Good Idea

It is a good idea to put your car in reverse before trying to back out of your parking space. While it is also fun to rev your engine, doing so may scare an old lady standing nearby.

Current song: "Put Your Records On," Corinne Bailey Rae

It Makes Me Sick

Sticking with the theme of my last post, a week ago I noticed a frighteningly thin girl who goes to the gym at the same time I go in the mornings. She is thinner than most of the patients at the treatment center I worked at. I honestly think I can see her losing weight every day. Her arms actually looked skinnier today than yesterday if that is even possible. Some days I get mad. I think people who clearly have such a problem shouldn't be allowed to have gym memberships. Gyms should turn them away as soon as they walk in the door! Not that any gym would do that because their goal isn't really to promote the health of their members but to make a profit. I'm sure she would jog and do sit ups anyway. Then I get mad that no one in her life is forcing her to get help. She should be dragged kicking and screaming to a treatment center! Not that it would help. She's old enough to discharge herself. Sometimes I hope she'll break one of those toothpick arms, so she'll have to go to the hospital, where the doctor will tell her that her eating disorder has given her osteoporosis and is detroying her heart. Sometimes I want to walk up to her and say, "You know, you are literally killing yourself," or hand her pamphlets about eating disorders and treatment programs. *sigh* This is all very distressing.

Current song: "Be Yourself," Audioslave

How Food Became My Friend

I told Deja I would explain how I went from this grocery list:

1. cool ranch Doritos
2. doughnuts
3. hot dogs
4. orange juice

to this grocery list:

1. soy milk
2. romaine lettuce
3. carrots
4. fat free yogurt
5. cool ranch Doritos

in two years. The change was actually in the works for several years, but there was no concrete sign of improvement until recently. (And I still have a ways to go...) It's quite the story. In fact, I'm not sure I have the stamina to write it (it is also emotionally taxing), but I think I can handle the highlights.

Basically, my relationship with food has been bad since I was a kid. My mom says I was a pretty good eater when I was little, but I'm not sure I buy it. I mean, I've seen the home video of me when I was two or three, sitting on my Sit 'n' Spin with the big bag of Cheetos in my lap. (Those were my Christmas presents: a Sit 'n' Spin and Cheetos.) Like many teenage girls with low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety, I developed an eating disorder (though I was never formally diagnosed). I used to binge on the weekends and starve myself as penance during the week. When Mom made me lunch I would give it away, and when I got lunch money I would pocket it to spend on CDs. I used to say I wasn't hungry and was too busy doing homework to eat dinner. I would go to the kitchen once it was deserted and the dishwasher was loaded with dinner dishes and running. Lest my family discover my secret, I would put a few pieces of cereal and a little milk in a bowl with a spoon. Then I would put it in the sink and fill it with water. There was the evidence of my dinner: a lonely bowl full of milky water and a few soggy Cheerios. Yes, the seemingly good little girls can be masters of deception. (I like to think that is because each individual's potential to do evil is equal to her potential to do good.)

Food was not my friend, and my diet took a toll on my health. I was sick all the time. Eventually, my health was so bad that I could only handle school part-time. I managed to have high cholesterol--over 200--by the age of 20. That didn't bode well. And I worried what my poor health would mean for my future children. I wondered if they were looking down at me and shaking their heads in dismay. I needed to change things.

Progress has been slow--I've been working for 7 years now. I took a nutrition class. I worked on my psychological issues with food, and went to therapy to sort out some of the underlying problems that lead to my emotional eating. The most important lesson I learned was not to restrict what I eat in any way and never to feel ashamed of what I eat, no matter how unhealthy it is. I prefer not to think of food as good or bad. Food is food. For a long time, I removed "junk food" from my vocabulary, though it has recently crept back in but without the old guilt. I learned that if I tell myself, "You shouldn't have that cookie. Don't eat the cookie. The cookie is bad for you," I will hold off on eating the cookie for a while, but eventually I will give in. When I do give in, I won't eat one cookie--I'll eat the whole package. But if I tell myself, "You can have that cookie. You can eat a cookie any time you want," then I'll eat it, I'll enjoy it, and I'll be done with it. I never feel deprived, which allows me to listen to my body and know what I really want and need to eat. I'm not perfect. I still do the girl thing and eat ice cream when I'm sad, but I'm getting better. And chocolate soy milk is just so yummy!

Questions? Comments? Snide remarks?

By the Way

I am dating the young man who wrote this poem. He is lovely. I'm going to San Diego for Thanksgiving to meet his family. That is all.

Awesome

While I was driving home from the gym this morning, I saw a young man walking down the street in knee socks and a kilt, complete with one of those decorative pouch things that holds down the front--good thing, too, because it was windy. Awesome.

My Favorite Temple Patron

Is it bad that I have a favorite temple patron? I have written about her before. Sister Ellsworth comes to the temple every Thursday morning to do initiatories. Most weeks I am at the desk or performing the ordinance when she comes, so I usually get to see her.

Her health has been better this summer than it was in the winter. When I help her up from one chair and walk her to the next, I can feel that she is stronger and doesn't lean on me quite as much for support. She has been talking a little more, asking me about myself and telling me a little more about her 20 years of working in the temple.

When she missed last week and this week, I was worried she was sick. Then I was worried she would die!--I mean, the regular flu kills lots of elderly people, and everyone is even more worried about swine flu. Today I found out her husband is in the hospital (I don't know why) so she has been staying with him. I am sad to not see her.

In prayer meeting this morning, we reviewed the initiatory training, and, since we had time left, our shift coordinator asked us to share our feelings or experiences with the ordinance. I had not planned to say anything, but she singled me out when she caught me sitting in the corner bawling. I said that, when I started working at the temple a year and a half ago, I was pretty miserable in my daily life, especially last winter. While I was working crazy shifts including overtime and graveyards in December and January, it was nearly impossible to get myself to the temple for my 6:20 a.m. prayer meeting. A few days, I woke up, cried, and went back to bed. (Now I get to go to a small, later prayer meeting at 7:40--much easier.) One day, I showed up sobbing and gasped a request to change my assignment for that morning to one that wouldn't require me to talk. But initiatory has changed my life. On my worst days, when I worked in initiatory, the Lord always sent me one patron, who, for whatever reason, let me know that the Lord loved me and was taking care of me. One week, it was Tricia Tanner, a girl I grew up with. Sometimes it was a stranger, and sometimes it was a familiar patron who came regularly who simply touched my heart that day. Sister Ellsworth was one of those patrons, one who continues to melt my heart and put a smile on my face. Every week that I see her, I remember how the Lord has taken care of me in all my misery, which makes me, well, not so miserable.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other Ones

Today at the grocery store, I bought:
soy milk
romaine lettuce
carrots
fat free yogurt
cool ranch Doritos

Two years ago, this list would have looked more like:
cool ranch Doritos
doughnuts
hot dogs
orange juice

Also, do you remember when there was a fuss over the Sesame Street song because someone decided "one of these things just doesn't belong" promoted prejudice? I know I became totally prejudiced against broccoli when I saw that it didn't belong with apples, bananas, and grapes.