year old man, so my options are lot more limited. He’s sticking to our diet, so I can’t shower him with cupcakes and apple turnovers, and even if I could, he won’t sit still, so anything I’d pile on him would just get all over the floor and I’m not wasting frosting like that.

So far, all I’ve come up with is spicey kettle corn that I got at a farmers market last weekend. I wanted to dump it on him like confetti, to try to achieve that feeling of showering him with gifts, but he insisted on just eating it straight from the bag like a normal person.

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My only option at this point is to put all my pent-up gift giving urges into shopping for his birthday next week, and then Christmas. We decided to do stockings for each other, and so my most pressing issue at the moment is finding a stocking that is approximately 4 feet long and 2 feet wide.

Also, if anyone knows where I can get a moon bounce and a fire juggler who will do adult birthday parties cheap, let me know. Thanks.

Running on Empty December 2, 2011

  I ran out of gas yesterday morning.

That’s not a euphemism for me hitting some sort of emotional wall, or running out of energy for my life.

I literally drove my car until there was no gas left in the gas tank.

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This moment has had a certain inevitability about it since the day I got my driver’s licence.

Chris has joked (at least I think he’s joking) about buying a gas can to keep in his car so that when the day comes that I do finally run out of gas, which will obviously be 2am, he’ll be ready to bring me gas.

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I just hate getting gas. And I have a hard time believing I’ll actually ever run out of gas. But mostly I’m just lazy and hate getting gas.

Wednesday evening after work I was driving into the city and as I sat in traffic I noticed that the gas light had started blinking. I was really sure it had just started doing that, and I was also really sure I’d driven into the city and home again with a blinking gas light. So I decided I’d be fine, although vaguely considered that I should stop on the way home and get gas (stopping on the way into the city, once I was on the main interstate was not really an option).

Later that evening as I walked to my car, I realized the temperature had dropped significantly and I hadn’t brought a warm enough coat. Also I’d forgotten my hat. And my gloves.

As I cruised home at 11:45pm  with no traffic, I kept looking at that blinking light and a voice in my head said “Stop at that gas station on the way to your house and get gas.” And then this other voice said “But its soooo coollldddd! And its sooooo late, how bout I just go home and do it in the morning?” And the first voice said “but what if the car doesn’t start in the morning because you’re out of gas?” and the second voice said “Oh please, that never happens.” And the first voice said “Yeah, that’s totally true. Plus there’s that gas station right on the way to work, you won’t even have to turn down a side street like you would tonight.” “Exactly! So it obviously makes way more sense to just do it in the morning.”

And by the time I’d finished the conversation I’d passed the street with the gas station anyway, so it was really just a moot point.

The next morning I got into my car and started it up and then sat there for about a minute fussing with my phone before I remembered I was almost out of gas, so I put it in gear and headed out. I put it in neutral as I went down a hill and while I sat at stop lights, because I read somewhere once that that saves gas.

It’s exactly 3.2 miles from where my car was parked to the gas station.

As I approached the gas station, I slowed down and made the right hand turn into the shopping center parking lot where the gas station was. The parking lot becomes a slight incline there and I had to get to the top of the incline then turn left into the gas station and then pull into a pump. I was still mostly using the break until I got to the top of the slight incline and then I went to gently apply the gas to get through the left turn and my foot sank right to the floor with no response from the car.

My heart started to pound and I broke out into a cold sweat as I knew immediately what the problem was. But my body somehow knew what to do and instead of hitting the break, which is my go-to response for every single thing that happens while I’m driving, to just let the car keep moving on its own.

I sort of went out of my body and watched as the car kept rolled forward toward the pumps, and not really believing this would work, I turned the wheel left as I approached a pump and the car very, very, slowly inched forward almost to the exact place it had to be and then simply stopped moving. I kind of think it was powered those last few inches by me leaning forward over the wheel intensely chanting “please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please.”

I always thought my car held 13 gallons, and so when I’ve driven around with the gas light flashing and then filled it up with a little over 10 gallons, I always figured I still had a nice cushion of 2-ish gallons to go. I’ve always meant to check that book in the glove compartment to see for sure how many gallons it actually held, so I would know for sure. But…that book is really fat and boring looking and I never got around to it. Besides I was pretty confident in my reasoning that it held 13 gallons.

Wrong. My car (apparently) holds 11 gallons. (Although I still haven’t read the book. But in this case I feel like real life experience trumps book learnin’).

When I filled it up on this morning it took 10.59 gallons.

As I finished pumping and got back into the car, and the shaking stopped as my adrenaline stopped pumping, I started playing the what if game. “What if I’d sputtered out right before I made the left into the gas station? Is that more or less embarrassing than running out on the road?” “If I’d run out of gas in the shopping center parking lot, would I have been able to get a container, get gas in the car, get it to the pump, and then get to work and never have to tell Chris this had happened?”

Clearly the universe was teaching me a lesson on this morning. I take the fact that my car made it to the pump, but not before scaring the crap out of me, to be a very clear warning sign from the universe that its time to grow up and be more responsible with myself and my car.

The fact that this all happened on this particular morning just makes me more sure it was a message. Because on this morning, Chris was sitting at home with a broken collar bone, waiting to go in and see a specialist to find out when/if he was going to have surgery. So of course the one time I run out of gas is the one time I can’t be rescued. AND, it was only as a result of timing that I was driving to work and not driving Chris to the doctor when this happened because he didn’t get ahold of the doctor until I was already at work (and I turned right around and drove back to his house to pick him up, lest you think I’m a terrible girlfriend.)

In an attempt to distract Chris from his pain, I told him this story while we were driving to the doctor. And he then tells me about how, as his daughter was driving him home from the ER at 3am, he noticed he only had 1/4 tank of gas and had her pull into a gas station.

Show off.

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So here now, in front of god, my mom and the 4 other people who read this blog, I pledge to never let my tank get below 1/4 full ever again.

I feel pretty good about the likelihood that I’m going to stick to this declaration.

Even when it’s really cold out. Or I’m in a hurry.

Probably.

Thankful November 30, 2011

I’m big on tradition. I like the predictability. The familiarity. The control.

Over the years, I may have been known to…react strongly to a suggestion of changing any of our holiday traditions. And by “react strongly” I basically mean pitch a fit, and as a result, I’ve probably held my family hostage in our traditions for the past 30+ years.

But now, this year, I suddenly find myself a little less concerned with traditions and more concerned with flexibility. Possibly because I have a  motivation to be flexible.

And that motivation may or may not be named Chris.

This is my first holiday being part of a real couple. We’re talking serious milestone here.

And as always, major milestones tend to cause me some level of panic – mostly born of a fear that I’ll stumble over the milestone and tear a big hole in the fabric of our relationship somehow.

This was probably one of the scarier milestones so far, because it actually requires decisions and action and involves lots of other people. With the other ones, like our 6 month anniversary, or meeting the friends, I could navigate them by just avoiding any sudden movements or major personality changes. But the holidays are a totally different ball of pine needles.

I spent a few months obsessing thinking about options.  I knew enough about his work schedule and family demands to realize he wasn’t just going to be able to jump in the car with me on the day before Thanksgiving and head to my parents house for a long weekend. Which is what I’ve done for Thanksgiving every year since I graduated from college.

And I knew enough about us to know that I wanted to spend the holiday with him if there was any way possible.  All of a sudden traditions didn’t seem as important as finding a way to balance his holiday experiences with my own.

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I’m pretty sure that’s called growth, people.

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But, at the same time I was struggling with a special holiday edition of  the type of fear and insecurity that accompany my milestones: If I just didn’t go home Thanksgiving, is it wrong to choose my boyfriend of not even 10 months over my family? What if I regret my choice and miss my family and we have our first bad weekend ever? What if he comes with me and realizes that my family is too overwhelming and he misses his quiet vacation days? What if I suggest a change in my family’s tradition and they all flip out the way I always did when someone suggested changes?

But then, about two weeks before Thanksgiving, when we still hadn’t made any firm plans, I got an email from my mom saying “maybe this is the year you don’t come home, maybe this is the year you have a Thanksgiving with someone else.” From some mothers that would have been a trick, a passive-aggressive plea to in fact be sure to come home for Thanksgiving. But from MY mom it was permission.  Permission to break with our family tradition, permission to experiment with a new tradition, with putting someone other than my family first.

It took away some of the fears, but didn’t completely solve the problem. I still didn’t know if our relatively young relationship could handle the weight of replacing my family.

But before I could respond I got an email from Chris confirming his work and family schedule would allow us to spend Thanksgiving day with his family and then drive the 7ish hours to see my family on Friday and stay until Monday.

I knew my mom always served a second Thanksgiving on Sunday of that weekend to use up leftovers, and so I told her we’d join her for that meal, not wanting to ask her to cook twice or for everyone else to change their plans. I figured it would mean not seeing all of my siblings, but it seemed a reasonable compromise.

A few days later I heard from my mom that everyone had jumped at the idea of moving Thanksgiving to Sunday. It turns out, everyone else was ready to experiment with new traditions as well.  One brother had a private Thanksgiving day with just his wife where they spent the day eating, sleeping and drinking on their own schedule. One sister went to her husband’s family’s Thanksgiving for the first time in years, and my other sister didn’t have to feel like she was missing her family’s celebration as she spent Thanksgiving day with her husband’s family and she was now able to invite another brother and his family to join them for a traditional Italian Thanksgiving (they serve raviolli instead of turkey!)  Basically, it worked out great for everyone to have Thanksgiving on Sunday, and I couldn’t have had a better introduction to my first attempt at making new traditions.

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As Thanksgiving got closer and standard small talk with friends and co-workers became “what are you doing for the holidays”, I heard tale after tale of couples torn between two competing families. I heard stories of couples who skipped Thanksgiving all together and went on vacation, who had to manuever around complicated alternating year schedules and manipulative, guilt tripping parents who had no interest in sharing or experimenting with different traditions.

I know I’ve heard these stories in past years. In fact, I know that one of my best friends has endured guilt from her mother for the entire length of her marriage for every holiday she’s spent with her husband’s family, even after the marriage ended. So I know this is a thing. But I never really heard those stories until now.

And now I know that what I have to be thankful for this year, beyond all of the obvious things, is that I have a family that cheerfully got behind moving Thanksgiving from Thursday to Sunday, and that I have a boyfriend who was willing to spend two days in the car to let me spend time with my family.

I know that part of my family’s flexibility comes from the fact that I’m the last person in this big old family to need a change. Until now I’ve been static as all around me things have changed: marriages have ended and started; people have moved houses and states; babies have been born and teenagers have appeared fully formed.

I was always the least flexible because I had the least motivation to want change. In some families that would be the kind of thing that comes back to bite you. But not in my family. And for that, I am grateful.

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Of course, we still have Christmas to figure out. To me that’s a bigger holiday than Thanksgiving, so its still a new milestone.  I think its something to do with the presents. So it may turn out that my family has exhausted its flexibility reserves and any attempt to change our Christmas traditions will be met with rigidity.

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Or maybe this blog post will be enough positive reinforcement to grease the wheels for Christmas. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

Buddha’s Diet November 23, 2011

I’m a slave to protein.

That’s what this whole diet has basically boiled down to: Protein, and my endless need for it.

It’s the master of my schedule, the ruler of my moods, and the deity to which I regularly bow.

Because that’s pretty much all I can eat. And when you only eat protein, it burns up fast. See the nice thing about complex carbs like the one I typical ate – with lots of whole grain and fiber** –  is that they are slow burning. Slowly burning into sugar, yes. But slow burning nonetheless. This is an attribute of carbs I took for granted when they were a part of my life.

But when protein is king, I can go from not hungry, to starving in less than 3 seconds. Every choice I make in my day somehow relates to, or is influenced by an opportunity to intake protein.

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I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, because really, over all, this diet is the best thing that’s happened to me, health wise, in years.

Pounds and inches have been lost. (More inches than pounds actually, which seems impossible, but is apparently true and according to the doctor, not uncommon. But smaller is smaller, so I’m not complaining).

But more than anything, a lifestyle has emerged.

A lifestyle of mindfulness. Mindfulness about when I’m going to eat, what I’m going to eat, and of course, how much protein will be in the meal. I have to make daily decisions about whether and how much GF and sugar-free protein bars or apples, or cheese sticks, or nuts, I need to put in my purse.

Fast food is a thing of the past, we can’t eat anything out of a box, and very few restaurants offer us more than one or two options on the menu (although the few that do, like Mongolian BBQ, we patronize often.)

On Friday afternoon Chris and I start thinking through our weekend and what our schedule will be like, and before we can settle in for the evening, we have to make sure we at least have enough eggs, fruit and breakfast meat to make breakfast Saturday morning.

At breakfast we talk through our day in detail, thinking about where we’re going, what our food access will be, if we’ll need to bring food or come home to eat. If we’ll come home to eat, what will we eat, will we have time to cook or do we need something quicker.

Crock-pots are an invention of the gods.

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After a few weeks that all becomes second nature, especially to detail oriented planners like me and Chris.

But then there’s another level of mindfulness, having to do with correcting habitual eating and cravings.

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I realized that I used food as rewards- a diet sabotaging habit if ever there was one.

Several times a day I’d think, “I’ve made it through a hard day, I should get myself a cupcake,” or “I’ve had a great day! I should stop at Starbucks for a frap,” or “I just did the bare minimum amount of work I need to do to stay employed. Time for some M&M’s!” At first I just focused on not robotically steering into the Starbucks or bakery parking lot.

Then one day it hit me: “Why do I need a reward for every goddamn thing that happens in my life? Am I 4 years old? Should I get M&M’s for making a pee-pee in the potty?”

First I thought “Well, it wouldn’t hurt,” but then I thought “NO. This is no way for an adult to live!”Because, as an adult, I’m responsible for my life. I’m responsible for all of my choices and my actions. I shouldn’t need a reward to get through a day in a life that I created.

“But,” I asked myself, “what about when things go wrong, and you’re too sad to do anything but eat a cupcake one crumb at a time?”

That pulled me up short because, I mean, seriously, WHAT ABOUT THE CUPCAKES?

Well here’s the thing about the cupcakes:

They served as a pseudo solution for situations I didn’t want to resolve for real. Relationship trouble? Lets not look at the ways in which I’ve participated in letting him make me feel bad, that’s icky, I’ll just eat a cupcake instead. Pain from physical therapy after my car accident? Eh, getting perspective about healing time and the human body is hard, I think I’ll mope and eat a cupcake instead.

The sugar and the feeling of getting what I want would make me feel briefly better, but quickly disappear leaving me feeling lonely and sad again. A terrible cycle that has now ended.

I’m not saying I’ll never have another cupcake, but it will be when my sugar intake for the day has been low, when its GF, and when its only because I want a cupcake, not because I’m using it to hide behind. Because being mindful also means having choices. I can choose to have a peanut butter cup, or a slice of GF apple pie at Thanksgiving because I can make choices about other things I eat – skip the potatoes, go easy on the citrus fruit and pick carrots over corn so my sugar intake is as low as possible when I eat the pie.  I can pretty much do whatever I want as long as I’m always mindful of the big picture. Which makes me hate this diet a lot less.

Next, I realized that I mostly crave sugar and carbs when I’m dehydrated or just plain hungry. The body wants a quick fix, so it wants carbs and sugar. So I had to learn to ask myself what I was actually in need of – water? protein? just something in my mouth to chew?

What I didn’t expect to happen was that I eventually trained my body to crave what it actually wanted. When I’m dehydrated I crave water, when I need protein I crave cheese or meat, when I just want something to chew images of apples and carrots come to mind.

Swear to Protein, I’m telling the truth.

But it’s really easy to undo. One little slip – like eating rich chocolate desserts every night because you’re stuck in a hotel in the middle of the desert and you’ve only been able to eat like 20% of every meal and you’re sick of your protein bars and it’s not fair and a little bit of sugar isn’t going to hurt, and damnit why does everything have to be so effing hard all the time – and you kind of have to start the retraining all over again. But it is easier the second time around.

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I was explaining these details of this diet to my dad a few weeks ago, and he said “So its like a Buddha diet. It’s all about mindfulness.” Which is the first time I thought to put it into that context. Of course, if we wanted to be very literal, Buddha’s diet would be vegetarian, but I like to think he’s cool with my using his name this way. Mostly because Buddha is pretty much cool with everything.  But as soon as I re-contextualized this diet from a pain in the ass list of restrictions, to a lifestyle of mindfulness, everything got a lot easier.

For example, I’ve finally accepted that there were no short cuts anymore, that my idea of indulgent eating is adding kidney beans to my salad, and that I will spend an inappropriate amount of my life thinking about eggs.

And in exchange I have a clear mind, high energy levels, stabilized moods, a smaller waistline, and better functioning organs.

Seems a fair trade.

Except when I walk past a Starbucks and see a picture of their holiday drinks and wonder how many more times I can walk past before I run inside, order 12, and then sit in my car behind a dumpster pounding one after the other until I pass out in a pool of melted whip cream, chocolate curls and my dignity.

Those days suck. But mostly its, you know, the other way.

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**this is an after post edit for clarity. I realized that by just saying “carbs” as I did originally it was misleading and just plaing wrong. But I’d been eating complex carbs, and whole grain/fiber filled carbs instead of simple carbs like white rice, white pasta etc, for so long that I didn’t think about what I was saying.