crash

Tonight is a tough night. It's been a really long day: commuting to Indy from Fort Wayne, working on a fun project but having to be "on" all day with my colleagues, commuting all the way back. I'm exhausted. I've had dinner and I'm not hungry, but I want to eat. And zone out. And get away from myself.

Mostly I want to get away from today's anniversary. Two years ago today, my mom and her partner Frances were in a terrible plane crash. France's was piloting a small aircraft, and on the way home the engines stopped and they crashed in a field in central New York. I got the call in Bloomington, Indiana and started pacing and praying and crying. I knew Frances was being airlifted. I knew my mom was okay enough to talk, but that she was bleeding really badly. I called a friend to come sit with me, but there's nothing to be said when you're waiting to hear if the people you love are dead.

I imagined it - being in the air, hearing the silence, the mayday, the barely controlled panic. Later on I listened to the air traffic control chatter. Mayday. I can't get to that airport. I'm going to try to land. Then silence. Eventually another pilot saying, "I'll go look around in that area and see if I can find them." Roger that.

On the way down, they told each other they loved each other.

A few minutes later, I got the call.



The crazy thing is that it was almost just an emergency landing. Had they been a few feet higher, they would have just had a bumpy landing in a field. But there was a tree that grew a little too zealously over the years, and it took out the left wing. The emergency landing became a crash landing, the plane spun as it hit the ground, and it took out part of a field

and the left side of Frances' body.

They both survived. It was touch and go for Frances, but over the past two years she's had several major surgeries and they've put her face, arm, and leg back together with metal mesh, plates, and screws. My mom had a head wound, and now has a nasty scar. It's miraculous, as these things go.

Life is short. Even if I spend part of my life in tears, it will be better than being drugged up and oblivious, not living at all. It's been two years for them. It's been seven days for me.

I'm alive, and I want to live.

one by one

Today, I didn't eat popcorn during a movie. That's a victory.

Today, when I found myself watching basketball and eating breadsticks, I focused on the conversations until I was done eating, then I watched the game. That's a victory.

One by one.

Step by step.

The goal is not weight loss. The goal is not fitness. The goal is sanity.



God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next. Amen.

adjusting

I want to be unique and different, to have great stories to tell. Stories not like everyone else's. But I think my stories will sound familiar for a while. They're the stories of a recovering addict. Same theme, same notes. The only thing different is this time it's me.

Yesterday I decided not to use both food and media at the same time. Today I realized that there's going to be some withdrawal.

Right now I hate food. I resent it for not making me feel as good as it did before. I feel the sugar hit my blood and it makes me angry, because I want to get doped up. But I'm not getting high, I'm just getting fed. I recognize that it's healthier this way, but I'm still pissed off about it.

And so goes day one.

I'm very thankful that today there were people in my life who hugged me.

the plunge

Today is Wednesday, March 21, 2012. It's the day I decided that I'm not going to use food to get high anymore.

If that sounds weird, suffice it to say that I've used food as a drug for almost twenty years. Everyone needs to eat, but in many circumstances I use food to take my mind and body away from reality, just like a drug addict does with drugs. Food is my drug of choice. And now I've decided not to use it like that anymore.

I say "decided" - past tense. I guess it was only a few minutes ago, really. But somehow saying it that way makes it immutable. Fixed. I decided. The decision is made. It doesn't matter that part of me, a really big part of me, thinks I'm being crazy and overdramatic and unrealistic. I don't want to listen to that part of me anymore.

I believe that the morality of things like this - eating, drinking, smoking, other vices - varies from person to person. My healthy boundaries might not look the same as your healthy boundaries. So we shouldn't judge one another. The thing is, when it comes to food I never set any boundaries at all.

It's brought me a lot of sorrow. I've prioritized being alone with food over important things, like developing real relationships with people. I've gotten fat and used that as an excuse for not engaging with the world...while also letting the world treat me like a fat person instead of just a person. It's pretty awful.

But eating also brings me a kind of satisfaction I don't get any other way. It's not just the food by itself, usually, but the act of eating and the physical sensations that go with it, especially when paired with watching TV or a movie or reading a book. All of those things put together help me zone out and feel good. I don't just hide from the world, I try to hide from myself, to make everything go away. It feels great, at the time. But it's not healthy. And I'm addicted to it.

Food is a tricky addiction. Everyone has to eat. But in my world of no food boundaries, I realize that eating plus media - TV, books, etc. - is one way I can define the problem. So here I can set a rock, an Ebenezer. This far God has brought me. This far, but no further. This is a boundary. I can't eat at the same time as I use media. Sounds weird. But there it is.

Now I have a boundary.

deep breath

On a ledge, about to jump, you take a deep breath. It calms your nerves (slightly), steadies your heartbeat (maybe), and gives your body one last chance to claim oxygen before you're choked by whatever's about to happen.

God's been asking me to write. For years he's been asking. I've obeyed...sometimes. Mostly in a secret word document where no one can see judge my navel-gazing, wildly awkward thoughts.

Tonight I heard God's voice and it sounded like my father when his mind is made up and he's getting impatient: "Write it and share it. NOW.". (My father would add a stern "Young Lady" to the end of that phrase; I can tell it was God because he never calls me that.)

Please remind me if I don't write here more often. I mean, God will call me on it (apparently), but I'll probably have fewer negative consequences if you say something before He does. Help a girl out.

Anyway, it's about to get all real up in here. First comes the deep breath, then...