We've All Got Secrets

I've mentioned before that reading post secret is a Sunday tradition of mine. Every now and again, there will be a secret that hits so close to home, I half wonder if I sent one in and completely blocked out the memory. Here is today's eerily accurate secret I could have sent in myself, but did not:

PRIZZA

No, I don't.

Two weeks ago, my doctor recommended that I watch my sugar and carbohydrate intake, which I have been, outside of succumbing to the occasional slice of cake at work. Small aside, what is it with sweets at work? They are damn near inescapable. Do we keep ourselves in sugar hazes, to numb the reality that is our unfulfilling professional lives? I'm reaching, but damn. People steady bringing cake, cookies, candy to work. It's out of control.

Sweet jesus, mozzarella di buffalo

Back to my point. I've tried low-carb variations of dishes in the past couples weeks, because I don't always want to deny all carb cravings. Sugar cravings are different - in my experience, once I succumb, there is little turning back. They are intense directly after going off sugar or when I am fatigued, but they do subside over time and with adequate rest. Carb cravings are more difficult to quell, especially considering how much of a sucker I am for all things bread. Noodles and breads are the players I've attempted to recast, to varying degrees of success. I made carrot noodles* the other day and was disappointed with the sweetness. They were not even in the same stratosphere of pasta in terms of mouth feel, comfort and satisfaction. But I did not slip into a coma after eating them either, so it's important to remember the trade-offs. I've heard good things about zucchini noodles, but I have been gun shy to try them again after getting ill from a batch I made months ago. I baked a low-carb bread recipe I found (it was basically a mostly savoury, intensely nutty cake) that was not offensively bad, but not so good that I wanted to eat it. I cooked savoury chickpea flour pancakes* the other night, topped with cheese and roasted mushrooms, and they were tasty and filling. They can stay. Last night, I had such a hankering for prizza** that I mustered the energy to cook on a sweltering Friday night, after a grueling week. Having the 'gredients for cauliflower crust already on-hand, plus tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil, was half the battle. Imagine my elation when it was actually GOOD. No footnotes, not caveats, just straight up good. I will grant you that my crust was still a little too soft, but I attribute that to never having made it before. 10/10 would cook and nom again.

I am still on the lookout for low-carb recipes that don't make we want to flip a table or rob a bakery and turn into this guy. Will keep you posted.

This seemed like a good idea, but now I want to die.

* these are not the actual recipes I used, but I would try them and I might. If I do, I'll let you know if they're any good.

**I realize I keep misspelling pizza. It's a nod to Dr. Steve Brule.

Letter to My Mother, #2

Dearest Mom,

The Prophet was right when he said, "love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation." You've been stepping farther and farther away from the shore, so I've been placing tiny pieces of my heart in little glass bottles and setting them out to sea. I've plumbed the depths of my love for you and I am amazed to find it has no end. No beginning, no end, only an endless ocean that has no boundaries or limits.

I wrote to Dad the other day about approaching milestones in my life and he said he was sad you weren't here to enjoy them with us. Here is what I wrote to him in response:

"I know, Dad. I am sad, too. I am sad I don't get to share our happy news with her. I am sad I don't get to call her up and ask for her sage wisdom when life is scary or confusing. This is grief - being in the sadness, feeling all parts of it, letting it wash over you. I think grief is like any emotional hurt, in that it comes in waves. There is an ebb and a tide, but I don't know if it ever goes away. But there's something beautiful about the pain of grief that isn't always true about other emotional wounds. It hurts so much because we love so deeply and because the love we received was so great. It's no real consolation, it's never the same, we'll never be the same, but I know that her love made us all better people. And I know no one can take that away from me, so in that regard, I'm happy I'll always get to keep little pieces of her, even though she'll be taking pieces of me with her."

I don't know why so much of my love for and grief about losing you has to do with the ocean, but it clearly does. I have a goal to use my sadness of losing you to create an allegory of sorts, though the project has yet to take shape. If nothing else, I think I found my setting. I just hope the muse shows up and helps me write a good story. Here's hoping I inherited your way with words. 

I was reminded of the poem you wrote about me when I was just a little girl (Sarah, my sweet/my sparkling sprite/you wiggle, you giggle/You fill me with delight) and I could not get those words, almost lyrics, out of my mind. I hope to touch others the way you did, Mom. 

I love you and miss you forever,

Sarah

Strong tobacco

Hey kittens,

I've been away for a while because of vacay and so many other things that I cannot get into at the moment.
I just had to share something, if for no other reason, to release it from my mind. Some of my closest friends eva came to visit a few weeks ago and, seeing as I've been feeling particularly uncomfortable in my skin, I tried to avoid the camera as much as possible. I did make it into a few shots and seeing them, taken from all different angles and degrees of candidness, was, as the Germans say, strong tobacco. In other words, seeing those pictures of myself was such a shock, that it's taken the wind out of me. I am almost speechless at my girth. It is no wonder I am not smiling in hardly any of the pictures I didn't know were being taken of me. I've reached a clear high and low, which is never fun, but I have choices.
I can shame myself, bury my head in the sand and continue killing myself slowly. Or I can decide to love and care for myself a little bit more every day. For reasons I cannot explain, the stakes have gone way, way up in my life, so option two is the only way to go, if I ever hope to be happy.

Strong tobacco is strong.

Waiting for happiness

Getting some house-keeping stuff out of the way, yesterday was weigh-in Wednesday and my weight is back up a bit, which I actually kind of expected, so, in the end, I am proud that I didn't let that deter me from stepping on the scale and facing the truth. The only problem is, I am pretty sure my scale is a POS, as it gave me and M 2-3 different readings within a span of a couple minutes. So, I'll get a new scale - no bigs.

I was expecting my weight to have gone up this week, because my eating has been erratic since my particularly emotional therapy session on Monday. I know I was feeling a lot of sadness and I remember addressing a lot of anger that I haven't yet processed, mostly because anger scares me, for a number of reasons. I grew up in a society and family, in which women were not allowed to show anger. They for sure got angry, because there was just so much to be pissed about, but the message that showing anger as a woman was not ladylike or it made you unpleasant or, perish the thought, a bitch, was subtly and overtly present, almost like an unwritten commandment. Living in Germany - a place where effective communication is more important than being tactful - for someone as sensitive as I am has proven sometimes difficult and very painful, but it has also taught me some very important lessons about communication, honesty, and taking care of yourself. I learned that, just like you can take holding your tongue to the extreme, so as to remain quiet even in situations that make you uncomfortable, you can take being honest to the extreme and use it as a sanctimonious shield that protects you from responsibility when your words are unfair and cutting. That being said, I do firmly believe that there are aspects of both that can be conjoined to form a happy medium: practising tact, having a good sense of time (when do I remain silent vs. when do I get loud), while still being an honest person. It's a delicate balance, but it seems like a noble thing to pursue. That being said, I would still take dodging arrows of aggressive "truth" over maneuvering loaded, tense silences barbed with passive-aggression any day. At least with the archer, I know where I stand. More than that, I've grown to resent this aspect of my upbringing - the one that created so deep within me the instinct to remain silent even when my insides are screaming for me to pipe up. This has been a struggle and I imagine it will continue to be, but I suppose life doesn't have to be about toiling under the weight of struggle, but living up to embracing it and becoming stronger for it.

It also came up in my session that, as a child, I lived in a constant state of waiting for the next fucked up thing to happen: waiting to be made fun of and rejected by other kids at school, waiting to hear my Dad's truck pull into the drive in the evening, waiting for something to trip his hair trigger temper (not surprisingly, it was perfectly acceptable for men to show anger), waiting to be in an uncomfortable situation that I felt powerless to protect myself against. And, conversely, waiting for the moments of reprieve I had to take when I could get them, waiting someone to swoop in and take me to a place where I could feel safe and comfortable, waiting for validation that, no you're not crazy, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I realized that this set a precedent in my mind and body and, jesus, THIS is where that scared, nervous energy comes from. This morning I realized that this is probably also where my tendency to wait for happiness comes from. I cannot say for how long - most likely for as long as I can remember - I've been waiting for that big break in my career, waiting to lose weight (and waiting until then to accept and love myself), waiting for that moment for everything to falls into (and stay) in place. Intellectually, I knew that those moments are choices I can make now or they don't exist, but this sense of waiting on my heels - ears pricked and nose to the wind, ready to run at the first signs of danger - has never gone away. I've been physically putting down roots for years but, in my mind, I've been ready to flee. I've worked jobs, so, so many fucking jobs, and thought, ok, I am here for now, but this isn't it. This can't be it, but... WHAT IS IT? Only to be followed by, what the fuck is wrong with me? I think I assumed that this unrelenting sense of dis-ease was me expecting too much and not being grateful enough for what I do have. This could be part of it, but I think it goes deeper than that. Maybe, I have to first take root in myself before I can lay down roots in my life. Maybe I have to inhabit my body, wholeheartedly, before I can inhabit the world I've created for myself. This definitely feels true, but I know I have to untangle some vines, pull up weeds, and let in some light before I can expect my inner world to be fertile.

Frankenstein's Mother

I had a dream this morning that my mother could walk and communicate again. She was talking about how great she felt - she seemed excited and full of energy. You could tell that she wasn't "normal," for lack of a better word, but I could have actually had a conversation with the dream version of my mother. We could have gone on a short walk together. She could have told me stories of her misadventures and I could have told her abridged versions of mine. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like interacting with my mom as an adult. What would it be like to email each other things, letting each other know, "I'm thinking of you." What would we chat about on skype? If I were sad or feeling lost, what advice would she give me to help me find my way? Would she come visit me in Hamburg and what would she like to see when she got here? She would be there for my wedding and we could drink wine and get tipsy. Maybe we'd even dance together.
Who would my mother be if she hadn't been drifting further away from us for the past fifteen years? Who was she when she was younger? I am pretty sure she was a mischievous girl, but she would never tell me for sure, I think because some part of her feared I would use it as justification to make the same mistakes. Like, she must have assumed I was exactly the wrong person to share those things with. Either that or she was ashamed. I don't know which one is worse.
I caught myself wondering earlier, "When is my therapist going to tell me what to do?" And then I realized that I'm already doing the work. The feelings are the work. And it sucks so fucking much.

I had a session just this morning and this one was particularly emotional. An adult connection with my mother may not be possible, but I do have one with my brother. Missing home feels like nostalgia, missing my mother is like grieving a ship leaving a harbor, but missing my brother is very real. He sent me a text the other day, saying that he hoped I was enjoying my life here, but he missed me. He said we needed to stick together. I have not been able to stop thinking about it, because he doesn't share feelings loosely so, when he does, it carries a lot of weight. Missing where I come from and the people I left behind always comes with guilt. I alone add the guilt as an act of self-flagellation. The messages that I am bad or wrong and that I need to be punished for it are very deep-seated in my body. I don't know if those things go away, but I sure as fuck hope so.
When it comes to childhood dysfunction, or with anything challenging, the only way out is through. There are no shortcuts.

Going Down the Rabbit Hole. Willingly.

Hellllllllo, lovers!
Wednesdays are weigh-in days and, as it should happen, I am down another 1+ kg! This is super awesommmmmmmmme.
Things in general are still kind of precarious, though I would say that my underlying mood is still kind of negative. Bottom line, I am hanging in there.

I am just realizing that there is a difference between intellectually digesting and emotionally processiong problems. Even though I have been working through childhood shit for years and years, I feel like I am just now beginning the work. Like I've mentioned before, there is a long road ahead of me, but I cannot express my relief that the path is finally in view.

Sending my love and support!