Grad School and Summer Plans

I got into graduate school for commerce and diplomacy. Pretty excited. Mostly nervous that I won't be able to master a foreign language and so will fail the program or something. Also, looking for an apartment and roommate is kinda scary too. So many things to think about.

I am going to try and stay in the area for the summer, instead of moving home for 3 months and then moving back again. I need a full time job for the summer then... I have a friend from the cycling team who offered me a full time job at a certain chicken-focused fast food chain that is closed on Sundays. I would be working 6am-2pm M-F. I abhor the idea of working with fast food, but it's a steady, dependable job and I have never heard anyone say that they didn't like working for the company.

Lasso the Moon

Participating in a church worship service every weekend has become bittersweet to me. I love singing about the eternal glory of the Lord and learning about my relationship with and to Him, but I just feel sick when I enter the room and see so many couples and single women, but almost no single men. It's like a double slap in the face: look at the people who have what you long for (a romantic relationship), as well as the slim odds of finding a God-fearing man (the abundance of single girls and very few men).

I pulled into the church parking lot 5 minutes after the Saturday night service had begun last week and just started to cry because I knew that the scene I described above was waiting for me inside the church. I just didn't want to do it, to sit alone and see all of that. I almost left and drove back home, but I went in and sat through the service instead.

On my way home, I realized that my mom had mentioned that the moon was supposed to be huge that night, so I looked up and searched the sky, but found nothing. Then I realized that the moon was hidden behind thick clouds. I half-joking, half-serious, prayed, "Jesus, I really wanted to see the moon tonight, please move the clouds."

Not even 3 seconds later, the clouds began to move. I laughed out loud, kept driving, and watched in awe as the clouds slowly continued to spread out and reveal the beautiful moon behind them. By the time I was home, the moon was hanging in the sky without a cloud anywhere near it.

No, I might not have a human lover in my life and yes, I may have to sit alone at church fairly often, but I am my Beloved's and He is mine and He went and got the moon for me that night.

Food Police

It's amazing how something as simple as a kindergarten activity sheet can cause me intense emotional distress.

I have spent most of recovery telling myself that there is no such thing as a "good" food or a "bad" food. There are just foods. A food is morally neutral. Objects are morally neutral. Attaching a moral value to a specific food creates a positive or negative feeling associated with the food. One should not feel guilty for eating something, whether that food that has been falsely labeled as "bad" is a slice of cake, potato chips, carbs, bananas, or red meat. Eating should be pleasurable, not a fight between good and evil. It should definitely not inspire one to pat oneself on the back for being "good" or lead you to punishing yourself (whether physically or mentally) for eating "badly."

This assignment that the little girl brought home today really infuriates me. She already says that she "needs" to work out and yesterday she even said she was "fat" (I always correct her and tell her that she does not "need" to anything like workout -if she wants to run and play, she should and that's great. I also inform her that she is a healthy, beautiful girl and does not need to worry about what she looks like.)

She doesn't need some uninformed kindergarten instructor trying to prescribe a diet to her. She is a kid, her body naturally knows what it needs. It is just this type of teaching that will cause her to not trust her body to tell her what it needs and to think that she needs to follow a diet.

Love Is Not Earned

Sometimes, when I look into the mirror as I am getting ready for bed, usually not wearing much more than shorts and a bra, I congratulate myself for obtaining and maintaining a thin, athletic body. However, just a few minutes later, I usually end up in bed that night with my knees hugged to my chest and my head hung low, wondering why, if I have such a nice body, prince charming has not come riding in and swept me off my feet yet.

Right about then, Ed stops talking and logic (aka, the voices of my nutritionist and counselor) comes in. I realize that no one should/would love me just because I have an attractive body (it won't always look like this anyway). And in the same way that a man should not love me because I somehow got the perfect body, he should also not love me because I could be the perfect wife who can cleaning anything, bake or cook everything, and knows how to discuss politics, as well as balance the checkbook. Why should a guy, or anyone for that matter, love anyone else?

When will I stop trying to be perfect to earn love? When will I stop expecting people to love me if only I could somehow embody this ever-evasive idea of "perfection"?

I know that I can't earn love. Love doesn't work like that. But I still find myself wondering why no one (no one that I click with intellectually) wants to marry me when I am physically fit, a good cook, and have a college degree.

Differences

Why is it that my mom has read countless books about how to properly raise and deal with my sister and her issues, but has never once even looked at a book about eating disorders. Even when I suggest specific books, she still ignores them.

But when my sister has a problem, my mom goes out and attends a weekly class about it. She has never shown any interest in going to the classes at the eating disorder clinic. Instead, she asks me really awkward questions about it that I would prefer not to answer (i.e., "Why would someone not want, or be scared, to go into recovery?" and "Why does being at home make it act up?").

Also, my boss is really beginning to get on my nerves. Well, not really her as much as living with her. It was all I could do last night to keep myself from marching into the living room and smacking her hard across the face -she was sitting on the couch watching Nip/Tuck with her 2 year old son. The episode has a raunchy sex scene it and was about a serial rapists who mutilated his victims. One scene even had a woman, whose cheek has been slashed like the Joker's in Batman's, saying, "you know what he says as he is ramming himself into you?" and going into the details of the rape. Totally inappropriate for a two year old to watch.

This wasn't just a one-time thing either. They watched some R-rated movie the other night with the two year old on their laps -there was domestic violence, fist fights, f-words, and talk of orgies. Don't they realize that watching this stuff is going to affect the little boy's development? That he doesn't process what is real and what is fake, what is good versus bad, what happens in movies versus what is normal behavior? I just want to yell at them.

They even watched Shutter Island with the kids in the room. Of course, I came in at the part when Leo find his dead children in the water and the two and five year old children were staying up at the scream with mouths wide open.

Also, I wanted to have a dinner party, so I asked them if that'd be ok for Saturday night and they said no because they'll "be home that night." It's their house, yes, but it's also my place. I am living here too. It's not like they are having a party or friends over or doing something special. They are just going to be here and I wanted to have 6 friends over for dinner.

Thoughts on Recovery

Recovery is not a straight path forever traveling away from the crisis point, it is a slowly, ever-widening swirl that circles around that crisis point.

What I wish recovery was:

What recovery actually is:

It's not like I am always getting better. I try to always become further removed from Ed, but I just keep circling around and around, slowly getting farther away, but sometimes I sure can't tell. I suppose that's also why recovery is frustrating and doesn't always look like it's "working" -'cus it's cyclical. I go through good times a the top of the circle, bad times at the bottom.

My mom was complaining about my dad going through another one of his manly phases where he goes to all sorts of men's groups, men's retreats, and manly activities like kick-boxing, mountain biking, and camping. She says he has done it before, and I remember the one when I was in elementary school and honestly, I felt annoyed too. But after talking to my mentor, it made a little more sense. Ed and struggles with homosexuality are surprisingly similar -they both come from our brokenness, our desire to be accepted and loved, and represent Sin with a capital "S", though they both involve acts of sin too. They both are cyclical. I am sure I will go through phases, kickstarts, mountain highs and valley lows in my recovery-actually, I already do. It only makes sense that my dad would too.

I need to have a change of heart and be more understanding when it comes to my dad's recovery. Of course, that does not mean that I have to condone everything he does, nor does it mean that my mom was wrong when she left him after 30 frustrating years of watching these cycles.

I find that Ed has really given me an ability to understand addictions, whether behavioral or chemical, in a way that I never would have that possible. Also, in my recovery Bible study, it's crazy how alike my struggle and overeating are. They are the very same thing, just manifested in opposite directions.