sand dollar

12/26/12

Wow.  has it really been 2 weeks since I've written?
Mindfulness has perhaps taken a back seat to aquisition.
Christmas tunnels my vision and exhausts my insight.
I am reaching out gathering objects, gifts, and only a glance inward.
Only to notice that I am not writing...............

12/27/12

.........and that's as far as I got yesterday.....
Amazing how quickly I feel there is nothing to say.

So I'll start back at the beginning.  I will write "what is" right now.
For breakfast I ate 6 chocolate covered pretzels.  I also noticed that Andrew had eaten all of my chocolate covered cinnamon bears. Damn him.  It's probably a good thing.
Then I went downstairs to Sophie's room and stared into her box of chocolates.
I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out which one matched each picture as if I was actually going to eat one.
In the end, I nibbled the outside chocolate from  the strawberry and orange cream ones.
I threw away the orange and pink centers.  I just wanted the chocolate.
Then I opened the other box of chocolates.  The one I bought for Pepper.
Except I didn't eat any of those, I just read the pictures.
Did I just call that breakfast?
And did I mention this was at 4:23 in the morning?

I woke up craving chocolate, that's how I know I went to bed hungry.
I once read this story about an anorexic woman who would wake up and eat 4 Hershey's kisses every night.
It was obvious to me that her body was lacking fat.  So it tricked her in the middle of the night.

Now it is 5:47 a.m. and I am not so much different than her.
Not today.

I stood in the shower last night thinking, mine is a subtle form of dishonesty.
I deny my needs, not because I believe I don't deserve them, but because there simply isn't enough.
Not enough space or energy for me to sleep, to eat, to write, to feel, to listen to my own music.
I have been here before.  I have believed my needs won't get met, so it is pointless to admit them.
I am surprised to find that I still do this.
Because it doesn't work.
I end up waking at 4 a.m. and eating my daughter's Christmas chocolates.

However, there is one difference.
I am not doomed to follow this path all the way to the end where I check into rehab.
I can gently observe my dishonesty.  I can turn it over in my hand like a sand dollar washed up on shore.
It is a side-effect of motherhood.
At least I went for a slow walk this morning and found it lying there.
I can eat a piece of toast, and drink a glass of milk, and sit down to write.
Because it doesn't take too much time.
It takes as much time to deny hunger as to satisfy it.