Thursday, January 25, 2007

saying good bye to old friends

i was just looking through pasta queen's archives & i came across a very apropo posting: good-bye to soda. even though christmas beat my ass like i was stealing its tv, i learned some very important lessons, the largest of which is: don't binge, food makes me feel bad, not good. i know, a very obvious thing, but in the life of a fat girl, it's not such an easy concept to embrace because, well, for many years i've been that fat girl stereo type. eating to make myself feel better. comforting myself with rich, sweet, tasty foods. anything with a complex texture & taste that made me forget whatever it was that inspired the binge. in high school, it was mostly feeling alone. food really was my best friend. i didn't have to worry about being judged, abandoned, made fun of, or harmed. it was there, no questions, no strings, just there. & i was a secret eater. it was my guilty pleasure. my addiction. it was my shame to conceal.

& when you start making food your friend at seven, it's hard to give it up, even if you know that it's slowly killing you. but lately, since christmas i'd say, or maybe more accurately, since the end of the canukian porn trip, i haven't felt that same urge. the longing & the desire to gorge myself is dissipating. i do definitely have my slips, like the 3 brownies at the post-funeral luncheon on tuesday, but i'm showing great restraint over all. i did not stuff myself at little oven tuesday evening, even though their garlic butter is so good i'd fight my mom for the last piece of bread. & yesterday i passed by the two cakes (one chocolate & one white with raspberry filling) that were sitting in the breakroom in the afternoon. i actually passed by them several times, without so much as the teensiest tiniest morsel touching my lips. i didn't even have a post workout evening snack when i got home. i was hungry, but drank some water, played some wow, & pushed on through it. & that felt good.

sometimes, the things we love the most are the things that are the most detrimental to our well being. case in point: tssob (the southern son of a bitch). while in the relationship i loved him, er, thought i did. & i was so wrapped up in that dysfunctional relationship that i was literally blinded by the truth. it really was like i was seeing my life through a tunnel. & all around me my parents, tina, rachel, all my friends, even my coworkers saw the truth as plain as a billboard on 94, flashing red & orange, danger ahead. but all i saw was the road straight ahead of me, nothing else. & then one day, i woke up, realized i'd been wasting my time, money, my life, on someone who was completely unworthy of any of my attention, much less the degree of caring that i invested in that relationship. & FINALLY, then, it was ok for me to simply say good bye & walk away. ((OK, i do still have some anger issues over the fact that the lying cheating mother fucker never sent me back my stuff which he said SEVERAL times he'd do & then the bastard kept calling me for a year after i broke up with him trying to insinuate himself back into my life. & luckily for me, he's a closet racist & stopped calling me when i told him i had a temporary booty call in the form of a yummy indian boy. yo.))

& with food it's kind of the same way right now. the things that used to be my biggest vices no longer hold the same appeal to me. for instance, the brownies at the luncheon were just OK, nothing fantastic. & i think i had them out of boredom. hoping that they would taste better. we can always chalk it up to grief too, if we want. but i'm not even trying to make any excuses for the brownies because, it happened, i felt like shyte afterwards, & i'm over it now. & even with the slip up for the luncheon, i don't feel the same way towards food anymore. just like with tssob, one day i opened my eyes & was able to see a huge world beyond the tunnel vision of the routine of eating.

i know that it's not going to change how i feel except for possibly giving me a gut ache & making me feel guilty for putting such horrible things in my body. neither of those is a very appealing option for me at this time. i like feeling strong & healthy. with my tummy satisfied from good food, but not overly stuffed & miserable. & looking back over the years i know that i've said this kind of thing before, but i think that i've finally reached my limit with junk food. i've been living that old tired saying of "living to eat instead of eating to live." & like any addict, i've let my addiction control me, warp my everyday actions. while i'm not knocking over a liquor store or purse snatching from old ladies, it was controlling my life. it's not like i sit at my desk fidgeting until i can get that next twinkie fix, but it was getting to the point where all my socializing was done over food. i was going out to dinner several times a week, sometimes twice a day. so it really is time for me to cut the ties, say good bye to all of those bad food fetishes, & look into the future & find a life for me outside of being just the fat girl. part of it is growing up, part of it is just living life & taking in the little experiences to compile them into something larger, & a large part of it is having faith in yourself & your abilities.

& it feels damn good to have that faith. that strength. to break away from familiarity. from the ties. from the safety of routine. & find a new way in the world.

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