What if your Fairy Godmother never comes?

Yesterday I looked in the mirror and decided, "You are too big."
My hips spread like red velvet cake rising.
All the little bites I thought didn't count added up to my pants being tight.
They do count.  Especially when they are bites of forbidden food.
Most days, I don't have forbidden food.   I know it doesn't work.
I do best when food is not the enemy.
But when I'm scared that my grip is slipping, everything becomes a threat.
I become a 5 year old girl deciphering shadows in my dark bedroom.
They are all monsters, and the longer I stare the taller they loom until they hover right at my toes.

So my solution yesterday was to eat only yogurt...which I failed at, of course.
And today the monsters linger even though the sun is up.
I don't want to fight.  I want to trust.
I want to tiptoe into my Mom's bedroom and whisper, "I had a bad dream."
Then she will remind me of the truth.
Those monsters are not real.  They can't hurt you.  They are only in your mind.

When I was little, she would tell me to pray if I had nightmares.
It didn't work.
I wanted it to.  So badly, I wanted to be good enough, to pray "hard" enough...whatever that means.
I wanted to believe what I heard in church.
If you pray with a contrite spirit, with an honest heart, God will answer your prayers.
God will give you what you ask for.  Right at that moment...like the fairy Godmother.
But it doesn't work that way.
We do God and fairy Godmothers a disservice by claiming this to be true.

I still want it though, even at 34 years old.
I want someone else to deal with my fear for me, while I wait at the sidelines in my skinny dress.
The truth is, no one is coming to rescue me.
God, Grace and fairy godmothers do not do this.
Husbands do not do this.  Children don't.  Friends don't.
Even as a child, a dependent, no one could save me from my own mind.

I see this with Sophie, my 11 year-old gymnast.
When she competes on the balance beam, I can do nothing but watch.
It is her mind, her body and her breathing.
There is only room for one person in that 4 inch space.
She is having her own experience of walking through fear.
I am there, on either end of the beam.  I tell her I believe in her.  I tell her I am amazed by her.
Each time she survives that 16 foot walk, she grows stronger.  She believes, "I can do this."

I have done this so many times.
This kind of morning, where I wake up afraid of myself, afraid of what I am going to eat.
I wake up believing that I earn the label of "good" or "strong" if I don't eat.
I wake up determined to change myself into something I have been in the past.
I wake up, but I am not awake.  I am still dozing, waiting for someone to rescue me.
I am smiling now, at my nightmare.  The lights are on.
I know I can walk this stretch.
I can eat and live and food can fall silent like a dead bad-guy from a video game...
an apparition of pixels so easily squashed.

It is 7:07 a.m.
I have the whole day, not to grind through, but to relish.