Couldn't help myself.

I exercised to give my brain some relief from the 2010 cookie battle.  But I had to!  My wild idea of how to get all the cookies and goodies out of the house was to devour every last one.  If I ate them all, there would be none left to obsess about.  So, I went to work and completed the job.

Success!!  I think?

Prior to the cookie madness, I had taken a phone call in hopes that it would all be about business regarding the board I'm treasurer on.  It wasn't.  It gave me tears and failed to award me with the 3rd arid day I was hoping for.  It was the worst possible person I could speak to.

This person lost her wife a year ago in a tragic plane crash.  Her grieving is so much heavier than mine.  She hasn't come out of the pit even for a second.  There are no moratoriums for her.  She suffers every minute she breathes.  She will never see her wife again.

All she wants is her wife back.  There are many times that I've felt a similar way as I do my best to speak through the wailing tears, "I just want my wife."  Our grief is different and I know that I could never get support from her.  I know that she would say to me, "You've got nothing to cry about.  She's still alive."  Her words would be the echo of my mother: you have nothing to cry about.

Like a knee jerk reaction, when I answered the phone I said, "Hi, how are you?"

We tend to do this without realizing that we're not actually asking the question expecting an honest answer.  Then at the same time, we are likely to answer the question with 'fine', even if we're dying inside.  This greeting is a shallow verbal dance.

I never get 'fine' out of her, however.  Every time, she sighs with disappointed impatience and tells me how she's really feeling.  That she would like to die and that she just wants her wife back.  But after yesterday's verbal blunder, I got the worst reaction yet. 

She raised her voice saying, "Would you please stop asking me that?!?!  I'm dying inside and I'm miserable!  So how are you?!?!"

I quietly told her, "I'm having a terrible time right now, for reasons that I won't get into."  She stopped and realized that the sadness in my voice vouched for this.  Her tone softened and she told me I was missed at the board X-mas party.  I told her, "I'm sorry I couldn't make it, I just couldn't do it," while I was holding back the tears.  I didn't want her to hear me cry because I didn't want her to pry into my pain, lest she spit it back at me with repudiation.

She is the very type of person I'm hiding from.  She would reject my emotions and could never give understanding, because her grieving would minimalize my own.  I couldn't get off the phone fast enough to escape the discussion.  All I could do is give one word answers and shrink into my chair to make myself as small as I could possibly be.  I wanted to disappear and become a meager molecule in the ocean.

The flood gates turned on when I disconnected the phone call.  I'm just not strong enough to defend myself.  This is the type of individual I'm hiding from.  She represents the fear of people that I have and is the reason that I haven't been able to show my virtual self on Facebook for over a month.  I can't trust everybody on that site and I can't fake that I'm 'ok'.  I'm so not 'ok'.

I like her.  I feel very deeply for her pain and I would do anything to help her heal.  But she doesn't want to recover and has been very honest and clear about it.  She feels that her grief is the only thing left that she has to share with her wife.  She would like to hold on to that until the day she dies and gets to finally be with her beautiful companion.

I can relate to this in a slightly different way, because sometimes feel like I would like the grief to stay as well.  I don't want to heal and accept my love's male transformation.  If I go along with it, then I will allow the 'male' being that my wife wants to be to become real.  I don't want my beautiful butch to leave me.  I want the woman that I married forever.  I want the person that is in all my wedding photos.

I want my happily every after.

It was directly after this incident that the cookies and treats were eaten with fervor.  It temporarily stopped the pain, those sugary devils of addiction.  They filled up the lonely, empty, painful holes that I just don't know how to satiate.  It was the same feeling I used to get from doing drugs during times of agony.  The fleeting fix.

My eating disorder demon popped it's ugly green oozing head out and the freak out of exercise began, bringing me a painful back and I was left to waver between two choices: take pain killers and have nasty bowels for 2 days, or just 'take' the pain and suffer for my actions.

Seriously.  I beat the hell out of myself.  Inside and out.  I've got some lovely wheat pimples on my face from the last 4 days of cookie gorging.  But all those tempting delicacies are gone now.  If I feel the need to overeat, it will be done with green crunchy veggies and fat filled nuts.

I have allowed the teenager her time.  She got the immature binge she wanted.  Now I'm going to have to let her sleep it off.  It's time to strengthen up the outside adult so that her steps are visible enough that the inside brat may follow.  Today there will gentle stretching and healthy cleansing foods. 

Today I will be gentle to me.  Today I will not pick up the phone for anyone that I know I can't trust.  It's just not worth it.  My tears while writing this confirm that.

I must keep myself safe, because there are no cookies left to hide in.