A Study in Contrasts

I've been simultaneously reading two memoirs- Bread and Wine that is a memoir of a married woman who has a lot of friends she makes beautiful food for all the time and re-reading Craving Grace about a single girl who gives up eating sugar in a search to find God's grace and to let Him be her sweetness. So I'm studying the feaster and the faster. I can read about the feaster like a homey fairytale. Abundance of friends, full tables, joy discovered at every turn, great husband, perfect babies, involved parents, really useful recipes. But even though the faster tends to have a whiny tone and suck-y joyless life, I can relate to her craving. I'm trying to live in the middle.

I've tried to be a feaster-- thinking I could eat anything I wanted and making every day a celebration. That just leads futility to working out and a hunger for more. I've been a faster-- eating in crazy disordered ways, keeping to strictly slim fast and power bars while running 6 miles a day. That just leads to being really tired.  Both lead to jagged, unsatisfied emotions.

I'm back to where I land with the reality I keep forgetting. Paleo is what works for me. Gluten and dairy are not my friends. I went through 3 days of horrible sugar withdrawal and am back to looking better, feeling better, sleeping better. But this time I want to make it beautiful and enjoy it. So I make my own crackers today. I bought a spring form pan to craft a gluten-free, dairy-free cheesecake.

I'm supposed to have dinner tonight with a man I found out last night has a foot fetish from a friend whose roommate dated him. He wanted to suck on her toes. Yuck.  I'm pissed that this is my option. My boss this week made me find the regulation about earrings and uniforms when I forgot for the 1st time in over 2 years to take out earrings before PT. Then he wouldn't give me time off to take friend to the airport. My life is maybe a tad whiny and sucky. But until I become a musician, food is the beauty I can create, and I need to wield that towards the moderate feast.

egg with yolk

Yesterday I had the chance to attend a nutrition seminar with one of the top 15 female bodybuilders in the world. Surely 4 hours of nutrition talk would inspire to get beach-ready for the summer. She's a walking super hero with single digit bodyfat.  But I've come to the place of having a basic standard for nutrition information I embrace-- it's the egg yolk. In my fancy theology, the truest thing I believe about food is that if God wanted us to only eat the egg white, he never would have inserted a beautiful, sunny, very easy to cook yolk in its center.

I was tracking with Zoa the Great on packing 6 small meals a day. A former paleo-ite (paleosite?) I was grateful for permission to eat grains and had visions of the hills of oatmeal and couscous I would embrace. But when it came to the discussion of just buying eggs whites in a carton, I hit a wall.

So I will stay fat. I'll keep working out to feel good and have fun. I'll eat my vegetables. I will someday find another non-white man to date since they tend to be a whole lot less skinny-obsessed. But mark me down for now in the column of "not willing to make the sacrifice."

Wendy Darling

Early this morning I wrote the following to my friend and favorite playmate, my Peter Pan:
Next month when you leave the Island of the Lost Boys (Okinawa), I (Wendy Darling) will choose to grow up. I was feeling new resolution to tackle my issues of hesitancy. I would start investing. I would make responsible dating choices that could lead to marriage. I would want babies and not mind that fat, and the sleeplessness, and the noise, and the spills and the never being alone that accompany that choice. I felt very confident about my ability to walk through those doors. I told God I could do that stuff.

Then I showed up to women's small group tonight at church. It was a dinner, so I stopped and bought pizzas. I was exhausted and hungry and eager to share deep insights. I was not expecting that all the women would bring their kids, because that wasn't the plan. And dinner was very delayed. The women kept talking about dependent things-- medical testing and stop bouncing that ball and look how pregnant you are amidst the shrieking toddlers. I slipped out the back, came home to prepare a healthy dinner, ate 2 bites and then fed my soul with a little chocolate bunny and coffee.

Wendy Darling must eventually grow up and leave the Island of the Lost Boys, but right now all the brightness of Tinker Bell and the bad ass-edness of Tiger Lily are pulling her back to a world where people fly.