I swore that this day was going to be a struggle when this morning was positively miserable with the damn cat destroying a vase of flowers in the bathroom. The day was gray. The car still shakes.
But I managed 40 minutes of exercise. A bath. I cleaned up the flowers. I am in a cleaning kind of mode that I hope will last onto tomorrow when I’ll actually have time to do it. Didn’t eat that much for dinner, but I’m thinking since tomorrow is the planned deviation for my birthday meal, I’ll have a good breakfast and enjoy the one hour of food at the restaurant of my choice.
I think I want to document how I got myself back on the bandwagon today after two days of being out in left field. Way, way, out in left field and daydreaming about parties and drinking merlot and hands on thighs and other terrible, no-good things along with eating good tasting things without any real sense of control.
Today should have been fantastically bad. I was unplanned beyond my general plan of DO BETTER TODAY. I was tired from yesterday, my house is a mess, there’s all this stressy bullshit that I refused to call bullshit and instead was my pretty pretty shield from thinking about eating properly or basically not falling into my old habits. When my co-worker wanted to go McDonalds, and not going with her would be a sort of affront to the weird relationship we have that, I found myself talking to myself and thinking about how tomorrow was where I was drawing the line so I could pretty much fuck up between here and there and fix it at that line in the sand tomorrow.
I had the devil on my shoulder all purring evocatively, making me think of how easy and good and delicious and flavorful and JUST RIGHT THERE a hamburger is and the angel must have been out back, having a smoke.
But…somehow, I managed to order and eat a salad. Most of a salad. I really wasn’t as hungry, as absolutely ravenous as I thought once I’d actually eaten some food. I know I can have food and that I need food for the diet to work. I just…didn’t need all of it. And that made me feel less wicked and wild and out of control.
Then, I got home and I worked my arse off with my exercise. I pushed myself and sweated and all that jazz. I feel it in my legs, sitting here and typing this.
Tomorrow’s my birthday, see, and while so many things have and haven’t changed from last year…it’s another birthday alone, don’t think I’m not keenly aware of that fact, I’m not going to let it mess me up. Among my not so great habits is a desire to lose weight at the first of the year. An attempt. My birthday. The unfairness of dieting that I can’t have my cake. That I can’t be a special fucking flower on my special fucking day and eat what I want and to quote the little drugged-dentist kid on youtube, IS THIS GOING TO BE FOREVER?! And, I find a way to justify myself having cake and whatever surrounding carbs I can eat. And then the house of cards falls under the weight of my guilt and a year passes and we wash, rinse, repeat.
This year is different, because I’m changing. I’m not dependent (wholly) on food to modulate my feelings. This isn’t an all or nothing proposition where if I choose to eat high-carb, high-fat foods on an occasion with purpose and intent and LIMITS and follow those limits, I can still consider myself on a diet without sobbing into my pillow and earning myself a burrito for my failure and yet another birthday alone and feeling retarded.
This year, I am on a journey. I’m learning about what I want and need and what’s worth it to me. This year, I actually have something to celebrate.
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