The Silver Square

When the first streaks of sunshine sneak past my shades, my routine begins. Almost on autopilot, I fling open the blinds, make the bed, fluff up the pillows, change into running clothes, scoop my hair up into a ponytail, and plug my phone into its charger by the door. I pad across the remaining luxuriously soft carpet and feel a quick jolt as I make first contact with the bathroom's icy cold tile floor.

Scale, Clip Art

Still rubbing my early morning eyes, I slowly approach the silver square that can supposedly measure my body fat, body water, and bone mass. As I wait for 0.00 to flash, I see a lightning-fast slideshow: two slices of chocolate zucchini cake, a wedge of zucchini herb cornbread, a knife slathered with peanut butter, a piece of bread barely visible underneath a melted slice of Havarti with dill cheese, a generous amount of almonds, and a handful of crispy homemade croutons. You're going to have gained weight, threatens that terrible little voice that deserves to be clocked over the head with a ceramic frying pan.

Homemade Zucchini Herb Cornbread

Flickering digits wink up at me for a heartbeat before they register on the tiny screen. It takes a full second longer than that for my brain to process the numbers. Exactly the same as the last two weeks, give or take .1 of a pound! With a whoosh, recollection of all of my recent two-a-days (easy runs, tempo runs, ab labs, pilates sessions, speed work, strength training, circuit training, hill repeats on the bike) flood back into my mind. I stare at my flipper feet for a moment longer before stepping off the scale, reminding myself that maintaining weight is the goal now.

In the past 14 days, I've been exercising smarter and purposely letting myself eat more. I made the decision that overtraining and undereating just wasn't working for me, not physically or emotionally. I'd restricted so many foods from my diet that I was no longer satisfied by anything, and my body wasn't getting close to enough rest or fuel to recover properly. I actually got to the point where I stopped losing weight (even though I was working out like crazy and not eating anything I wanted), presumably because prolonged elevated levels of cortisol encouraged my body to ramp up its fat storage. Now no food groups are off-limits (even though I obviously still get tangled up guilt tripping myself sometimes), I always eat post-workout (no matter how close the next meal may be), and my training plan has built in easy days/recovery runs. I'm still very particular about my food choices and I'm admittedly still a stickler about portion sizes, but I'm amazed at how much less fatigued I feel and how much higher the quality of my workouts are. Honestly, I haven't felt this good physically in over a year.

Emotionally...it's still coming along. I'm happy about some of the changes that I'm starting to see in the mirror (my muscles are starting to look more defined and my sternum isn't quite as prominent anymore), but I still obsess over the stubborn curve in my lower belly, the slightly rounded tops of my thighs, and the width of my hips. On the brighter side, I'm much less grumpy now that I'm not shooting daggers at anyone around me who dares to dig into the cookie jar or to take down the baking books. I still can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that eating more is going to improve my health & my fitness level, without making me gain 10 pounds...but I certainly feel encouraged that this is a better direction than before. I'm not sure if this is the diet & exercise plan that I will stick to for the rest of my life, but I'm going to experiment with it. I'd like stepping on that silver square to be about feedback, not about failure or success.

A Solitary Sport

No matter how many people inspired you, how many sources you referenced, or how many people helped you to coax a whisper of an idea into words on a page, writing is more or less a solitary sport.

No one is going to sit with you while you chomp your fingernails down to nothing, while you stare at a blank screen for what feels like hours, while you rearrange your desk drawers, while you get up for a quick drink, while you bite the inside of your cheek, while you look at a post-it without really seeing it at all, while you pad over to the window (still in your pajama shorts and with a bun on the top of your head)...

No one, except for maybe your dog.

#1 On My "To Buy" List

Sometimes I'm overflowing with ideas and can't wait to write. This seems to happen about once every two weeks - and when it does I write furiously...six or seven blogs at a time. It's oddly cathartic. Writing takes a weight off, one paragraph at a time.

This is probably one of the reasons why my therapist wanted me to write in the first place...at a time when I felt like I could do little more than cry and stare at my spiral notebook full of lists (Things to Stress About Today, Things to Worry About Soon, [Big Picture] Things to Really Panic About, etc.) for the entire hour.

It was incredibly easy to fill those lists. But the blank pages of a journal? Sometimes it's like someone has begun to slowly turn off a faucet. The gushing flood turns into a steady trickle, before becoming a periodic drip and then nothing at all.


Flukey Faucet


Feeling bone dry makes the prospect of sitting down to crank out words, string them together in coherent sentences, and form (hopefully) interesting prose incredibly unappealing.

Nevertheless, I love writing. I love writing in the same way that I had hoped to love math, economics, environmental studies, and French (and all the other ill-fitting majors I considered). I love writing in the same way that Brother #1 loves cars and loaves of bread, that Brother #2 loves running and traveling, that Brother #3 loves money and the market, that Mom loves birds and papery things, and that Pops loves real maple syrup and working in the barn.

Writing, the Old-Fashioned Way

The problem is, I don't quite know what to do about it. It's too late to be a journalism major or an English minor and still graduate on time. It's too late to get the "big internship" away from home the summer going into senior year (that would have hopefully led to a job offer after graduation) as I had planned. I don't know if I want to be an editor or an author. I don't know if I want to write a magazine column, an article, or a book. I don't even know  what I want to write about.

I'm anxious to know right this minute what my career path will be. I want to know how to get started - which seminars to attend, where to live, and who to contact. I want to know how to deal with rejection and how to get promoted. I want to know if you can truly make a living doing something that you love.

But most of all, I don't want to hear another already successful person say:
1. It's all about networking
2. Something will open up when you least expect it
3. It will all work out

Control and I

Awhile back I wrote about the weight question - a post that I was initially nervous to put up but was ultimately happy that I had.

It's time to face the facts and brave another diary-esque post...a sort of Part II.

Because you see, I have arrived at the giant STOP sign. It's no longer looming in the distance...it's not even just now slowly coming into focus. It's so close that I can reach out and touch it. I can see the peeling fire engine red paint, the two rusty screws, and the fine coating of pollen marring the white lettering. I'm a stone's throw away from where I was last February, when I really got into trouble.

A quick glance beyond my trusty sign confirms what lies ahead:
-A stack of sports bras that no longer fit
-An unrecognizable reflection in the mirror
-A slow and starving runner
-An unlimited amount of fuel for self-hatred
-An equally never-ending supply of punishment and reward
-An obsessively restrictive diet
-A steadily decreasing number on the scale

I've lost 10 pounds in the month that I've been home from college. And while I initially had some weight to lose from my two month stopover in Emotional Overeating, I'm a mere 5 pounds away from being unhealthy again. Where has everything I learned gone? It dances in and out of reach...and periodically disappears behind a cloud of self-loathing and into a world where harshness and rigidity reign.

Like a person struggling with an eating disorder, I have "fear foods". Pesto, pasta, peanut butter, nuts, salad dressing, cheese, chips, crackers, cereal, candy, cookies, cakes, brownies, and ice cream are petrifying. So I make rules: no chips with lunch, no crackers before dinner, no carbs unless it's the night before a long run, no snacks between breakfast and lunch. 1/2 a cup of Oat Squares for breakfast, 1 slice of cheese on my sandwich every three days, 1 decadent dessert every 2 weeks. I cling to these rules like lifelines. Whether I break them or not, I go to bed dejected. I'm either unhappy that I ate "perfectly" and still feel enormously deprived or distressed that I ate "poorly" and feel overwhelmingly guilty.



Fear Foods

The compulsion for control still yanks me around on a chain. After a few months in therapy, I thought I had broken free of its grip. But here I am again - impossibly structured, unbelievably rigid, extremely critical, and generally just miserable to be around. On my worst days, I'm little more than a tense and judgmental monster.

More often than I care to admit, I go to sleep with a rumbling stomach and I run on dead legs. I think about food constantly. I dread taking days off from exercising. I'm scared to go visit anyone because I know I'll have to loosen my control over food, exercise, sleep, and money. I can't help but feel repulsed by what other people are eating. I'm awful to go out to eat with because I'm always silently stewing over the fact that I can't control what everyone else is going to order (read: which temptations will be within reach).

I know, I wouldn't want to be around me either.

I feel like a wild animal still cowering in a recently opened cage...huddled against the cold metal in the back of the trap, only a half a step away from the source of food that tempted me, tricked me, and taught me. I want desperately to run away and never return, but the thought of leaving the confines of my temporary home is paralyzing. Although I'm not visibly wounded, I snap at anyone who comes close. When I'm finally alone again, I pace the silver mesh floor in circles, still vibrating in fear, with one eye trained on the open door.

So more work lies ahead. I have to fight against my tendency to schedule everything, stamp down the anxiety that bubbles up and blinds me when things don't go according to plan, disband my inner critic, and put my feelers out for healthy sources of self-esteem, again. I have to let go of my addiction to setting myself up for failure and then punishing myself by cutting out more foods and by adding in more workouts. And I have to realize that the vicious cycle that I thought I'd left behind for good is more tenacious, more controlling, than I thought.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Part III on the way.

The Art of Relaxation

...escapes me.

It's been two weeks without a to-do list of any kind (okay fine - of the written variety). You have to understand my lists are a natural extension of my left hand. I feel naked without them. I'm not a big ring wearer* (why call attention to funny fingers, right?), but I'd imagine it would be similiar to how you'd feel after taking off a ring that had occupied previously undisturbed real estate on your index finger for years.

*I'd make an exception for any ring Diana Heimann
creates for The Left Bank Gallery

I'm so jealous of my friends who have landed (paid or unpaid) internships and are beginning to feel their way through training and friendship making. I'm even envious of my friends who are returning to barely above minimum wage jobs that they held throughout high school. I'm resentful of anyone with a Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm, purpose.

Ah...happiness

I miss the structure and brief stints of well-deserved vacation that come inherently with the onset of the school year and then by working summers. Even worse, I'm appalled by how quickly the days fill up with no obligations. By the time I've written the day's blog, worked out, and showered, it's lunchtime. Once I've run through a handful of errands around town, thrown in a load of laundry, and indulged my inner neatfreak, it's time to think about making a dinner like this one (and of course bedtime rolls around shortly after that).

It's a daily scramble to come up with things to do - anything to do besides relax. Sitting on the couch, even for 15 minutes, makes me feel lazy. After 30 minutes, I feel positively stir-crazy. I used to be able to read for hours at a time and blast through a dozen books a week - now I can hardly sit still for long enough to finish a chapter. I'm completely at loose ends...until a little voice whispers happily: but now you can stress about the blog!

In the absence of "real" things to worry about, I find myself stressing about everything I can possibly dress up with a little bit of panic and tie off with knot of apprenhension. Here's an exerpt from the crazy closed feedback loop that is my brain: 

How am I going to keep up with the blog while I'm in Connecticut visiting the-boy-with-the-most-patience-in-the-world? 
What am I going to eat while I'm there?
Which workouts am I going to do?
Should I take my normally planned off day this week or would it be smarter to put it off so I can "rest" while I'm there?
How am I ever going to figure out my new camera?
When am I going to return my library books? 
How can I be spending this much money with no income coming in?
Why can't I sleep past 6am?
Why am I bone-tired by nightfall after days that are virtually filled with nothing important?

I wish that voice had an on/off switch. People keep telling me there is pleasure to be found in just being, not doing, but so far...no such luck. Maybe I need to read Eat, Pray, Love again.

"Some days are meant to be counted, others are meant to be weighed." -Elizabeth Gilbert