Confessions

Hello dear friends. I didn't realize it had been so long since I last blogged. I suppose it's easy to lose track of the time when you're hiding, which I have been; hiding from you...trying to hide from myself.

When I started this blog I told myself I would share this journey with you. Failure, success, good days and bad. But actually getting up the nerve to share the bad days with you...is harder than I thought. I grew up in a family where we didn't talk about our feelings. There was occasional bragging about successes, but no discussions of problems or failures. You kept your weaknesses and struggles to yourself. The grown ups didn't like for you to be upset. They would send you off with a cookie or a bowl of ice cream to make you feel better.

So this confession is a hard one. It would be easier to go bury myself in a box of pizza or a pint of ice cream. But I've been doing way too much of that. To say that I have not been eating well...would be an understatement. The amount of pizza, ice cream, and other unhealthy junk I've consumed this past week and a half is shameful. And frightening. It is scary to realize that I have consumed an entire pizza in less than 2 hours....and I still want more. See when I crave...I don't just crave food. I crave the experience of eating...of overeating.

I got on the scale this morning and was amazed to see that I'd only gained a pound. Then again I have achieved a sort of balanced ritual. I'll eat good for a day....then most of the next day, and then I'll go overboard. Then I'll cleanse the next day.

Rinse...repeat.

See...trying to form new habits with the person you've been doing all your bad habits with is hard. Especially when that person is your mom. We get stuck in a circle of dysfunction, as I like to call it. One of us will start with a craving...and the other person will be strong...for a while. Just yesterday my mother was going through the newspaper and a coupon for pizza threw her off. For a whole 2 hours I stayed strong and said no. But the kernel of the idea had been placed in my mind and it was starting to grow. By the time my mom was over the craving I was practically rabid with want. The child in me...doesn't like to feel like the only time we ever eat bad is when she says it's okay. It makes me feel out of control....as if I'm ever in control to begin with...but that's the delusion I give myself. So then I end up talking my mom into the craving all over again.

I find that it's easy to cling to the promise of tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll start fresh, tomorrow I'll get my act together. But tonight I'll have my last hurrah. Tomorrow comes and I find myself saying 'you know...for such and such a reason today doesn't feel like a good day to start. Let's try again tomorrow.' Excuses fly to my tongue faster than I can speak them. I really want to go to the gym...but I'm sick....so I should stay home. 3 hours later it's true that I'm sick...but I'm sitting there chowing down on pizza that I can't even taste. Every excuse I can think up becomes a life raft to which I cling. Why do I do this...when I know that my life raft is leading me right over a deadly cliff?

Is it fear? Uncertainty? Does the answer even matter? Would knowing the whys give me any clue as to the hows of stopping myself? I don't know. Right now I'm awash in a sea of frustration, and self pity. I don't know where my willpower went and I don't know how to find it.

Today is my mom's birthday, and neither of us are feeling extremely festive. But it will feel even more pathetic if we don't do anything. She's trying to decide what we're going to do when I get home. We talked yesterday and decided we need to get our heads together...we need to stop making excuses and start acting. But today is her birthday....what is a birthday without cake? So we're attempting to come up with a game plan that will let us celebrate...but within reason.

For now I'm eating a healthy lunch while I stare out the window at the rain. I feel like I'm looking for the starting line in the pitch blackness of night. If I could find the sun, I could see where I'm going, but I don't even know where to begin to look. My goal is to go to the gym tomorrow after school. Even if it's only 20 mins on the treadmill, at least it's a step in the right direction.

But tonight I will celebrate with my mother. Maybe if I can figure out what it is we're celebrating, I can find the willpower to stop waiting for the next tomorrow.