Crash. (Thud)

September 4, 2017

I can resist anything but temptation.

(Who said it first? Oscar Wilde? Woody Allen? Can’t remember.)

Patterns and habits require tremendous will power to overcome, but yesterday I had used up all my will power on other things and was feeling pathetic and deprived and, well, subject to temptation.

I don’t take drugs – I pop an Advil only very reluctantly. I don’t drink, for fear of alcoholism. (I believe I’m an alcoholic who just hasn’t started yet.) I don’t gamble the rent money, I don’t visit disturbing brothels in Thailand, I don’t associate with nefarious types (well, not VERY nefarious) (you know who you are). What I do is eat.

And that means I wear my moral failings on my butt, for all the world to see and comment on. Really, it would be much more attractive to be a heroin junkie. For a while, at least.

So yesterday I remembered that I’d bought ice cream sandwiches for my son before he went to college. He didn’t eat them (because – oh, gosh, did I do that? – I bought delicious Baskin Robbins Jamoca almond fudge ice cream sandwiches and the kid ain’t a fan), and there were two left, and they’ve been sitting there for weeks.

Before yesterday, I was able to resist them. First, I resisted them by eating OTHER more dense, more delicious ice creams. (Clever ploy, huh?) Then, after the Great Zinc Connection was made (that is, Chip at Body Dynamics explained that I was sugaring away all the zinc I’d been eating in pumpkin seeds), I resisted the treats by growling like a dog spotting the UPS man. Defense! Defense! Back, you bastards!

But not yesterday. I ate one and then the other. I muttered “zinc” and “fasting blood sugar” and “don’t do it” while I wolfed them down, but those words of power had lost their oomph.

So after that, I made myself a perfectly enormous cup of Earl Grey, with whole milk and STRAIGHT WHITE CANE SUGAR scooped amply out of the canister – pure and glistening and grainy and deadly. And then I looked around in vain for some other way to destroy all the good I’d done. If a dealer had walked by, I would have crooned “Come on, baby – just a little bump. I’ll do ALL the things you love.”

And then – remorse.

I didn’t even particularly enjoy the indulgences I was packing in; I just did it because I was sad and low and self-destructive. And then guilty, too.

BUT today is a new day. I’m going to eat no-sugar, whole-milk yogurt with fresh fruit, wheat germ, walnuts, and zinc-rich, hopeful, little-engine-that-could pumpkin seeds. I’ll drink a big glass of water. And I’ll shoulder my burdens with renewed determination. Because old patterns are hard to break… but with a lot of help, I’m going to break them.

I hope.