It's about 3 in the afternoon. It's a Monday, I am scheduled off today. If you're wondering why the random work schedules, I work full time at a home depot, so each week we get two days off, but they are never set days. It's randomness and chaos each week. Huzzah!
I just got done ordering two meat subs from Jimmy John's: one roast beef, and one turkey ham combo. Meat. I claim to be vegetarian in public. At home, I've been sneaking in meat.
Who am I sneaking against? My friends? My family? Myself?
I'm hungry. I had a brownie, a blondie, and a mocha for breakfast. Sugar!!!! So I ordered sandwiches. Problem is, I don't feel like I'm nourishing myself with them.
Wait. Hold on. I think I just figured out the real issue behind the food choices and the conversation for today's blog!
Yesterday at work I was talking with a co-worker. Wait. I gotta mention a different conversation I had had the day before.
Quick background - I have done raw foods, and I think I've mentioned it, a raw foods diet is to me the equivalent of Zen living in Buddhism, Christ-like living in Christianity, and buying something for the best deal possible in Judaism. But I have a hard time committing to the raw lifestyle - and not because it's particularly hard, and not because I don't enjoy the food.
I can't commit to it because of what I am afraid other people will think of me. And I just had the epiphany now - it's not because of what I'm eating. It's because of how I might be acting.
This girl at work asked me the other day you've done raw foods, right? I say, yes, I loved it, but clearly, I'm not doing it right now. She says, yeah, I'm going to start trying it. I'm going to make spaghetti out of yellow squash tonight and I'm totally excited.
She was not apologetic about eating that way. She was excited, and her enthusiasm was contagious. Her excitement made me want to get back into raw foods, share raw food recipes and war stories with her, and to start a club of people who raw food dinner party. It made me feel happy and a part of something good.
Now for the flip side. Yesterday, a co-worker of mine was expressing how he was eating some food at someone's party, and how he's been eating organic food lately. The vegetables the host served at this party were not organic, he said, and he could taste the difference.
Ok, that's a pretty cool discovery. However, he presented this information as bitching. Yuck this host sucked because she didn't serve me something that appealed to my wildly superior and refined taste buds is how it came out.
Both of their presentations were good lessons for me. They both are on the nutritional experimentation band wagon, and both are excited to be on the journey. But from my stand point, I realized how much more fun it is to be more like the girl, happy and joyfully expecting that others would want to join, instead of like the guy, snarky and superior. Being superior is a major problem for me. I fall into it real easily. Yeah. It was a great learn for me to be on the receiving end of it.
The other part of that is I saw how I might not express what I'm feeling, or even know that I am feeling something I need to express; but I still do actions to get what I'm feeling out of me. And the action I generally turn to: stuffing food into me.
That day, after absorbing the Holier Than Thou attitude of the guy, I went to lunch and DEVOURED a grilled cheese sandwich, a bowl of tomato soup, 2/3 a brownie, 2/3 a blondie, and a coffee. Four hours later, I went to Mike's to watch a playoff game, ate 5 of the six pieces of a 10" pizza and a small dessert.
I knew something had to be bothering me, by putting that much food in me in that short a time. I mean, I've known for many years that I eat instead of emote. I tried to pinpoint what could be bothering me, but nothing seemed to be pressing. I went into my carb coma and fell asleep. I couldn't think of a single thing that had happened that could be bothering me. I just thought I felt like eating.
This morning, I'm up, I go get breakfast - another brownie, another blondie, another mocha. I ordered two Jimmy John's meat-laden subs for my lunch, which I am eating as I write this. And it was while doing the action of eating, and the action of writing this blog, trying to get at the deeper cause, that I realized what the eating of the last 24 hours is about, as well as eating habits I have my whole life.
It's my way of showing that I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be a mean, self-righteous, critical thin person. I want to be enthusiastic and fun and loving and compassionate.
But I didn't have role models for a thin, compassionate person growing up! Anyone I knew who was thin and compassionate was criticized behind their back by friends and family! Anyone who worked out was annoying, and anyone who ate healthy did it to be self righteous. And a lot of the thin people I had as examples were bitchy, mean people. And they damn well let you know that they kept themselves thin and worked hard at it. THEY had the will power others didn't. THEY stayed on top of their lives and their figures. THEY were thin. And THEY were better.
To me, it was better to be fat and fun than to be thin and aggravating.
My sister Denise chose the thin route, however. Wow - a year ago, I would have said that she's a self-righteous bitch herself, but today, I think she's pretty compassionate. She has not said one word to me throughout my entire 30 pound weight gain; pretty impressive, when I was already 70 pounds overweight when I embarked on that endeavor.
I gotta wrap this up, I know it's not as meaningful for you as it is for me, but I just discovered that that is why I have always felt I was eating to spite her. It's cuz I WAS eating to spite her. I ate because I thought it would get me more loved within our family. Interesting thing is that she desperately works to stay thin for the same reasons.
It's a crazy mixed up world.
Ok, so the point is, I can learn to navigate that. My goal is compassionate responses, instead of my current knee-jerk drive-to-solution-and-let's-drive-there-NOW response. Not that offering solutions can't be helpful. But there's a reson for the cliche about horses and water. Something I say might trigger something helpful for someone, but overall, letting people come to it on their own is the only way they come to it. I wouldn't have come here if someone had been badgering me to do it.
So ... to compassion and health! Thanks for listening. Until next time.
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