Candy Bar Wisdom

K just came in a few minutes ago.  J dropped him off, is doing some shopping, then they’re headed to the mountains for the weekend.  They invited me but I really need to do homework.

So he walks in and I am at my computer, where I’ve been sitting since 5 this morning…  Really, haven’t stood up (or hadn’t when he walked in) since 5 this morning.  He takes one look at me and says out loud with quite child-like glee while clapping his hands together (he’s got a silly streak like that) “JAMMIES!” 

Yeah, okay, I haven’t gotten dressed yet.  But then, there really isn’t a point, I’ll just go back to bed eventually, why change twice when I can just stay in pajamas all day?  (Um… yeah… probably feeling a bit depressed…  Maybe a lot depressed…  Maybe running the risk of ass-chair melding happening soon…  But back to the story…)

Because I am depressed (alright, I admit it) and hunched up in my chair with my hair still sleep-messy, unshowered, stinky, like a little pajamed computer troll and quite conscious that this is exactly (in my mind) what I look like.  His appearance and his cheerful “Jammies!” is CLEARLY his subtle (cause he’s TOTALLY subtle… yeah…) way of saying, “Gee, Shadow, it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and you’re still in your pajamas?  How pathetic is that?  I’m standing here looking all kinds of hot and sexy in my actually clean, showered body and “going out in public like a real human being” clothes…  What’s YOUR problem?

And because CLEARLY that’s what he was saying and therefore will be expecting my answer to relate to THAT message and not the one he actually said, I respond with, “I’m not going anywhere!  I can do what I want!  I’m sad!  Don’t be mean to me!  Leave me alone!”  (You have to imagine each sentence becoming more and more desperate/angry/whiny, ending with almost working up a little pathetic tear in my eye.  It’s this great skill I’m really getting good at pulling off.  I think if I keep practicing I could start street performing…  Of course…  I’d probably have to get out of my pajamas, so fuck that idea…)

Because it’s K.  Because he’s known me for nigh on eternity.  Because I’m not his daughter who can push his buttons like nobody’s business (none of us can figure it out, he’s pretty immune to the rest of us), he gives me a look that is bemused and good-naturedly dismissive (I’m not sure what that means, but it’s totally the look…)  He cocks his head and puts on his look of, “Let me impart some education on your ass,” and signs.

“You weren’t paying attention.”  He shifts slightly to his left, does a little “ghetto” wiggle as he calls it (sometimes he uses a more derogatory “gay” description) and signs with an air of superiority, actually managing to tilt his head enough to look down at his nose at me…and signs, “Girl, what fuck are you doing in your pajamas this time of day?  Hm?”

Then he shifts his body to the right, pulls his face into the huge smile of childlike glee he wore when he entered the room, claps his hands and repeats the shout, “Jammies!”

Then he centers his body, the bemused look and the cocked eyebrow back firmly in place.  “Different,” he signs.  Then he signs and speaks, “Eat a Snickers,” makes a hissing whistle to my dog and leaves the room, my dog happily bouncing after him.

For those who don’t understand the “Eat a Snickers” reference (and for those of you who live in other countries…  There are so many of you!  It’s amazing, I had no idea my writing was so internationally appealing…)  It’s a candy bar with an ad campaign that runs on the slogan “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”  Snickers Commercial

And he was right, I hadn’t eaten… not since…  some time last afternoon I think.  And under “normal” circumstances that would have been all it was… a smart little cuff on the ear from a friend when I go completely off the handle over nothing.  But because of all these other things that I’d been doing, reading, writing, thinking… it was like that circle of mirrors effect, a mirrored chamber surrounded by mirrors which all reflect the heavenly glow of… the snarky “eat a Snickers” which has suddenly become sacred words of wisdom…  A metaphor for my entire life.  “You’re not you when you’re hungry…”

I went and got some ice cream.  (Oh yeah, depression is great, baby!)  It’s only got…2 grams of protein, but… it’s 180 calories and it has some almonds in it.  And chocolate.  And coffee.  (It’s mocha almond fudge coconut milk ice cream…)  And I hunkered back in my little troll hole and ate some ice cream while K was outside with my dog and his dog.

And I could actually feel my brain cells sighing in relief.  No… really…  I heard it.  (Nobody tell the guys with butterfly nets!)  It’s as if…  I can starve myself for so long that I lose my ability to even realize I’m starving…  It just becomes a plodding existence without introspection or consciousness, and of course, the longer I starve, the fewer resources, the bitchier I get…

And here’s the whole mirrors and holy light thing…  It’s not just food.  It’s everything!  I starve myself pretty universally.  I deny that I have needs… bodily needs (food and sleep and exercise and fresh air and sunlight) I deny that I have emotional needs (my best friend dies from suicide, and I won’t even ask for a couple of days from my professors…  I tell myself to “suck it up”), I deny that I have professional needs, I deny that I have human needs…  As my last relationship, which has been rocky anyway, is finally being put to bed, I catch myself in that stupid “breaking up period” pattern of thinking… “I’m never going to do this again.  I don’t ever want to have a relationship.  I want to be single forever.  I can just have my dog and live in a cave on a mountain and never interact with human beings ever again (Shall I throw my toys and take my marbles and go home while I’m at it?)

I have needs.  I need things in life.  I need things to keep my body functioning, I need things to keep my mind functioning, I need things to keep me emotionally healthy and balanced… and…  For the last year I have neglected myself on a huge number of levels… and I have become someone I really really hate to look at in the mirror.  Hell, I hate to look at myself even without a mirror, I hate to watch myself type out angry and hurtful things to people I care about and even to people I don’t care about, random strangers who do something mildly stupid and/or annoying, and suddenly I’m Conan the Barbarian of Fetlife, slashing and bashing…  I don’t want to be that person.  I don’t want to be an angry person. I don’t want to know that I’m doing the opposite of everything my faith…well… the opposite of my own faith.  I am the anti-Buddha and… I hate that.

But the only solution I’ve been giving myself is, “Just stop doing it.  Stop being angry.”

Great.  I’ll get right on that.  I’ll just stop.  Until I start again.  C’mon…  I would never tell a kid who was making a mistake in multiplication, “Just stop making mistakes.”  If he could do that, he probably wouldn’t be making the mistakes in the first place!  C’mon, Shadow…  Access some brain cells… they’re all happily munching on glucose molecules you were finally so generous to grace them with… now give them some exercise.

I’ve been unhappy for a long time.  Not all unhappiness, I’ve had enough good to keep me going, kind of like my eating…  I’ll make a really great meal every, well, before everything went to shit and I started the ass-chair-hybriding project, I was making a really damn good meal a few times a week…  in between those I had quite a few meals that were satisfactory, often just leftovers heated up, not special, but fine…  But often I’d miss meals altogether, as well.  But by having the really good meals and the leftovers of those meals, I was keeping going.  It wasn’t really enough…  my doctor is unhappy about quite a few things in my latest blood work and with my blood pressure, and with my weight not responding (I’m not eating enough calories…  What a stupid irony THAT is!)  So I haven’t been doing enough.  But I could get by and tell myself things were pretty kosher cause I had SOME really great stuff, lots of just fine stuff…  The fundamentally missing my calorie count on a daily basis?  I kind of just don’t think about that.

I started working at my old job a couple days a week last semester.  The working with the kids was fantastic.  It was like manna for my soul.  Like water after crawling through a desert.  The driving multiple hours in either direction through traffic… not so great… the only doing it a couple days a week… not so fantastic.  But because I had something… Because I had been going on nothing and then I had something and what I did have was of super great quality… I kind of ignored all the other things that were sucking at my energy.

When I was in school I was doing meditation and study every single day.  Since I’ve left school I keep it up for a while then let it fall by the wayside, do a few minutes when I’m really desperate, and then let it go again…  And moan about how far I’ve fallen from my practice… but don’t actually do anything about it…

This same pattern, lather, rinse, repeat, in every aspect of my life.  I’m always missing my calorie count.  With food and with everything else.  I might be doing something great, but too much is missing for it to fill my tank, meet my count, sustain me over the long term.  And slowly things have been falling apart.  I was doing a lot better last year when I was working with the high school.  When I was eating regular meals.  When I had real-life social outlets, yeah I was in a long distance relationship which isn’t so hot, but he did come up here and we were physically together, though the whole thing ended up not so hot… It was… something…  As K says, “sometimes you just gotta get laid.” (Not that that’s all that partner meant to me… but…  having physical intimacy with someone… it does provide a kind of nourishment for the spirit I think…  At least… if you’re doing it in a way that fulfills you…)

I had people I worked with who I liked, every day.  I had meaningful work to do with kids, every day.  I had purpose.  I had human contact (not that all you wonderful people aren’t human, but… humans with facial expression and skin to touch and eyes to look at and…  maybe it’s something fundamentally human, being able to sit down and eat lunch with someone is just different than eating my ice cream in front of a computer screen (go figure).

A couple days ago, I went and met a friend for lunch, we see each other once every few months.  We’ve been friends for years, we worked together for 6 years…  We had our ups and downs, some rocky times, some growing pains on both our ends, but it feels like one of those great relationships that while some people grow apart, we both grew…and remained ever more compatible, and now hanging out with her just feels… so… good.  Like wine that has aged and mellowed (I don’t actually drink wine, I’m just making shit up from listening to people who actually know things about wine…)  It is comfortable yet still engaging…  I told her about my cat (I didn’t mention T, I just… couldn’t talk about that yet) and she cried for me, with me.  We walked around the mall for hours and we never run out of things to say, we think in similar ways, we disagree with smooth, comfortable civility… it is a good friendship.  It took years to get there, but it’s good, really good.  And I don’t see her now but once every few months.  That doesn’t meet my needs.

I’ve realized I’m Joe Pesci in the Snickers commercial.  I let myself go hungry until I turn into an angry little Goodfellas man.  And I do it all while telling myself, “I don’t NEED anything…  Good people put others before themselves….  I should be focusing on other things, focusing on myself is selfish…  Seeking what I need is selfish…  I should be able to keep going on the minimum…  I should sacrifice myself so others may flourish,” (not sure who is flourishing by ANY of the things I’m doing to myself, but… there you go… Shadow logic.) I have so many conversations in my head…  And all of them are mean!  And then it’s like I’m telling myself in how I behave towards others, “Do as I say not as I do…”

But if all that I have inside of me is angry, ranting, bitching, harsh, cruel, mean words…  And I feed myself barely the minimum I need to stay alive, physically, emotionally, spiritually…  How can I really expect to show up as anything but a hungry, cranky, angry, miserable person?

Eat a Snickers, Shadow.  Have a whole case.

Life is so freaking much work!

I guess I’ll listen to my own advice.  I yelled at someone else today who I don’t want to fight with anymore…  But it’s really unreasonable to hang a sign around my neck and say, “I’m a bear, don’t poke me.”  People can’t be expected to live on my terms.  So I guess all I can say is…  All I can do is…  Keep writing in this blog.  Keep trying to see through my own fog, and then get off my assschair and try, just try do do something about it.

My faith lineage comes out of the “Mishap” lineage which included murderers and rapists.  I should remind myself of that when I feel like the lowest scum in the world.  I haven’t murdered or raped anybody…  And if even those men could come back and find the path… I’m surely not too far gone to do it, too.

To the shower.  And then the Snickers store! (Otherwise known as Vitamin Cottage) to buy Snickers! (Otherwise known as really healthy fruits and veggies and meats to cook myself something that’s actually healthy and nourishing… for the first time in… too bloody many days to think about without food in my stomach…)