Looks like I was tired because I have the flu or something. I've had chills and fever since last night, and a sore throat and maybe a sinus infection coming on. Ick. And my little girl stayed home from school today to go to the doctor instead because she was crying that her ears hurt.
Keep my flu brain in mind when you read this post. It may seem rambly, but it is the flat, straight truth.
The past few days I have been doing what I call "picking." Picking at this, picking at that... giving in to little urges like wanting a cookie or a sandwich or whatever. And you know what struck me every time I picked? Every time, I have the thought, "I may NEVER get to eat this again."
Yes, the theme of my "dieting" life. The past 25 times I have eaten Pizza Hut pan pizza I have thought it may be my last. Every single one of the last 30 cookies I have eaten I have wondered if I would ever "get" to have one again. Each time I gave in at the checkout stand and picked a candy bar to eat, I chose based on which candy bar I wanted to be my 'last.'
It is crazy. I have not ruled out any foods forever. Yet I have this sense that I DO need to make some foods off limits... probably those containing a lot of sugar... and that belief (which I do think is correct) pops up in my head whenever I start picking at food.
"Oh, I want to be on plan from now on so I need to have a cupcake with whipped frosting because I may NEVER be able to have one again."
And it's true, in my own head, because in reality I have NEVER been able to stop at one cupcake. One sugary junky indulgence almost always turns into a mini binge (at least). I KNOW what foods I can have that won't trigger me... like dark chocolate, fruits, yogurt, even pudding and pumpkin pie. But cake? Cookies? Candy? Problems.
And it is not so much that I think "I can NEVER have another cookie," but it's the insanity of "I can NEVER have another
double stuff Oreo
Nutter Butter
Girl Scout Thin Mint
homemade gingersnap
peanut butter thumbprint cookie
brownie with nuts
brownie with frosting
cupcake from THAT SPECIFIC Deli
Organic sugar cookie
etc, etc, on and on FOREVER because it is not the loss of COOKIES that bothers me as much as it is the loss of every specific KIND of cookie in the world! Even if I "allowed" myself 20 kinds of cookies, my brain would be obsessing about the one kind of cookie not on the allowed list.
Oh, I have tried to tell myself they are ALL allowed, but I know myself well enough now to know that I am kidding myself with that. There are THOUSANDS of specific kinds of cookies, ice creams, candies, pies, cobblers, and desserts that I want to have. And WOULD have... would be on some kind of pilgrimage to make my life about being sure I have tried EVERY SINGLE KIND of sweet on the planet before I die, and even then, I'd be upset that I could only have each thing once. It is insane, and I don't know what *place* in me this obsession comes from. But I have a desperate sense of not wanting anything to be *the last time*... of never wanting an experience to be over.
You could ask me right now, "What is the ONE dessert you want to have tomorrow, and then never have again?" I would be unable to choose. Because I could not enjoy it knowing it was the last time. It's so fleeting... the feelings and sensations of eating a food. It's there one minute and gone the next... where you had this beautiful trifle on a plate to gaze at, smell, taste and enjoy, within moments all you have is a memory. And that bothers me. A lot.
It's not even about food, really. It is, I think, about the deep seated anxiety of knowing time passes and every experience is fleeting and gone in an instant. In fact I think this even goes way back to my young childhood, which as I have explained was governed by a very strict religious upbringing complete with tales and drawings of people being "destroyed" by God for their evil ways. I thought I had evil ways as a child. As young as 8 or 9 I remember being terrified I'd be killed by God. And because this religion had no "afterlife" and stated that death is final (UNLESS you were one of the few who were faithful and, in my mind, perfect enough for a later resurrection)... a sleep without dreaming from which you never awake.
I was terrified to go to sleep as a child, too. I still have sleep issues, because at such a young age I associated sleep with death, and death with nonexistence... which is very frightening to a child. I am not so frightened now, but that kind of thing, it's the core of one's being. It stays with you. I was always painfully aware, even in elementary school, that time was passing and each moment might be the last. I remember sitting in the old green 1973 station wagon while my father drove us around. I'd see the stop sign up ahead and I'd think, "that stop sign is in the future, and we haven't passed it yet, but in a minute we will and this minute I am living in will be GONE"... and before I could complete the thought, we were past the stop sign, the present melted into the past, and the future just a blur that would soon be over. And as a kid, that bothered me.
Hey, I think I just solved the mystery.
Yes, I've often thought about convicted murderers being asked what they want their last meal to be, and how I would feel if I were on death row. I thought about how I couldn't... wouldn't choose a meal because it would be the last time and I couldn't stand it to be a last time.
Last year when I went back to the town where I grew up, I was excited to take my kids to the little ice cream shop that my father always took me to on special occasions. They made their own ice cream and toppings, and I have very fond memories of going there with my now-deceased parents when I was a child. Great memories. So I took my children there. And when we walked up to the door there was a sign that said, "Closed." We asked next door and in fact the place had just closed... for good. I almost had a breakdown. It COULD NOT BE that I would never get to have that special Pecan Turtle Sundae that I used to share with my father, ever again. It didn't matter that I could replicate it at home if I wanted to. I would never, ever again have THAT sundae. And it felt like a death or something.
So I go through that every *last time* I pick at a potato chip, a sandwich, a cheese ball. Is this the last? It cannot be.
But it HAS to be. There HAS to be a letting go, an ending to that obsession with food and time and death. It's all interlinked, interwoven. And this, I think, is the breakthrough I have needed all along.
It's not the end, not the simple solution. But finally I get it. I get where the food issues come from. And knowing that, I can face it and work through it.
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