Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Have More Fun? That Sounds Horrible!

There has been one piece of fallout from Round 937 of the Fume Wars that I’m a little unhappy about: The neighbor who grilled outside my kitchen door not long ago seems not to be speaking to me.

Given the building manager’s note, he must think I said, “So-and-so was grilling; tell him to stop,” when what I actually said was more like, “I’m glad the building manager has agreed to omit lighter fluid from her charcoal grilling operation; can you please ask the rest of the building to do the same?”

I do like this neighbor and his wife and considered leaving them a note to tell them what I actually said and why, but decided not to. It might not make any difference, and besides, why should I deprive him of the pleasure of being peeved?

Tom said, reassuringly, “It’ll pass.”

I have realized that I’ve been conceptualizing my decision about whether to move back to Michigan or not exclusively in negative terms: It will be horrible if I have to continue to live here with hardly any in-person friends and so far from my parents, but then, it might be horrible to live in Michigan, so far from Tom and his family and the wonderful San Francisco weather, and especially horrible if I have to part company from my job. What will I do to avoid the horribleness that threatens from all directions?

Not to mention that whatever I do, I will end up dead as a doornail, prior to which I’ll be a lonely old lady. Let’s see, will it be more horrible to be a lonely old lady in San Francisco or in Ypsilanti, Michigan?

Then I got to thinking about Tom’s brother Paul, who runs his own business, and otherwise seems to spend most of his time doing what he likes to do. Everything he ever says seems to be about something he is enjoying in the moment, as when we are gathered over one of Eva’s splendid feasts, or expects to enjoy in the future: a trip to this place, a concert, a day on the slopes.

Such a peculiar way to live, but one I would like to learn more about.

About the same time, I was corresponding with my online Overcoming Overeating friends about the million pounds of potato chips I’d eaten lately, before I remembered that fried foods are implicated in cancer. Getting cancer, of which all four of my grandparents died, would be horrible!

Supposedly, if you bring a glittering food into your life in quantity, you will relax about that food and not feel compelled to binge on it. I have seen this work many times, but I have also seen it not work many times.

Certainly there are all kinds of edibles in my kitchen that I could never have had there in the past, but just as certainly, I find myself eating very compulsively sometimes no matter how stocked up I am.

A woman from the email list wrote to me privately to recommend a book that she said helped her a lot when she was struggling with the same things it sounds to her like I’m struggling with, namely, too few sources of pleasure, which makes the joy of potato chips loom large.

She listed the wonderful things that had happened to her just in the previous week, including going on dates with four different men, all of whom called afterwards to ask her out again. Right then, I hastened to the library’s website to request this book, which I cannot bring myself to name, so I hope someone tells you about it in your hour of need.

I’m not brooding quite so much about Michigan just now, because I feel better in general. Maybe that’s just the current focus for free-floating angst. For decades, I assumed that the solution for any form of distress was to go on a diet and lose weight, or to “eat more healthfully” or whatever allowed me the illusion of control and obscured the real issues.

Maybe deciding about Michigan is a real issue, or maybe it’s just something to obsess about that hides something else I’m not ready to see.

The process of identifying what’s underneath a thought about food or weight is known in Overcoming Overeating parlance as “decoding.” A recent example: I realized that when I look at my chin, which claims more territory than previously, and think “This isn’t really my chin,” it actually means “This isn't really my life.”

It’s a handy thought if believed, because then I don’t have to think about what would make my life better but only about what would give me the somewhat sleeker under-chin of my youth.

If I completely believed my eating and body were fine, and had every expectation that they would always be exactly as they are at this moment, what then would I think my problem was?

That is, assuming my chin is exactly the way it’s going to be forever, what are some ways I can enjoy my life?

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