Tea tastes pretty good suddenly. That's a miracle. The miracles are flying fast and furious around here- it's amazing. I have to think they're always wizzing by me and that I just don't see them or am looking for the big ones that will "really make a difference" and so don't see the "little" ones that are making a difference. ...
So far I like Celestial Seasoning Wild Berry Zinger tea best (with 1/4 tsp. of sugar though it's really fine without sugar), second is Lemon Zinger (I need the 1/4 tsp. for that), and third is Green Tea Citrus Flavor. That has caffeine and everything. The green tea doesn't require any sugar, the caffeine, I think, is psychologically a sufficiently harmful substance to satisfy my need to ingest things that hurt me!
A concept which today, as I sweat out waiting for my CT Angiogram, should be no laughing matter. Yesterday when I was enjoying having some dental work done, I felt I should inform my new dentist of my recent hospital stay and upcoming heart tests. She pulled her head back a bit (is that weird or what- having someone that close to your face when your mouth is pulled wide open and stuffed with cotton and drool?) looked at me very sternly and said, "Well, I guess you're just going to have to join the rest of the world eating healthy and excercising." What could I say? I saw it so clearly in that second as she looked at me expectantly, hopefully. What was I going to say- "Don't you think I'd like to join the rest of the world? Don't you think I've been trying to "join the rest of the world" my whole entire goddamn life. Do you think I've spent thousands of dollars in therapy so I could sit fat on my ass on the sidelines and die of congestive heart failure?" But explaining (defending really) an eating disorder to someone is nearly impossible unless that person has an addiction of their own hidden up their sleeve. If I could have looked at her and said, "You know I've been using cocaine to self-medicate since I was a little abused girl, I guess as soon as I finish rehab. I'll be back for the rest of this costly dental work" maybe she'd have gotten it a bit. But to convince someone you've been snorting ring-dings (sometimes it was pretty much like snorting them) for 45 years or so- it's a stretch to get any understanding there, never mind compassion. So- seeings as Dr. Hayes was circling with a syringe of novacaine- I decided to just keep it simple. "Yes I will" I replied to her "join the world" invitation. Then she plunged in with the syringe and said, "Isn't it too bad it has to take some big emergency to get us to do what we know we should have been doing all along?". "Mmm" I tried to reply through the needle and gloved hand wedged in the very back of my left jaw.
"Mmm" It sure as hell is too bad. And the truly terrifying thing is- what if some "big emergency" isn't enough? I'm as usual, wondering about visiting OA again but I have to say- I have never been able to stand up and say, "Hi, I'm Kay and I'm a compulsive overeater". Can I write that into blog land, can I cleverly weave the words into pieces I read aloud at writing workshops? Sure. But to stand up in front of a group of seen-some-hard-times-people who know exactly what you are and some of the things you've done in pursuit of food, and say out loud into what is usually a dingy room reeking of old coffee, human anxiety and too little air flow- "I'm a compulsive overeater"- just doesn't do the whole thing justice. Or does it? I don't know. I am still pretty much clueless when it comes to this eating disorder thing.
But this line of thinking is depressing me. Back to the miracles. The tea. Ah the tea. 7 entire days- one full miraculous week (OK the first 2 days sick in the hospital on IVs probably shouldn't count) without a single cup of coffee and requisite donut, pastry, poptart or any of the perverse pleasures that have to accompany coffee for me. Of course I've barely left the house and avoided human contact but I have to start somewhere. I have to get some ground under my feet. I'm afraid for when I go back to work. Work =donuts and coffee. How would I drive to work without my coffee and jelly donut? What would propel me there? And what would I do at 10:30 when I've been up for 5 hours and I really need to lie down and take a quick nap? What will the lady at the Hot Spot think if I don't trek across the street and buy one of her fabulous chocolate chip cheesecake swirl muffins? I'll miss talking to her and hearing about her husband's book signings and then dreaming of my book signings as I try to concentrate the rest of the morning(never mind that half the book signings are hot little poorly attended affairs where people mostly want to tell him about a similar book they want to publish and maybe don't even buy a copy of his. Still, envy is envy- it's not rational. A book signing, hellish or otherwise, is a book signing. It means you're real. And don't give me any of that Velveteen Rabbit crap. You're not real in the writing world until you've written a book. Period.)at my desk. And then lunch will come and pizzas and McDonald's and pasta and garlic bread and onion rings will smell everywhere and I will be SO ready for a nap by then that I will have to eat something truly stimulating to keep me going and then there's that midafternoon slump that often can be overcome with a brisk walk to Brooks and the purchase of chocolate kisses or bulls-eyes, or a 50cent bag of tootsie rolls if I'm able to resist the array of real (meltable)chocolate choices. When I choose tootsie rolls it's a spiritual victory. They're hard to eat fast and they have no fat (or at least low fat) and except for having pulled out countless fillings on them- I don't think they're all that harmful. Nonetheless, with me it's a slippery slope. I won't be able to go into Brooks, at least not for a while. And how will I explain that to people? Part of my cardiac rehab.- no browsing in drug stores?
This is so typical of me. So perfectly typical... My son is awake and roaming around upstairs and I don't want him to wake his older brother so I need to go but now I feel all sad and bereft that I didn't get to "really write" despite getting up at 5:30 and despite my fingers moving most of that time. Still- all I've written about is food. I'm writing about it instead of eating it so I guess that's something. And also, I'm writing about it because if I stop thinking about food I will think about the state that my body is in, the state I have let things get to. I will think about angiograms and blockages, arteries and valves and stress tests and open heart surgery and my mothers cardiac arrest and her surgeries and my terror. And my terror nearly every day when I was a little girl that her heart would give out and she would die and I would be left to fend for myself and even though she couldn't do much to protect me I had the hope that she would. That she would find a way out and then I would find a way out because she would never ever leave me behind would she?? I can taste that fear. The bitterness, the bile taste, the metallic taste- like the end of a gun. The terror of losing her.
The first night I was in the hospital my 11 year old son gave the sitter a terrible time, pretty much verbally abusing her which is not at all like him. When my husband got home from being with me and talked to my son he asked him why he thought mommy was in the hospital. My husband recounted to me how my son hung his head and said, "I can't say it- it's too terrible" and then absolutely would not speak. Hearing that nearly broke my heart. It is almost too terrible to speak of- the thought of being separated from my children. Leaving them without my protection, my love. How would they bear it?
What I've done(and what's been done) to my body over 40 years feels too terrible to speak of. And yet it speaks for itself. Who have I been fooling?
Do I dare pray for a miracle for today? Another day without coffee and donuts? Another day of finding tea not only satisfying but comforting? A heart miraculously without blockages despite years and years and years of frosting, fudge, candy, cake, cookies, whipped cream, and donuts, donuts, donuts??
The other night an old friend called to see why I'd been in the hospital. I was getting technical about the EKG's, stress tests, etc. when my husband yelled in the background, "tell him you've got a piece of birthday cake stuck in your heart" and I got hysterical even though it's way too true to be anything close to funny. Birthday cake is my all time weakness. Well, the frosting is anyway. Frosting is love. Frosting is me and my mother in the kitchen whipping up happiness in a bowl and spreading it out for the whole family to consume. I will miss frosting in excess. I wonder if I could ever write "tea is love". That would be something to pass on to my sons. A love that wouldn't stick in their hearts and hurt them. It isn't easy passing on something you never quite got....
Dear God of All- God of frosting and tea, of the pouring depressing, life-giving rain beating on my windows- help me stand the terror I can taste today and let me soothe it with tea instead of trying to cover it with frosting. There's never enough frosting to truly hide in anyway.
7:18:00 AM 
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