Destination Discipline

I went to the circus yesterday. I was invited by my friend, Leslie. Normally I wouldn’t go to the circus. The reason for this is very simple, my home is a circus–and not in the Family Circus kind of way.

I only say that because the characters in Family Circus don’t use such colorful language as us. And by “us” I mean my husband. I never use colorful language. Because everyone that knows me knows that I’m perfect. See how the people in the Family Circus picture are smiling and hugging. The circus at my house looks more like this:

But I digress. The real circus, as in The St. Louis Moolah Shrine Circus, was almost as loud as my family circus and much more fun.

We arrived an hour early so the boys could participate in the festivities. I should note that Ephraim’s friend is only three and is also an only child. This was our first outing so they were learning how to play together. Please note Ephraim has two big brothers who are 13 and 18 and his idea of play is slightly different than his new friend. See picture of Three Stooges above. Anywho, this is them riding the train. They were adorable! They looked so happy as they wound around the track.

And then they didn’t. One minute they were smiling and laughing. The next minute they were trying to see who could pull the steering wheel out of the train while screaming as if their hair was on fire. The conductor quickly brought the train to a stop and gave us a look that said, “I’ve had my share of ornery kids but yours take the cake!” But Leslie and I just smiled and nodded because Ephraim’s friend was running. Did I mention he likes to run and that he’s faster than Road Runner? Beep! Beep!

Leslie insisted our next activity would be riding the elephants. I was very excited for the boys to ride the elephants but stated it was not my activity of choice. Therefore I would stand close by and smile like a good mommy and take pictures. The only problem with this was that they required the parent ride with the child and my child really wanted to ride the elephant. I let Leslie go first but for some reason her child was terrified of the elephant–I can’t imagine why–and she and Ephraim’s friend had to climb back down the ladder. Since my child had already been placed on top of the poor beast I felt that I had no other choice but to climb aboard. Oh the humanity. At least that’s what the elephant said when I sat down.

Since some of the readers of this blog may have never had the pleasure of attending the circus, I would like to speak to circus ambiance. I suppose I could elaborate about the bright lights and the trapeze and the large crowds of smiling people, but I’ll save that for another day. I would like to say that I had never been to the circus before and these were my big takeaways. They put big cats in little cages and when they let them out into the arena they slap them with whips and poke them with(what appeared to be) big sticks. I would have been worried about the trainers but they looked meaner than the cats. Also, there were people walking and bouncing and riding a bike around on a tight wire. I think everyone enjoyed this but it made me incredibly nervous. They did a number of “amazing” feats on that high-wire but I didn’t enjoy it at all because I was fairly certain one of them was going to fall and turn into a big pile of goo. I don’t like human goo. The other thing about the circus is that it is very loud.

I don’t know what kind of speakers they equip that outfit with but they must be very expensive. Amazing how we could still hear our children screaming above the clamor and commotion. But while all of that is well and good, the most important thing about the circus is the cotton candy. I know this because as soon as we walked in that’s the first thing my child noticed. And regardless of all the other activities we did, procuring cotton candy was the most important. I know this because he kept screaming, “I want cotton candy!” until I thought his lungs would burst. I tried to tell him that cotton candy is nothing but sugar and that sugar is bad for the body but he wasn’t having it. It was cotton candy or ruptured ear drums. I wonder if this is why I craved cotton candy so badly when I was pregnant. Regardless, we bonded over cotton candy. And if there wasn’t a picture to prove it, I would emphatically deny this happened.

But the best and most wonderfullest part of the circus was this:

Leslie is just about one of my favorite people and we had so much fun.

In short, I would highly recommend The St. Louis Moolah Shrine circus. Just watch out for the circus workers. And the camels. And the people on the high wire, lest you find yourself participating in the circus as you end up on the bottom of a pile of human goo.

Today I was The Evil Queen. I denied someone their happy ending.

For those who have never watched the show, Once Upon A Time, let me simplify. Snow White had an evil step mother who hated her guts and decided to do her in. Her soul purpose in life is destroying the happiness of Snow and Charming. It’s a very clever show and one I am wholeheartedly addicted to. The evil queen spends a great deal of time destroying the happiness of everyone around her, at least when she’s not ripping their hearts out or outright killing them.

My friend and I had finished eating lunch today when we happened to walk by two of the most beautiful cakes you have ever seen in your life. The cake was free(of course) and the icing looked like billowy melt-in-your-mouth clouds of bliss. Yet when my friend tried to go in for a piece I yanked her back. You see, she is new to my place of employment and not yet inoculated to the blatant food bonanza. I know she is trying very hard to follow a low-carb diet and I also knew if she ate that cake she would hate herself later. At least that’s what I tell myself now. Honestly, I think I wanted that cake more than she did and I knew if I let her have it, I’d have to eat some too. And that would be, well, just wrong! This is how evil begins, my friends. We murder the happiness of our friends to save ourselves. Eesh.

Yes, I am a monster.

I squashed her happiness beneath my shoe because I am weak and selfish. And because she’s a good friend she didn’t call me out on it. But I distinctly remember a moment in my not-so-slender days when a friend slapped Godiva chocolate out of my hand and literally broke my heart. Being denied our hearts desire can be very painful.

So maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic. It was only cake after all. But that’s how it is for me. Sometimes I just can’t deal with it. I know if I eat one piece, I’ll have to eat 3 and then 5 and then I’ll start eating something else with copious amounts of sugar in it and before I know it…

I suppose this blog post has no other purpose than to apologize to my friend. She is a very nice gal and I feel really bad that I denied her cake because I have so little will power. She is a really awesome friend for putting up with my food neurosis and I am a doofus. Someday, when I grow up, I will eat cake and be able to stop after a couple bites. Until then, if you want cake, avoid me. I am seriously cake disturbed.

I want to broach a topic many of us are reluctant to address. For those of you who don’t feel you have a problem with binge eating, God bless you! For those who judge others for their excess weight or lack of it, take note – food addicted/afflicted people are humans beings who deserve our compassion not condescension. For those in the trenches, take heart! You are not alone.

I recently made a new friend who was gracious enough to confide that she used to sneak food as a child. She was heavy in grade school and high school and struggles to maintain her weight as an adult. She has an obese parent who has lost hope and she is desperately trying to help her children maintain a healthy body image and be nutritionally sound. She is a gift to me because so many people dare not talk about such things because of the associated shame. The National Eating Disorder Association quotes a national study that estimates half a million adolescents struggle with an eating disorder or disordered eating. They also state that 20 million women and 10 million men struggle or have struggled with an eating disorder in their lifetime. That’s a lot of people! As a teenager I watched enough after school programs to know what bulimia and anorexia looked like, but I never considered for a moment that I had a problem with food. I just knew I liked to eat…a lot!

I am a binge eater and struggle to put food in its proper context: something that nourishes—not harms—the body. I am ashamed at my lack of control even as I tout living a healthy lifestyle. For me, binge eating is not a matter of “If” but rather, “when.” When I chose to indulge my psychological need to consume vast quantities of food for the sole purpose of pleasure, I deeply wound myself. I feel I am no different than the cocaine addict who keeps chasing the high. I wonder what it is about my chemical makeup that my predisposition is to reach for food when I am sad, or happy, or breathing. I wish there was a way for me to enjoy certain foods and feel completely satisfied after consuming them, but there is not. This doesn’t just apply to sugar or carb laden foods. I will overeat just about anything. In fact, you could say I am a compulsive eater. I love the feeling I get when I eat large quantities of food and if I do not exercise self-control, will continue to eat until I am sick.

I know this blog post is a little depressing but I want to offer hope to those who struggle. I will always struggle with my desire to eat but I have learned that my body can be mastered. I am no longer a slave to food or my desire for it. I have the freedom to walk away from things I really want (like ice cream, cookies and cake) because I have changed the way I view and consume food. I no longer look at ice cream with wide-eyed innocence. I know it is high in sugar and fat and will hurt my body even though I sometimes want to eat it anyway! Depending on my mood, a nibble can turn into an all-out feeding frenzy as I move from one unhealthy food product to the next. I won’t pretend it’s easy, but I have learned that the more I make healthy food choices, and the less I confuse my body with blood sugar fluctuations, the better I am equipped to combat my mental roadblocks in regards to processed foods. Knowledge really is power.

When all else fails, and I find myself at the end of the kitchen counter with a pile of containers and wrappers fanned out around me, I force myself not to despair. I found myself in just such a place Wednesday night. It hurts to give in to my food lust and realize, once again, how powerless I really am. I had to fight through a food hangover yesterday and the subsequent weight gain associated with binge eating. I forced myself to exercise and, I won’t lie, it didn’t feel great. When I overload my body with calories, it gets extremely sluggish. Funny how I don’t think about that when I’m gobbling down my husband’s gooey butter cake.

The point to all of this is—I could give up. I could, metaphorically speaking, throw in the towel and make a decision to eat myself back to misery. That’s the easy lie of food addiction. Consume to numb the pain while I’m really making the pain worse. Food will never fill the holes in my heart as desperately as I want it too. I must resist the lies and cling to my personal truths. God loves me just as I am. My family loves me, flaws and all. I am a valuable person even when I slip up and binge. Yes, it feels better for a moment, but it will steal my hope and joy if I let it gain traction in my life. I am not defined by my clothing size, but my quality of life is important. There is no easy path when one is dealing with addiction. There is only sobriety or drunkenness and both are painful in their own way.

I remember watching a movie years ago about a man who decided to give into his alcoholism and drink himself to death. He gave up on his family, literally and symbolically, as he burned their pictures. He was tired of fighting. Someone came along during the movie and tried to save him but because of his deep despair, he rejected that help and died. It was a poignant reminder of what awaits all addicts who reject hope. I remember being horrified by someone who would walk away from the people who loved him because he “needed” to drink. I suppose that is why people call addiction a disease…those who suffer and struggle don’t always understand why they keep going back—why it takes hold of a life and wrings the hope from it. The first step in fighting any addiction is to recognize the lie that there is no hope. We all make choices and no one promised us life would be easy. We all suffer with something, be it physical or mental infirmity, psychological torment, addiction or depression. To be human is to suffer in some capacity. But we must never stop hoping. Life is precious…much too precious to continue to make choices that only cause us pain.