Destination Discipline

I’ve never known hunger. Not real hunger anyway. The kind of hunger that doesn’t know where the next meal is coming from. The hunger that feeds on itself until the bones show. I’m lucky that way. I’ve never had to worry where my next meal is coming from.

This type of hunger seems rare in America. We have government assistance for people who don’t have the money to buy food. No one should rightfully go hungry and yet they do. I like to complain about the things that go wrong in my life. One of the big issues I deal with being my proclivity to overeat. Lately I seem to let myself get very hungry before I eat. This has left me to wonder, how would I feel if I didn’t have food or the means to buy food? The hunger is often so strong I think it will consume me. But 30 minutes later I’m eating and then I’m full and the hunger is sated.

Tonight the man at the deli at Shop N Save asked me if I’m “the girl that writes that healthy article” after I ordered my muenster cheese. I don’t know his name, though I’ve read his nametag before and promised to remember. He is the one who always smiles when he sees me and says, “It’s good to see you” and “Have a blessed day”. He has every reason to be miserable(by my estimation). Customers are rude, impatient and crabby. But I’ve never heard him complain. I think about Angela, the beautiful African American woman who has worked behind the deli counter for years, her hair parted down the middle and wrapped into braids. I think of all the times she has smiled, told me about her grandbabies and brightened my life with her kindness. I frequently see her waiting on the bench in front of the store waiting for a ride home. She doesn’t have a car. She never complains. There are countless others who wait on me, people I love that work at that store. I go there practically every day to pick up something or other. Not all of them smile. I believe some if not most have their share of suffering. And while they may not be hungry for food, I know they hunger for more…more money, more security, more hope. I suppose it is the human condition to hunger in some fashion or another.

We all want more. What we have is never enough. And certainly my life has taken its share of twists and turns and I am currently not where I want to be. But today I realized I really don’t have any problems at all. I have a house, heat, healthy children and a good job. And, I have food to eat. All the food I could ever want. I don’t know what it is to be in want, much less need. Certainly my life isn’t perfect but compared to some, I am extremely wealthy. God forgive me for complaining.

I recently finished a book titled, “Thin Wire: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Daughter’s Heroin Addiction.” I feel a little obsessed about heroin addiction but it seems the closest thing to my food addiction. This book was written by mother and daughter and seemed more of a “How not to treat a heroin addict”. But it was their words and their story and they lived it so who am I to judge? The reason I really like reading those kinds of books is that when someone is writing about their own addiction, it usually means they survived. And heroin is a killer. I think it took great courage for Christine Lewry to write that story. Because she was definitely an enabler. But she never gave up on her daughter. That kind of love is amazing.

Christine’s daughter Amber says at one point, “Drug addiction is no-one’s fault but your own. No one makes you a heroin addict; it’s always your own decision-that’s the first thing I have to admit to myself.”

Amber also talks a lot about the pain in her life and how heroin is a numbing agent to that pain. Each time she would detox and get clean for a while her emotions would come rushing in. It was very painful. It was part of the reason she relapsed, though she never said so in so many words. There is no doubt about it, pain is difficult to deal with and we all have our own ways of coping.

Amber was able to finally sever the ties from the people she did drugs with. It was the only way to stay clean. If she hung out with people who did heroin, she was unable to resist, even though she still thought about it a lot. I think about food a lot but I can never escape it. I am constantly bombarded with flashy advertising. A simple trip through the grocery store can set me on edge if I’m the least bit hungry or sad. Tonight it was donuts and I resisted, even though my middle son cried all the way out to the car. Yesterday it was Easter candy and I buckled and ate way too much. I ate it to numb the stress and pain of the day. And it worked. Sugar works for me which is why I return to it over and over and over again. The difference between sugar and heroin is that one is socially acceptable and the other is not. Both kill in high quantites. Both are poison.

I write this blog because I am not always strong. I write because I have to encourage myself to keep trying to take care of my mind and body. I write because I want to encourage others who struggle with food and mood. And I’m not going to give up just because I had one bad day or week or month. I’m going to keep relapsing and sobering up because that’s who I am. And even though I am flawed and broken, I am me and nobody else. And I love me too much to give up the fight.

There are days when regret grabs me by the throat and chokes the stuffing out of me. Once I catch my breath I stare into the quiet and sigh. I remember when I was 18 and my father said, “I don’t want you to have any regrets.” A nice sentiment, but completely impractical. I wish someone had given me guidance instead on how to deal with regret. But here I stand with 20 years of experience since that moment and a mountain of regret. Is a regret free life really possible?

Hindsight is 20/20, but if we could make every decision with full knowledge of the past and the future would we still choose wisely? It depends on the decision of course and our mentality at the given moment. Study any disgraced politician who has been tarnished by scandal. They might say they wish they could go back in time and undo the damage, but when faced with the beautiful woman and her ample cleavage, would they make the right choice? Sometimes we are simply overwhelmed by temptation and caught in the snare. This is the human condition. We are all imperfect creatures.

So what can we do about it? Do we sit and pout? Do we cry and throw a pity party and wallow in our misery? Well, we can. But if we choose that option we will never escape our misery. I have learned that facing my mistakes is the better option. When I take that path I find peace of mind even if I will forever live with the consequences of my actions. Besides, what better way is there to learn than to fail?

I am weak-willed. When faced with a challenge I inevitably choose the easiest course of action. To that end I find myself facing middle age far from where I hoped to be in life. Lately I find myself moping inwardly and wishing I had made better choices earlier in my life. I wish I had a college degree. I wish I had taken better care of my body. I wish, I wish, I wish. As my mother used to say, “If wishes were horses we’d all be riders.” The decisions I made in my late teens and early twenties resound through my daily life. Those decisions didn’t seem to matter then, but they sure matter now. And I can’t change them.

So what do I do about it?

I think I start by forgiving myself. I was at a different place in my journey then. I need to stop holding a grudge. Hating myself is not productive. I need to determine what I can do today to live my life the way I want to live it. And then I need to stop concentrating on my failures and focus on the things I’m most proud of. These are big challenges but the longer I put them off, the more I prolong my suffering.

I grieve my past but I cherish my future. Even if I only have today, today is what I make of it. Why not go out and make it wonderful?

Even if today, wonderful is simply holding my head high and refusing to cry over past decisions.

Today a woman at work who recently found out she was pregnant confided in me that at her first ultrasound they found a very large mass on her ovary that is not a simple cyst and has the very real possibility of ending her life. She is 3 years younger than me. Suddenly my problems don’t seem like real problems at all.