I laid with eyes shut, trying to go back to sleep. But my feet swung out of bed and onto the floor.
I had no choice. The appetite for writing has never left me.
And I knew my new box was down here, just waiting.
On my way through the kitchen I stopped at the cupboard and lifted a wad of peanut butter out of the Jif jar.
I do this often. Especially if I go to bed hungry. I am still learning.
In the book Women Food and God. She offers eating guidelines. One of them is: eat what your body wants. She then clarifies, Not what your Brain tells you to want. Eat what your Body wants to be Alive.
Years ago this advice would have been quarantined and starved out. Geneen Roth. She is the same woman who wrote the book Intuitive Eating.
"Intuitive Eating! If I did that I'd either inhale a whole Costco chocolate cake or restrict to coffee and cottage cheese. What an idiot!"
I was petrified by the combination of food plus myself. I couldn't allow intuitive eating to inhabit my mind as an ideal. It was far too loose, like letting stoned hippies feed me. This body cannot afford free love.
Yesterday I tried it. I would reach for something, and then look at it again and think, 'My body doesn't want that.' Golfish crackers. Halloween candy. Orange and Black tortilla chips. Beckam's old 1/4 of a peanut butter sandwich.
I saw how compulsive my hands are.
I am so afraid to starve myself, that I eat random food without thinking. I have believed it is the only way I can allow myself to eat.
In the book she describes this guideline as taking lead boots off. I no longer have to trudge through quicksand in their weight. I can glide...or dance. What did I choose to eat for breakfast? A tall steamy cup of roasted tomato soup and a hunk of whole wheat bread.
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| "Dance Class" Despicable Me |
I took Pepper to "Dance Class" at the rec center.
She got this from the movie, Despicable Me.
It isn't actually a dance class, but to her, it is.
While she there, I did a gentle run for my sore back. I stopped and streteched and ran and stretched and walked when I needed to.
I went to pick her up at Dance Class. Pepper was the last one there.
She didn't see me for the first 4 minutes.
I watched her answer questions and stand on tip-toes.
Her face turned a bit to the side with her thinking mind.
She sees me, "Mommy!"
She skitters across the wood floor to my lap.
"Look at my magic wand!"
She shows me how she flew like a bat with red scarf wings.
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| How can you say no? |
Her face is pulled up at every corner with a glorious smile.
She really is flying.
I wish her dad could see this.
Just before bed, she asked me to take her to dance class again. I told her, 'your teacher is sleeping.'
Today I get to take her trick-or-treating.
I don't know why it took 4 1/2 years of eating disorder recovery to get to this place.
In this place, I can allow a guideline like, eat what your body wants. I can hear it and let rest with me. It is sitting right next to me now, and I am not appalled by it's smell. I welcome it.
I know I could always get lost again.
I could forget what is true, and go screeching through days with bloody heels and eyes sealed shut.
But I can't let that stop me from trying.
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| Me laughing at Pepper on a walk to the state capitol by our house. joy. |
i love this pic you : )
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