A McDonald's Kind of Love

Salutations and sorries, non-existent blog audience. I've been gone a while from writing here.

No real reason for the gap in chatting with you, aside from the fact that I tend to go into a burrow like a wounded cheetah when something big is troubling me. I'm celebrating that I discovered my pulling away relatively quickly. Last time I did that, it was sometime in 2005 and I didn't come out of it until sometime in September, 2008.

Anyway, I had a big revelation the other day, meant to come write about it, but then forgot to and now I can't remember what I was going to write. It could have been about how I went and did another past life regression, and how this time we think I had a spirit attached to me, because of various aspects of the regression that were not your typical past life regression experience. It's funny, I do these regressions, I believe in their help in clearing up this-life issues, but to talk about them, I still have skepticism on their validity. However, since I have now apparently erradicated this attached spirit that I didn't know I was toting around with me, I have noticed that I am now craving that raw food lifestlye that I had embarked on a couple years ago, instead of the insatiable sugar cravings that I've been experiencing for the last two-ish years. Which is how long we think this spirit has been attached to me. I don't know if this stuff is true or not, non-existent blogdience. All I know is that the other day I noticed I had been preparing raw cuisine again, and I had NOT been able to get myself to make any raw foods for a very long time. Will past-life regressions become the new necessity in weight loss? Well, if I end up finding my weight falling off since getting rid of that "spirit" - maybe. Until then, I'll keep blogging with you, both of my readers who stumbled on this blog searching for "Myley Cyrus, hair extensions". We'll just have to wait and see.

Still trying to figure out that revelation I had, cuz it was a good one. Until I remember it, maybe I'll just tell you about how being Wellness Captain at work is going. You remember, of course, that I am a 37-year-old, 234-pound woman of German ancestry. The fact that I am our company's Captain of Wellness is more than a little ironic to me. I think it might be a great blessing in disguise, though.

My manager and I decided that we would do Fresh Fruit Fridays. Yesterday, being a Friday, was our first day. I went, got some apples, oranges and bananas, just to get us started with the safe and familiar. I want to work up to exploring other fruit options, but anyway, for now, I started with the tried and true.

It was an amazing experience. Seriously. I was thinking on the way home last night how I have a lot of positive associations with un-healthy foods: Burgers and Fries; these bring up memories of going out to lunch with my Dad when I was a little kid. Pizza; my mom, dad, younger brother and me going out for a fun and relaxing (read: No Dishes For Me To Do! YEA!!) dinner out at Pizza Hut. Eating Oreos with my brother. Eating ice cream with my Dad. Cinnamon rolls my mom made. I have many positive associations with junk foods.

The only memories I have around fruit is feeling like it was second best. We'd ask Mom, "What's for dessert?" and she'd retort, "There's bananas in the cupboard and fruit cocktail down below." That's not dessert! You can't offer me mushy, high-fructose corn-syrup soaked canned fruit when I'm craving mushy, hydrogenated-oil based milk-soaked Oreos! Seriously.

Yesterday, though, gave me positive associations with fruit. Everyone was so excited to have fresh fruit. I'm probably just projecting my own feelings onto others, but I've noticed that there seems to have been a shift in Work-Place Treat Ettiquette. It used to be, you'd bring in a cake or donuts, people would go crazy for it. Now, they kind of cringe, like at the end of a night out, when everybody's tired and sleepy, and somebody says, "Hey, let's open another bottle of wine!" You try to get excited about it. But physically, you just can't do it.

I think we're at that same point as a society with our love for junk food. We know it's more fun to eat junk than healthy food; yes, this we know. But we're just plain ... exhausted. But what can we do? What's next? We know we can't possibly eat healthy. It's too hard. Yet, we can't keep up physiologically with eating the heavy creams with pastas, the juicy steaks and buttery potatos, the creamy desserts, the sugary drinks. We treat ourselves with these foods in an effort to show love to our friends, our families. Ourselves. But if that's what we're doing it for, why isn't it working? Why are we all so damned exhausted? And angry?

This little shot of fruit yesterday at work was the shot everybody seemed to be needing. The interesting thing for me was how happy it made people.

As I was assembling the fruit into a fruit tray in the break room, some of my co-workers were in there and laughing and joking with me as I set it up. They were so happy to see fresh fruit, it surprised me. Then, over the course of the day, people would come up and thank me for the fruit. One guy said, hey, know what? I had the sniffles coming in to work today, so I grabbed one of the oranges, and it's just what my body needed - I feel all better now. Another, who I haven't met yet, introduced himself to me and said, Hey, That was really nice of you to do. I said, well, the company provided the money for it; I just executed the plan. He said, well, it was really nice. Thanks for doing it.

That simple act of getting fruit created ... love. They felt loved for having it provided. And I got love back for getting it done. It was so cool.

I got thinking about what a nice day it was, and it got me thinking that, maybe, that feeling of being loved and cared for is all we are ever seeking - we've just decided as a society to channel it through a restaurant menu. Kind of like how we have to channel access to God through a specific religion, we've removed direct access to love and determined there are different kinds of love. Right? There's the kind of love you show through a dinner at Applebee's; there's another kind of love through a dinner at the Olive Garden. Red Lobster has it's own type. Dinner at a fancy restaurant is another type of love - a better type of love. A More Loved love. McDonald's, Taco Bell, Burger King - they are all love. Love On The Run, I think? I suppose we could boil this down all day, but it all comes back to attempts at demonstrating - and executing - acts of love. Maybe this is all we've known. Maybe there's other ways we can do it.

Well, I never did remember my big revelation, but I definitely think that's enough for today. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time ... remember Man that you are Love and unto Love you shall return. Love, ... Me.