*Everything in moderation. Unless you are ADHD, then it is everything all at once immediately as soon as you want it, and deal with the consequences later. With a force and a fury that feels impossible to get a handle on.
It’s blog post Sunday. The girls are blasting Hamilton, playing Jenga (which is really cute), and also playing with Siggy and his new toy. There is a pot of chicken soup with veggies and potatoes simmering on the stove. These are the warm and comforting things of family that I have created and now have the privilege of basking in, for moments at a time at least. Directly before this calm one teen was yelling at me, and then at the other. It felt like a grenade had gone off in the kitchen, but I am noticing that as quickly as the waves of anger and frustration come, they can become diffused and calmed, or turned into a nuclear explosion. I am constantly working on myself to learn which choices create the best outcome, and then having to undo my wiring and humanity to force myself to behave differently than I feel in a moment. It takes a lot of awareness, practice, and patience with self and others.
In my “pages” this morning I named my gremlin. For those just catching onto my blog, “gremlins” are the name I ascribe to the tiny little havoc creating beings of malice that tell me messages of self-doubt and attempt to undermine my attempts at creating and being my truest self. I named the leader or a particularly bad one Besmirch. I was being playful and creative, and it gave me pause and wonder. I had a quick moment of clear vision where I saw me as DOING what I have set out to, versus just talking about it, and always feeling not enough. When we are in the midst of actual changes we can rarely see them as they are happening. It is only in hindsight and reflection. Really these days my whole life has become reading and writing, it is always what I do in free moments. I am BECOMING exactly who I want to be.
We went to Courtney’s cousin’s wedding last night. It was at the Union League in New Haven. The kind of affair where frantic employees dressed to the nine’s, flit about with small silver trays containing a single shrimp in a shotglass of cocktail sauce. I had some realizations about myself one that I liked and one that I didn’t. The one I liked is that I feel like I may have been the only person who when alone with the service staff asked them how their evening was going. They seemed genuinely surprised that I would think to do that, and perked right up. Even a quick kind smile and polite word to them seemed to be received not unlike a man who has been in the desert for 2 days with no water and who just has the first sip. I notice things like this. Perhaps because I feel more comfortable on the worker’s side of things serving the rich. I was always on that side. On the side of the actual guest I felt out of place and at times undeserving. Hmmm.
The thing I didn’t like: I am a CONSUM-ER. Not one who purchases things. Ok, wait I think I should have said it this way. When I am nervous particularly, I think that I hyper focus on food and drink. Let’s be honest I don’t need to be nervous for this to happen either. I watched those hors d’oeuvres like a hawk. Fun fact about me when I was young I read things way above my level, and I would pronounce the word for these delightful little treats whore-DO-VOORS. lol. For the purpose of this tale I wish I could remember the exact moment that it dawned on me how much I had butchered that word, and how many times I’d said it aloud. Anyway an issue for me currently is gluttony. It as if I need to experience ALL of the Seven Deadly Sins just for good measure. That by doing so I will more readily be able to relate with all of humanity, not just the portion of whom I aspire to be like. If we are looking at this from a clinical model (because why not) I have a terrible terrible time with impulse control in many areas of my life. And lately I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to eating and drinking.
If I am not being obsessive about something… well I might not know, because I think I am always obsessive about one thing or another. Now that I’ve found love, and a career that is fulfilling, and my life feels really nice it seems my last self-destructive vice that could very realistically put my life on the line (at some point) is eating and drinking. Eat drink and be merry. Since I have the merry part down so well, most of my mind is occupied with when and what I am going to eat or drink next. I will begin to think about how that particular thing tastes, what it smells like, what it’s served on, and then am relentless in it’s pursuit until I am satiated. Then guess what happens. I don’t just have one, I have two or three. My pants begin to fit less, and I currently have an entire closet of clothes that are for someone who is a size 6, 8, or 10. When I am rapidly approaching a size 16. I am loathe to be honest about this on here, because part of me feels I’m betraying young women everywhere, especially my daughters by obsessing over this. You see though it isn’t attached to my self-worth any longer, so I thought I could just live, but what I am realizing is something else is happening.
I love that I don’t hate myself enough anymore to torture myself into losing weight. But what is happening is that as a Highly Sensitive Person the sensory experience of pants being tight on my waist is driving me nuts. When I feel as if I am going to burst out of my clothing at any second it drives me nearly mad. It isn’t because someone will have an opinion of me that will be less than favorable, it is because physically I feel like I am about to burst out of my skin. There are many more symptoms to this. There is the swelling of the hands and feet with very much salt for me. There is the terrible bloating with my Crohn’s Disease that makes me look immediately 5 months along in a pregnancy. I am dreading the day that someone mistakes and thinks I must be carrying and comments as such. I already have a difficult history with feeling comfortable in my clothing for an entire variety of reasons. Gender neutrality and fluidity were not a think of my generation. I preferred to shop in the boys section and always have, but then I began to realize what people wanted from me to be accepted into the herd. I tried and tried to feel comfortable in those clothes, but if I am in something I don’t feel comfortable in I obsess about it, and can’t think about anything else. I am aware of the fact that I look like a hobbit in women’s traditional thin and demure dress shoes. I desperately want to be one of the beautiful women in heels, but I just can’t hate myself enough for that kind of torture. And mostly again for others it might just be uncomfortable, but manageable, for me I can’t think about anything else.
So the only solution here is to begin to make healthier choices and get more consistent about it. The barriers to this? EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE, or that’s how it feels. Long unpredictable schedules that can change on a dime, life with teenagers, my wife’s schedule to balance, and mostly my own angst and emotional psyche. I think the angle I am going to try and take with it is that when I am comatose with food or beverage my mind is not sharp in the ways that I enjoy most. It is the opposite of creative, it is escapism.
It’s going to be hard to pick this back up since I got distracted with the kiddos hours ago and am now not in the same thought train. So I guess we can just sum this up as I am trying to do some self-work on fitness and wellness in general, which makes me consider my incredible impulsivity and wonder how I can curb it without ADHD meds working for me. I am doing research and using myself as a guinea pig.
Ok this is now Monday so going to post for now. Stay Tuned….