Music Box Dancer, Secret Keeper

When I was a little girl, my favorite aunt, champion, warrior and kindred spirit, gave me a beautiful music box. It was light blue outside with brass hinges and a brass latch. The inside was lined with baby blue satin and had many compartments for a young girl's treasures. And the balerina was beautiful, with brown hair just like mine, as she twirled in perfect time to Greensleeves. I remember hiding my treasures in the music box and locking the tiny padlock for safekeeping. The music box was special because of who gave it to me. Everytime I looked at it, or placed treasures in the little compartments, or wound it up the watch the tiny dancer, I thought of my aunt. I thought of how much she loved me and how much I loved her. I am told that from the time I could talk, whenever I was sad, mad, sick or too tired, I would cry unconsolably until my parents would call my aunt and put her on the phone so I could talk to her. My earliest memories are of me spending time on the phone or spending time in person with her. Growing up we would make the 45 minute drive to her house at least 2 weekends per month. I can still hear the sound of the screen door closing as I walked in the door, I can smell the familiar scent of home cooked meals and my aunt's favorite White Rain fabric softener and my uncle's Old Spice cologne. For me, that little yellow house was 600 square feet of unconditional love, acceptance and understanding. Our special relationship continued though my high school years including many school breaks and summer vacations. My memory can still smell the fresh scent of line-dryed sheets on the hide-a-bed. Then my college years when I called every Sunday night from Oaklahoma just to talk about our weeks. Then into the early years of my career when I lived close by and visited at least every week. Then back to traveling when I moved 45 minutes away. One thing was always true. We talked about everything. And nothing. I learned that laughter and joy serve as a balm for many hurts. I learned that perserverance in the face of hard circumstances builds character. I learned that mother nature was a heartless jailer who slowly imprisioned the heart of the young 20 something girl trapped in the failing body of an 80 year old woman. The same woman who had beat throat cancer in her 60s was, 20 years later, realizing debilitating, long-term side effects of radiation that would eventually take her life. Even though she has been gone 10 years, I find myself wishing I could just ring her up. I still have her long disconnected phone number programmed into my phone, only the touch of a button away. I want to tell her so many things and ask her advice on the many changes and challenges I'm facing right now. I want to tell her that I understand how she felt when her mind was sharp but her body was weak. I want to mull over decisions that need making, I want to laugh about funny stories as my spirits need lifting, but mostly, I just want her unconditional, loving shoulder to cry on. I think back to that music box. And the hopes and dreams and secrets hidden inside the gift and entrusted in the heart of its giver. And I mourn. I mourn the losses of the girl and the loss of her champion who would know just the right thing to say. And then she would tell the heart of the girl that she was loved. And the girl would believe again.

Loneliness

Today I am struggling with loneliness. It sucks. Most days I am content with the single life. I enjoy the freedoms. Today I feel like a bystander. A bystander to the lives of friends and families all around me. Today is a day where I am unsatified with mere existence.

I Dreamed A Dream

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high and life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving

Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hopes apart
And turn your dreams to shame

And still I dream he'll come to me
And we'll live our lives together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seems
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed


These lyrics resonate with me. It says it so much better than the few words I can string together. Lyrics are as sung by Susan Boyle.

Still wandering around in the dessert

The Israelites wandered around in the desert for 40 years. God led them out of their bondage in Egypt, provided exactly what they needed every single day and took them to the promised land. But even knowing the life of slavery and hardship they had come from, even seeing the land of plenty God brought them to and even the hope and promise of a new life of that they still longed for their life in slavery. They lived a new freedom and a new happiness and the hope of a new future.

I wandered around in my food addiction for about 34 years. Eating mass quantities of food, gaining more and more weight and being so large and so sick...trapped in a prison of lonely fatness. Then I found FA and I stopped eating flour and sugar. I detoxed. My skin cleared up, I had more energy. God brought me out of slavery and showed me a life I dreamed of. He showed me the promise of a new freedom and a new happiness. Ninety pounds came off my body and I began to believe that a thin body was out there for me. But still I longed for the food. The flour and sugar called to me. I craved. Then I broke abstinence and walked from the promised land to the dessert. Cake. Chocolate frosted.

Every day I say that I start every day with the desire to be abstinent but then something happens. Or nothing happens. And the food calls me out. The angel on one shoulder says just don't take the bite. You can do this one bite at a time. Just eat your weighed and measured meal. Then the demon on the other shoulder says oh just eat it. You know you want to and tomorrow can be day one just as easily as today. And you have more food to eat. Once you go back you give them up forever. What's one more day?

For the past week I've given in. I've eaten the many many bites. Now the flour and sugar is back in my body and I have another detox ahead of me. And I am ashamed. My sponsees had to find new sponsors. My service positions were assumed by others. My stomache is smooshing up against the steering wheel again for the first time in months. I'm sad and I'm embarrassed and I'm afraid. Many times I have shared in meetings that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had many more binges in me but another recovery was not certain.

And that was the problem. My binge, my recovery, my food, my act of weighing and measuring, my sponsees. Where was God in my recovery? Right on the sideline where I benched Him to watch the game. And where did that lead me...back wandering in the dessert.

Back in the food

I did it. I went back to the food. It started slowly. "What's one more meal out? It's not a problem. That doesn't look like four ounces or six ounces. It's not a big deal, it's just vegetables." But before I ate the extra food I stopped taking care of myself. "I don't really feel like making my phone calls today or my doing my quiet time or my journaling. And I really want to have fun so I think I will stay out late and catch up on my sleep on the weekend."

I've heard many times in the past year that the last thing that happens is the bite. That was true for me.

And then when I finally picked up the flour and sugar it did not do it for me. I did not get that warm, fuzzy feeling after eating. When I forked up those bites of chocolate cake, and the hamburger with all the fixins, and the chips, and the Mike's Hard Lime and the ice cream I did not feel better. I did not get that high. I was so surprised.

I thought to myself...I haven't eaten flour or sugar in 15 months so I should feel better right away. But I didn't. In fact, I felt sick. In the Big Book we read about the progressiveness of our disease and how if we pick up again we are right back where we left off. I experienced this truth.

When I came to FA, the food was no longer doing it for me...no matter how much I ate or which combinations I tried. It did not make me feel better unless I added alcohol and pills to get that fuzzy, floaty feeling.

When I ate the cake I did not feel better and I was shocked! No flour, no sugar for over a year and still I felt nothing. And it did not taste even 50% as good as I anticipated. My fantasy was much better than the reality. I was back at the same juncture that drove me to FA in the first place...the food was not doing it for me. And I knew that in order to find the "feeling" I wanted I would have to eat way more food, drink some tequila and pop a few benedryl.

And that is a place I am unwilling to go. Although I am back at square one, day one I do not count the past 15 months as loss. I have live a new freedom and a new happiness in FA and although the food won me over in the moment I made the decision that I did not want to lose all that I gained by gaining all that I lost.

I am tired of giving up what I want most in life for the elusive satisfaction of what I want in life's moment. I've spent a lifetime living that chapter over and over and over again...and it's a chapter in a never ending story.

So as I go to bed tonight, I look forward to a brand new day with clean slate.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (the past)
The courage to change the things I can (one bite at a time, one meal at a time, one day at a time)
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Operation gluttony

With the holiday season upon me, all of my favorite sweet and savory foods come racing to the forefront of most family, work, and holiday social functions. And I am a social girl! I love a party. And even more than the party, I love party food.

When I go to a party with a buffet-style spread of foods, I always pretend not to notice the food...at first. I move around the room, meet and greet old friends and new, and then I casually make my way to the refreshments. No don't think for even one second that the food isn't my primary focus from the second I walked in the door because it was and is but, just as any good food addict, I need the few minutes of meet and greet time to plan out my strategy. "How could I make as many trips as possible to the buffet to get as much of the best food as possible without drawing attention to myself?"

Now to everyone in the room it looks like I really care about my fellow guests and the kind party hosts who are most likely my friends. But the reality is I am multi-tasking. I might be talking to you and pretending to give you my undivided attention but in reality you are a part of my cover.

Now after a few minutes I have assessed from a distance the tasty tidbits present, looked at the plates of my fellow guests and listened to their comments about said tidbits and I have a plan in mind. I then make my way very casually over to the buffet and make some comment like, "well, I was going to be good tonight but who can resist all of these wonderful treats!"

Then I casually put at least one of each tasty items on my plate and eat them. At this point I don't move very far away from the buffet. As soon as I finish the first plate, I seek out and comment to the hostess* about her "wonderful, homemade goodies". And they are wonderful.
I then make a follow up comment about my favorite items and all more of those specific items to my plate. This process continues until I am very full of food and beverages.

And then, and only then, will I relax enough to truly enjoy the company, some of whom I only see once a year at this particular party. The food is more important that my friend relationships and everything else. The food calls me from the moment I walk in the door and it has my full attention.

This scenario describes how my holiday season was one year ago. But today, I have almost 7 months of abstinance from flour, sugar and mass quantities of food marked off on the calendar. All of the food named above is not my food anymore.

Homemade pan caramels, and her evil bars, fudge, peanut and pecan brittle, Hershey's kiss peanut butter cookies, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, gingerbread cookies, rice krispy treats, sugar cookies slathered with frosting, cornbread dressing, gravy, potatoes mashed with cream and butter, green bean casserole, yams swimming in butter and brown sugar and topped with marshmallows, chocolate truffles, buckeyes, pita chips and many, many other holiday goodies are all examples of what is NOT MY FOOD.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. Many of my ex-boyfriends are named in the list above and came to the party. But instead of answering the siren call of those lost loves, I changed up the routine. I started out my day by spending over an hour on the phone with other food addicts talking about all the reasons we are thankful. Then I ditched my family and had my Thanksgiving meal with seven other food addicts where every bite was weighed, measured and abstinant. After dinner, even though it was a holiday, I made a couple of outreach calls to fellow food addicts.

AND, BY THE GRACE AND PROTECTION FROM GOD, I MADE IT THROUGH! I went to work, the day after Thanksgiving, wearing baggy pants and thinking with a clear mind. No headache, no bloating and no hangover from the excess from the day before. In past years I have often planned ahead and taken the day after holidays off because of how sick I knew I would be. But not this year.

With a sincere heart, I can honestly say that I am finally beginning to experience what it means to be a greatful food addict. My recovery is not easy and the program is tough but the rewards make all the difference. This is best summed up by a quote from my favorite poet in my favorite poem:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, And that has made
all the difference," as written by Robert Frost in The Road Not Taken.

Why I like being fat

Sometimes I like being fat. I'm sure that may be surprising to some but it's true. When a person lives their whole life a certain way it is hard to change. Even when the change is good. With a almost seven months of abtinance from flour, sugar and quantities of food, I find that I am being pulled outside of my comfort zone, or as I like to call it "the fat zone." My pants are baggy, even my shoes are smaller. I tried on a pair of winter gloves that I couldn't wear last year and they were lose on my hands. I even dropped two sizes in my underwear. I am losing weight in the strangest places. I have saggy skin on my fingers. Weird, right?

In the past when I successfully dropped pounds, I always had a magic "number" on the scale that caused me to freak out. About 12 years ago it was 352. I never dropped below that. Then when I had my weightloss surgery, I never dropped below 389. Now, I find myself obsessing at 424. I've lost 60 pounds since I committed myself to my addiction recovery program and more and more people have noticed the changes and are making encouraging comments. This "positive attention" is part of what freaks me out.

I am used to comments from people about my weight but not the nice comments. I am used to stares from people in public but not the good kind of stares. Now, with my recent success, I receive much positive feedback AND IT BOTHERS ME. I've really been thinking about this and I have a few fledgling conclusions: First, I don't feel worthy of the positive attention, second, if you could see the real me on the inside you would not feel the same about me and third, I really believe deep down that this "diet" will turn out like every other diet and I will gain back all the weigh plus more and then all of the negatives will be true again.

What I describe above is the root of my addiction...the root of any addiction in my humble opinion...and that is fear, doubt and insecurity. Fear that I'm not worthy of love, care and concern, doubt that my lack of worthiness will ever change and the insecurity that even though I have friends and family who love me, if they new the real me they would do a 180 and go the other direction.

I ate to numb the feelings that "we" had. By "we" I mean me and all the voices in my head that tell me over and over and over why I deserve to be fat and disgusting and miserable.

As I got the poisons of flour, sugar, alcohol and mass quantities of food out of my system, I began to hear the voices louder and clearer. At times I was tempted to go back to the food but I knew that it would not work. Right before committing to my recovery program, the food wasn't "doin' it for me anymore." My quantities were going up, the combinations of foods were becoming more bizarre and I was adding in alcohol on a pretty consistent basis. The disease of food addiction was progressing and it became harder and harder to find the high. I was at my rock bottom. I couldn't walk, my clothes were the largest size and getting tighter and tighters and I could barely breath.

So I took one small step of faith, a step toward my "higher power" and He met me, took my hand, and held me up when I couldn't stand on my own anymore. I realized that what Christ wanted from me, needed from me, was for me to put down my pride and come to HIM.

The words of a worship chorus that we sing at church comes to mind...and I would site the source if I could remember more that just a few lines...but here goes:

Brokeness, brokeness is what I long for
Brokeness is what I need
Brokeness is what You want from me

Take my heart and form it
Take my mind, transform it
Take my will, conform it
To Yours, to Yours, oh Lord

I can't say it better than that!