I'm just your average, everyday, divorced 38 year old girl -- overweight, tragically unhip,
and trying to make a life for myself. I live with two furry beasts, Dave and Abby, whose
feline mission in life is to choke me with their fur. Nothing special.
Saturday afternoon. I sit here, planning what I'll wear to the Junior League'sIsland Divine party tonight and I find myself strangely calm and centered for a change. Let me see if I can remember everything that's happened since last I posted...
1. Eating disorder group support - strange, but good. It was nice to hear someone talk about the urge to eat huge amounts of food, secretly and quickly, but it also feels as though I'm indulging in the disease...lolling around in it like a water buffalo and just getting myself coated in it. I don't want to focus on the disease, I want to focus on finding a different way to be. Not really sure if I'll go back.
2. Yesterday at work, I found out that a good friend and colleague "failed" his stress test and will be having an angiogram next week to see if they can clear the blockages that way or if he'll need to have heart surgery the following week. As I heard it, I immediately thought, "Oh my God, that could totally be me." That one moment of sheer panic was quickly replaced by, "Yes, it could be me, but there is still time to do something about it...still hope for me." Hope. With Hope, everything is possible.
3. Had a great time at my Lighter Way class this morning. The teacher talked about how emotional eating (or any compulsive behavior) is in response to some trauma we've experienced, even if that trauma is self-inflicted. For instance, things at work have me stressed out, things with TCB have me stressed out, and then I get a call from my Voices for Children supervisor because things with Alcott's family have gone badly - I reach my limit and start to panic. I panic and shake and feel the familiar rise of the panic attack just under the surface. What we talked about today was using the imagery of having a "strong me" available when this happens, to help and redirect me. The idea is that there's this other me - strong, capable, self-assured - who can step in when the everyday me can't handle something on my own. Sounds freaky when you write it down, but it really is pretty powerful.
4. Got to spend some quality time with Alcott last night and this morning. He played in his first Varsity basketball game today...and he's only a freshman - you cannot imagine how proud I was as he scored his first two points on the Varsity team. Well, perhaps you can! I am just so proud of that young man and how he handles himself and that feeling just fills and warms me.
OK, enough procrastinating. I've got to be ready so that TCB and I can get to Island Divine by just after 4pm - there's food and wine tastings just waiting for us at the VIP tent!!!
Wednesday afternoon. Last night, TCB and I accompanied one of my team members from VLSCI to a Town Hall meeting at Camp Pendleton. This team member is pregnant and got married to her (Marine) husband about 10 days before he was deployed to Iraq for six months. She knows next to nothing about the Marines, has no contacts within the Corps, and is curious about the kind of support, etc. available to her. TCB, a sailor, works in the same department as the General who was the keynote speaker at the meeting and he's the one that passed along the information about the meeting to me so that I could give it to her.
We all met up at Carrows and carpooled, as she didn't know how to get to the meeting location, and TCB snagged her some pretzels and soda before we settled down to listen. She got to see exactly where her husband is, found out what his mission there is, and confirmed when he's scheduled to come home. She met the Command Master Chief (TCB's boss, the highest ranking enlisted Navy person on base) and Sergeant Major (highest ranking enlisted Marine person), both of whom are going to visit Iraq later this month and who are now going to personally check up on her husband. She made contact with several smart ladies whose husbands are serving with hers and who will make sure that she's taken into the fold of the Marine wives. I feel much relieved and confident that she'll get the support that she needs, which is wonderful.
Also wonderful was sitting there with TCB while he listened to the General and then answered our questions like, "Is that where her husband is?," and "What does that acronym mean?," and, "How do you keep all of these different teams straight - they all sound the same to me!" He was patient, solicitous, and friendly. And watching him interact with the other folks there reminded me again of why I care so much for him: he's just a genuinely kind man with a big heart.
p.s. I'm going to an eating disorder support group tonight. I'm just going to try it out and I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with it, but we shall see.
Monday afternoon/evening. I bring a lot of my frustrations here...work, Junior League, my CASA work, and TCB stuff. My journal - this journal - exists primarily so that I can get the ugly stuff out of my heart and mind so that it doesn't fester and drive me past the brink of insanity with its awfulness. This is a good and useful thing and I am glad every day that I have this outlet.
What I sometimes forget to do is write down the good stuff. Like when I get something done here at VLSCI and it's done well and it just flows out of me and feels natural and right, and I wonder if anyone has ever been happier with their job. Or when I'm sitting with my co-chair-to-be at the Junior League Placement Fair last week, chatting about what we want to accomplish next year and how we can engage the committee even more than this year - fabulous stuff. There's the times when I see Alcott smile or repeat something I've told him that I thought he wasn't paying attention for, and my world just melts into an unbearably bright light with warmth flooding every nook and cranny. And then, every once in a while, I remember why I care so much for TCB, why I don't just throw my hands up in the air at the difficulty of romantic relationships of any sort and especially when there is physical distance between the involved parties, and why we are worth fighting for.
Friday afternoon I literally thought I could hold no more stress or frustration. I was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack the likes of which I've not seen in six years now. My chest was getting tight, breathing was an effort, I was pacing in my living room, and I just knew that something had to blow. There is only so much stuffing away that I can do before everything has to explode into pieces that are small enough for me to handle, and this was definitely the point. My Voices supervisor and I had a hour-long call and I was feeling backed into a corner with no good way out. I was very seriously contemplating resigning from the organization because I just couldn't live any kind of life with the kind of pressure I was feeling long term. I couldn't even cry I was so frustrated!
And then he called. No, not Alcott - he's a boy of few words, TCB. And when he quietly asked, "How was your day?," it all came out. Words, tears, frustration all tumbled forth in a disorganized heap and he just kept quietly asking easy questions and saying, "I see," while I worked through this horrible, terrible, no-good place that I'd put myself in. I think I thanked him, although I can't remember for sure. I know that I went forward afterwards to take positive, constructive steps in the right direction with the CASA stuff and that I had a new-found energy and drive that I hadn't had prior to our conversation.
After I'd made all of the calls I needed to make on the case, I made one last call, to TCB. I told him that I knew I didn't tell him how much I appreciated him often enough but that I needed him to know that he is a wonderful boyfriend and that I appreciate him so very much.
You've got to take the good with the bad...that's just the way that life (and dating) is.
