Age is a High Price to Pay for Maturity

As a young adult, I lived life as if it were one big tour de force. I have ridden rodeo as a barrel racer; been thrown off of a Brahma bull; gone white water rafting; scuba diving in the cerulean waters of the Caribbean; explored caves; swam with dolphins, sharks and octopi; earned a living singing Amazing Grace at funeral parlors. I even tried sniffing coke once, but the ice cubes stuck in my nose.

Because of my plucky spirit of adventure, I sometimes found myself in hazardous situations of uncertain outcome. As spine-tingling and downright scary as they sometimes were, these enterprises were invigorating to this probing mind and became fodder for my pencil pushing ingenuity.

My parents had high hopes that someday I would outgrow this keenness for escapade and become normal like them. Normal people have always worried me and while I loved them dearly, it always disappointed me that my family could not understand my bold and usually risky undertakings. Believing me to be a foolhardy ne'er-do-well; the black sheep of the family, I was for years referred to as that “crazy Aunt Linda” but then crazy is a relative term in my family!

I have however, lived these last few decades, cleverly disguised as a responsible adult. Although the gusto that has tinted my life with color has not diminished, it has become a bit iridescent and at times hard to glimpse. Some of the past is beginning to fade and though I once had a photographic memory, every now and then I believe my brains camera is out of film. My mind still works like lightning though; one brilliant flash and it's gone.

I continually love a good challenge; living for the moment and from time to time still living on the edge even if it is only on my bed. I often wonder where life’s journey is going to take me next. Perhaps as I head out on new quests for adventurous exciting new activities like…oh I don’t know…bowling maybe, some of the things on my bucket list can be crossed off. Learn to dance; tour the country in a hot air balloon; ride from the East coast to the West coast on horseback; get married again (who said that?), and tour Italy on a bike. Someday Lord willing they will all come to fruition.

One of the biggest exploits of late however is the commitment made on this blog. Commitments may not have meant what they should have in my younger days, but they mean everything now. Sometimes commitments can be difficult to honor and often times seem like an uphill skirmish. Today is no different.

I have spent these past several days going through each and every can and box in my tiny little pantry. I call it tiny because it truly is. Everything I had could fit in half of most peoples dish cabinet. It took up less than two square feet of space.

After double checking all boxes and cans I had, I discovered I was already eating products that were God given. Perhaps not in their original form as Hal chose to eat but healthy they are. My meager pantry held 2 cans of green Chile and lime refried beans; 1 can of tomato paste and one can of diced tomatoes, none of which had any additives. There was organic chicken broth, and two cans of Dole pineapple chunks in pineapple juice, which I promptly drained and froze in individual serving bags for my favorite pineapple smoothie.

As far as boxes went I had 2 boxes of penne whole grain pasta; 1 box of Oat Bran; 1 box of Multi Grain cereal and 1 of Kashi Autumn Wheat cereal. In my refrigerator you will find various types of cheeses, massive amounts of veggies and fruit along with my coveted milk.

So are these exceptions to the rule or do we again re-invent the wheel and soak beans overnight only to boil them, mash them and re-fry them ourselves? Do we make pasta from scratch each time we have a yen for Italian or do we use take from the arsenal provided by our nearest healthy green grocer?

I say it’s already been invented, so why not use the wheel for the purpose of improvement. By all means eat your favorites that are in the cans; the boxes;the bags, and I know it's painful to hear, but read labels. That is what I find myself doing now each time I walk down an aisle and reach for something I want. Like the coffee creamer I love so much. I won’t buy that anymore and although I certainly prefer the dessert tasting result of those sweet drinkable confections, I realize after doing a bit more research that even if they do contain preservatives, they will only, in the end, destroy the body.

So now that I have this new found knowledge, what do I do with it? If I know I am already eating fairly healthy why am I obese? Psychologists may establish that I am addicted or perhaps even obsessed with food. Let’s look at those options. Am I enslaved to the routine of food because it has become psychologically or physically habit-forming? Am I addicted to such an extent that its cessation will cause severe trauma?

Or are my thoughts and feelings dominated by food so much so, that I eat just because the billboard for Marie Callender's turkey pot pie is luring me even if I'm not hungry? After all inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut her up with chocolate. Consequently, if I kept quiet and let that skinny woman talk, what would she say?

I believe she would confess that almost three decades ago, my spirit of adventure was reduced to rubble by a traumatic series of violent acts. After salvaging what was left of my persona from what should have been my demise, I made the conscious decision that I never again wanted to be attractive to men. Within a year I had gained 100 pounds.

I can not tell you the exact day I realized that the answer isn’t in what I am eating that is keeping me this size. The answer is what’s eating me.

At some point though, in these last few months, I took a good long look at my weight fluctuations and how they came about. I would loose a large amount of weight and begin to feel good about myself. I’d begin looking in the mirror again without sticking out my tongue. And then someone would say “Hey you’re looking great,” and the old fears would come back, and the invisible force field of my weight would no longer be able to keep out the monsters that have kept me victim for more than half my life.

Over this last week, I have blogged about coffee, beef, Jewish Penicillin, Julia Child’s French cuisine, chocolate, and being honestly willing to share the good with the bad. Although it was the Paulie pants that opened my eyes, each of these items are the first “exceptions to the rule” and the beginning of living a healthy lifestyle.

So with the few exceptions of the exceptions, we will continue to learn to live each week, with no bag; no box; no cans and most of all, no more victim.

If you’ve liked what you’ve read, I invite you to become one of my followers and maybe even share it with someone whose lives have been touched by an act of violence. They may need to know they are not alone.