Cranky & Irritable

I’m cranky and I’m irritable. There are no better words to describe me at this moment…. Those who are around me on a daily basis will concur that it is, in fact, not just this moment, but lately almost every moment. To them I apologize for my poor behavior, or more to the point, my sharp tongue and my impatience. I am truly trying to control myself but I am slip-sliding.

I’m not 100% sure why this is my state. But…..

I’ve been deeply, unshakably sad for months because someone I wanted to be in my life does not want me in theirs. The post-mortems of every last one of our communications have been endless as I’ve struggled to figure out exactly where I went wrong in misreading signals and misunderstanding intentions. Some of the attraction is the residue of a childhood yearning to be loved and valued by a narcissistic parent. There is also an element of identifying with the aggressor. More than once, I have become emotionally involved with someone who really frightens me with their potential for ferocity. If I can get the one who bites on my side, then perhaps I will not be bitten. But toxic once is toxic always.  

Sugar has been a challenge. I wrote a few weeks ago about an intention to cut down, to detox myself from that sweet drug. I admit that it’s been very, very difficult. I have managed to limit my consumption of ice cream to two teaspoons at a time, no more than once a day. I pay attention to it when I eat it. And I put the carton away without too much longing. When the freezer stock of ice cream is gone, I won’t buy any more.

Except for one birthday celebration, I have avoided sugary treats at work. But every day is a battle. I get to Grand Central Terminal in the evening and have a few minutes before my train. My attention strays to the Snickers, Milky Way, Almond Joy, and Peanut M&Ms displayed in Hudson News. I pass at least three bakeries in the terminal. Cannolis, my favorite fruit tarts, cupcakes decorated like art, cheesecake, black and white cookies – they entice me to come closer. I tell myself I don’t really want them, and then I admit I’m lying. I desperately want them. I imagine they will make me feel better, soothe whatever is hurting. I can also imagine some people saying, “Oh go ahead, stop depriving yourself, life is short.” And I understand their point. But they don’t understand mine. If I give into the craving, I take steps backwards. I will just have to start over and I need to keep going, to push through this. I need to get past the point, if it exists, of thinking, believing that I will feel better if I just consume some sugar-laden delicacy. Sugar is a short-term “fix.”

Winter is the anniversary of the deaths of both of my parents. My mom died five years ago in early January; my father seven years ago in mid-February. My mom was thirty years old when I was born. When she was alive, I always considered that thirty-year difference as a kind of insurance policy. Whatever age I was, I still had thirty years before I would be her age. But now she’s gone, the policy is no longer in effect.  I wonder whether I even have another 30 years. I’m not afraid to die, unless it’s violently. It’s just that there’s so much I still want to do, I find myself feeling panicked that I’ll run out of time.

I awaken in the morning and although I used to look forward to eating breakfast and having that first cup of coffee, all I want to do is turn over and bury myself in the blankets. I used to love my work. But the cumulative effects of too many and unrelenting demands over too long a period of time in an increasingly no-win situation, too few staff (the ones I do have are FABULOUS), no positive reinforcement and little awareness of what actually happens in “a day in the life” from most have taken their toll on my body and my spirit. Someone had the audacity to say maybe I could “use” people more creatively to do the work of my department. My tongue bled though my real desire was to draw blood. I could do that creatively.  

My best friend and I talk about the earliest possible time we can retire, question whether we could retire now and survive financially (probably not), and wonder if we have sufficient emotional stamina to make it until such time as we can. She is feeling about the same as I am these days.

My “heart mother” tells me about a place in Vermont that attracts artists and craftspeople. My daughter sends me a position announcement for a job in upstate New York that she thinks would be perfect for me. [Can’t we find some place where it’s not so darned cold for half the year?] I go on realtor.com and check out the cost of real estate in warmer places. I wonder whether there is a place where the cost of living is less than where I live but where there’s enough happening to keep my interest and my neighbors don’t all hold political and social views that are polar opposites of mine. I consider and reject various parts of the country for that reason, the terrain or the weather. I’m not afraid of uprooting myself, of going where I know no one. I’ve done that before. But I also know better than to believe in the geographical cure. And as if to caution me, there is an article on line this morning about moving where taxes are lower. The comments to the article are vehement in pointing out what citizens give up in services to get lower taxes. Sadly, there is no easy solution. 

Still something needs to change, whether it's circumstances or something inside me. A friend from my co-op, now happily retired, and I used to walk together in nice weather and talk about our upcoming “dreads” for each week. Once the “dreads” were isolated events…. Now they are full days.

I’ll figure it out. I’m pretty resourceful. I’ll stop the wheels from spinning before the tires blow out. I must.

Perfection is Highly Overrated

When I was five, my mother sent me to ballet class. She had always wanted to take dance lessons as a child, but for whatever reason – money – availability – I don’t know – she never did. Consequently, she was determined that I would dance. My teacher, Miss Haeusler was a former prima ballerina who had fled Hungary during World War II and for reasons I’ve forgotten landed in my small town and set up a dance school. It was located on the second floor over Newberry’s Five and Dime on Main Street. The entrance was through a nondescript, heavy door sandwiched between Newberry’s and Grant’s Department Store. You walked up the narrow staircase, down a long and narrow hallway, into a small waiting room. There were a few chairs and a low divan along with a desk where my teacher checked off attendance and accepted payments. A small dressing room with a curtained doorway opened off the waiting room to the right, and the studio was straight ahead, separated from the waiting area by a sturdy room divider. The studio had floor to ceiling mirrors on both sides of the room. Two barres were attached to each of the mirrored walls, one slightly lower than the other for shorter students. A window, too high to see out, was on the back wall, and just inside the studio, in front of the room divider, was the record player and a stool upon which Miss Haeusler perched when she wasn’t patrolling the dance floor.  The floors were gray and hard – not wood like the studios of my later dance years. Sealed cement perhaps….. 

I hated Miss Haeusler mostly because I was deathly afraid of her. I was little and shy; she was a formidable presence with a heavy accent that made her English hard for me to understand. She rarely spoke kindly to us – she barked instead, orders to do this, do that, do it better! She had a stick that she banged relentlessly on the floor in time with the music when she determined that we weren’t following it closely enough. She also banged her stick on the barre in anger when our form was not perfect or our little bodies did not yet contort in the ways that ballerina’s bodies tend to do. There were even times that her stick danced threateningly around our legs as she used it as an extension of her arms to shove our tiny feet into proper position. My goal in ballet class was to keep Miss Haeusler’s stick far, far away from my legs and to make my body move just as perfectly as possible to ensure mission accomplished.

When Tuesday late afternoon rolled around and it was time for ballet class, the tug of war with my mother began. I desperately did not want to go, and she just didn’t understand why I hated it so much. Mothers, for it was always the mothers who brought their daughters to class, were not allowed to stay and watch the class. Nor were they allowed to sit in the waiting room, listening. And for some reason, I wasn’t talking. Unable to verbalize I was afraid of Miss Haeusler and her big stick, I simply put my energies into resisting going to class. I was always relieved when sickness rendered me too ill to climb those stairs for an hour with that stick-thumping dictator.

I made it through the year of dance class, and performed in the recital. I still have the pink cotton costume my mother embellished with pink net ribbons at Ms. Haeusler’s request. I remember being on stage unafraid of the audience, as some of my classmates were.  I remembered all the steps to our “Music Box” dance and didn’t have to rely on my teacher’s cues at the foot of the stage. And afterwards my grandfather gave me a shiny fifty-cent piece as a reward. 

Like a recurring nightmare, ballet class started again in September. This time there was a new obstacle. Now our barre exercises required us to (gracefully) hoist our tiny legs up on that barre in a stretch that hurt-hurt-hurt. Once we got them up there, then the nasty business began of standing just so, pointing our toes just so, and – oh my goodness – sliding our hoisted leg even farther along the barre while bending (gracefully) forward, back straight and head moving (gracefully) downward toward the knee of our outstretched leg. Get the picture? Ouch, ouch ouch ouch ouch! And there was always the threat of that stick. Now I had a more compelling reason to hate dance class. I cried every week when it was time to don my black leotard and tights and carry my black ballet slippers out the door to the car and head toward what I considered the torture chamber.  I may have finally told her about the stick and how much my leg hurt stretched out on that barre because by Christmas time, my mother finally gave up the battle and withdrew me from the classes.

The following September, a new dance teacher, Miss Joy, came to town and opened a dance school in the basement of the Episcopal Church. My mother enrolled my sister and me in tap and ballet classes, and dance was transformed from something to be endured to an activity about which I was passionate. Miss Joy was aptly named. Together she and her congenial pianist, Miss Winnie, made dancing fun. No more barre. No more stick. No more fear.  

My love affair with dance has continued throughout my life, with multiple returns to the ballet studio and classes over the years. Two weeks ago, I started taking a zumba class. Zumba is kind of like aerobics was back in the eighties but with a distinctly Latin flavor. I have toyed with the idea of taking this class for over a year. Initially, I chickened out after watching a video of a zumba class on line and promptly determined that I would not be able to do that. Still, the need for exercise and the challenge attached to trying something new kept my mind revisiting zumba as an option. And in a moment of madness last fall, I enrolled in a class that was scheduled to commence in early January.  

The first night was exhausting. About ten of us – all middle aged white women of varied shapes and sizes – gathered in a mirrored fitness studio in the town adjacent to mine – all looking very nervous and eyeing each other uneasily. Our teacher, a tall, thin Latina woman in sweats, hair in a ponytail and a baseball cap on her head, announced that we were going to have lots of fun. For the next hour, we hardly stopped moving and the teacher never stopped calling directions and cheerleading our efforts. Grateful for my years of dance classes, my feet were somehow able to follow her steps without too much trouble and keep up, more or less. Arms? Forget it. If my arms did what they were supposed to do, my feet lost track of what they were supposed to do. Never mind about the hips. I decided that for the evening anyway, I would not sweat the arm or the hip movement.   

The second night, we had a different teacher. This one was shorter and a little fuller figured than our first teacher. She was also Latina, with very long hair tied back in a ponytail – no hat. And she declared as well how much fun we were going to have. Her method was a little less structured than the first teacher’s and she didn’t keep up a running commentary.  Whenever I thought I had the routine down enough to consider adding my arms to the mix, she would suddenly point both fingers toward her eyes, signaling to our reflections in the mirror to watch carefully because she was about to change things up. Her face looked practically blissful as she moved her body – all of it –in perfect rhythm to the music – easily and beautifully. Her midriff, from neck to hips was like – I don’t know – jello – I was mesmerized by the fluidity and grace with which she moved. I tried to deconstruct what she did. When this part of her is moving in that direction, what is the rest of her doing? I could not figure it out. During each short break, as I ran for my water, I couldn’t help laughing at myself and how ridiculous I thought I looked in the mirror as I attempted to emulate, unsuccessfully, her movements. Compared to her, my midriff looked like it was welded into one solid and rigid piece.

As the class ended, I said to one of my classmates, “I've gotta work on that hip movement. I can’t figure out how she does that.” My classmate laughed, “I was thinking the same thing. I was trying to decide what parts actually were moving, and I couldn’t.” “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’m inherently deficient.” She laughed again, and agreed we all might be genetically flawed.

As I left the studio, I ran into the teacher. “Thanks for the class,” I said to her. "It was fun." I paused, then said, “You must go home and laugh like crazy at our efforts.”  She just smiled at me and chuckled.  I headed toward my car and suddenly, Miss Haeusler jete’d  into my brain. She would be rolling over in her grave at my loose hips efforts. I shook her memory away.

No stick. No pressure. No perfect. Just fun.  

I Hope You Have One Just Like You!

My daughter lent me her copy of the book, Food Rules (Michael Pollan, 2009, Penguin Books) to peruse. It’s easy reading, in fact, I started and finished it during my 45 minute commute one evening. I felt exonerated when I read this book because it provided some evidence that I had the right idea about food as a kid. Here’s a sample from the book:

• If it came from a plant, eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.
• Buy your snacks at the farmer’s market.
• Eat mostly plants.

Given my choice as a child, my daily menu would have been:

• Raw carrots & celery, cucumbers, radishes
• Cooked carrots, corn, green or yellow beans
• Fruit – all fruit – any fruit, though berries preferred
• Nuts, self-extracted from the shell

Add to that my grandmother’s homemade plump noodle soup (my name for her wide-noodle chicken soup), my mother’s cookies, and popsicles, and I was in safe food territory. 

And here’s a partial list of what I would not put in my mouth:

• Anything made wet by the addition of another substance, i.e. milk on cereal, syrup on pancakes, gravy on meat
• Anything slippery, i.e. butter or mayo on bread 
• Anything mushy, i.e. oatmeal, beans other than green or yellow
• Anything with fat stuck to it, i.e. most meats, especially ham (which could also qualify as slippery)
• Anything gross-smelling, i.e. tuna fish

 I hope you are laughing by now because I am, although I still refuse to eat tuna fish. I acknowledge that my food preferences and phobias (for lack of a better term) drove my fairly tolerant mother nutty. I grew up hearing, “I hope you have one just like you,” slip regularly from her exasperated mouth, mostly in reference to what I would and wouldn’t put in mine. She didn’t mean it kindly. She meant that I should get back from my future progeny what I gave out to her.

Here’s a glimpse….

I am 6 years old and in the first grade. I take bus # 17 to school. Smoky is the driver – he’s nice and friendly. My teacher’s name is Mrs. Bateman and I don’t like her at all – she is mean. Every day I wish I had the other first grade teacher, Mrs. Penna, who is pretty and nice, from what I can tell.

Today is Tuesday and I am standing in the front entry way of my house, right in front of the steps leading to our scary upstairs. The front door is open because I am waiting for the bus which should be here any minute. I look at the little brown table next to the door for my red plaid lunch box but it is not there. My heart starts to beat louder and faster and my tummy does a somersault. I need my lunch box.

“Mommy,” I call to my mother. “Where’s my lunch?” My mother appears in the doorway to the kitchen and tells me that I will be eating school lunch today. Even though I have on my boots because it is winter, I race through the dining room to the kitchen where the lunch calendar is taped to the wall next to the stove. I know how to read so I can tell what is for school lunch.  I have a good memory too and I don’t remember that there was anything at all this week on the menu that I wanted to eat. I look at the menu. It says

Hamburger chili

American cheese sandwich

Dish of mixed fruit

White milk

“NO!” I wail to my mother. “I can’t eat chili. I hate chili!” My mother tries to reason with me. “But you like cheese sandwiches and fruit,” she says. That does not matter. “She’ll make me eat the chili,” I wail again, “she” being Mrs. Bateman, my mean teacher.

My mother truly can not imagine anyone making me eat anything. She doesn’t know Mrs. Bateman. Last week, Scott, who always buys his lunch, had to eat tomato soup even though he doesn’t like it. I heard him tell Mrs. Ketcham, the cook, that he didn’t want any when she put the bowl on his tray. I wondered if he was going to get away with it. When Mrs. Bateman saw that he didn’t have any soup, she went and got Mrs. Ketcham and told her to bring it back. Mrs. Bateman walks around the room making sure everyone eats everything on their tray and drinks all their milk.  That’s why I keep a close watch on the school lunch menu and mark off the days I want to take my lunch, which is most of them. Sure enough, there is a check mark on today because I will not eat chili. I don’t quite believe my mother has done this to me.

We both turn as we hear Smoky honking the horn outside my house. “I can’t go to school without my lunch!” I cry. My mother hurries me through the dining room into the front hallway. “I’ll bring you your lunch,” she promises. “Don’t miss the bus.” “Do you promise?” I am very close to crying, which is how scared I am at the thought of having to swallow chili. “I promise,” she says. I run out the door and across the front yard where Smoky is waiting patiently for me. But I spend all morning in school worrying that my mother will not keep her promise.

We have our reading group first. I am in the Bluebirds because I’m a good reader. Sometimes I skip ahead and then Mrs. Bateman gets mad because I don’t know where we are when it’s my turn to read. My mother is not here yet. Then we work on telling time which is really easy. I don’t see why we have to keep doing it.  My mother is still not here. Now we do some writing. We are working on the letter N. We have to use thick pencils that are way bigger than what I use at home, and we have to make our letters really big too. Mrs. Bateman always tells me to write slower so my letters touch the top and the bottom of the lines on the green paper. Where is my mother? 

F i n a l l y at 11:30, my mother appears at the door to my classroom. I am so glad to see her but I know better than to jump up from my chair. Mrs. Bateman goes to the door where my mother is holding my beautiful red plaid lunch box. She waves at me before she turns to go. Mrs. Bateman puts my lunch box in the cloak room. I let out my breath and tell my tummy it is okay to stop jumping.

We are now both safe from Mrs. Bateman.*   

* I try not to say anything bad about people who are still alive (notwithstanding, possibly, political figures who deserve it). I assume Mrs. Bateman, who later became Mrs. Maxim, and then Mrs. Jones is now deceased. If she is not, I’m sorry but she was mean. Honest.

The (Reduced) Sugar Trial.... Just Don't-Just Don't-Just Don't

This has been a really, really hard week.

Back at work on Monday, there is candy all over the place. Everyone seems to be bringing in their gifts from home and I can appreciate that strategy. Beautiful boxes with individually decorated pieces and assorted other chocolates sit on the long, low file cabinet in our office suite where goodies tend to gather. All day long I take the route in and out of our suite that bypasses this cabinet.  All day long I say to myself, Just don’t-Just don’t-Just don’t.  All day long I feel anxious and blue. Mid-way through the afternoon, I send an emergency email to my daughter. “You wouldn’t believe the amount of chocolate around here. I’m having a really hard time.” She emails me back, “Me too. Candy all over the place here too, including jelly beans.” I groan. That would be worse. I could eat jelly beans by the million. I haven’t touched one in about two years. I know better.

Tuesday is more of the same. I wander over to my colleague, A’s office, and whine a little about all the candy. He looks at me sheepishly, “I know,” he says, “I had one piece.”  I admire his will power. Another colleague, M, tells me she’s been bypassing the candy-laden cabinet too. She’s trying to stick to my not-a-vow-but-a-tentative-plan-to-deal-with-my-sugar-addiction. Misery loves company.

I am still suffering on Wednesday. A carton of dark chocolate truffles cast under my desk catches my eye. I had forgotten it was there. I had not taken this gift home with me before Christmas because I knew its fate. The carton is tightly sealed. Several times during the day, I pick up the carton and fondle it. About the fourth time, my finger toys with the edge of the seal. I almost let it slip underneath, almost release the heavenly scent of dark, cocoa-covered chocolates, almost set myself up to eat every one just to get them out of the way. A voice from somewhere in my head appeals, “Just don’t-Just don’t-Just don’t.” I put the carton down. I walk the hall to the water cooler, fill my water bottle and drink drink drink. I tell myself there is only an hour left in the work day to endure.   

Thursday is a better day. I take a little plastic dish of raw baby carrots and another of hummus to work with me, along with my lunch. Perhaps if I keep myself more comfortably full during the day, it will be easier. I am usually ravenous by lunch time and my typical soup and yogurt just doesn’t always satisfy me.  I munch on the carrots in the mid-afternoon and ignore the chocolate underneath my desk. The chocolate on the file cabinet, thankfully, is gone.

A dear friend of thirty-five years sends me a precious gift via email. After reading my last blog entry [See The Route to Resolution-Just for Today, 12/31/10] she reveals to me, among other things, her life-long addiction to sweets and how she finally, finally addressed it. I share it with her permission. “I knew,” she writes, “if I said I could never have ice cream again, I would crack up or kill myself. So I said to myself, you may have ice cream any time you want. All you have to do is get in the car, go to Ben and Jerry's, and get one scoop.  Then you must come home.  Come into the house.  Hang up your coat.  Do some little chore.  If you still want another scoop you MAY have one.  Just get your coat on, get the car out, go back to the ice cream shop, get one scoop, and come home. Amazing results.”  

I very nearly cry as I read her words, I am so overwhelmed. My friend has been fighting cancer. She continues, “Of course, cancer has changed this problem, too.  I crave chocolate, because of serotonin, not the taste.  So I ration my chocolate.  Otherwise I do not care if I eat or not. Ice cream can sit in my freezer now and I sometimes end up throwing it out because it has formed crystals.  Hurts my depression-baby soul, but what is the alternative?” There is more. She writes me about her nail-biting and her shopping habit too, and I feel 100% understood. I am almost breathless at her generosity as my eyes, my brain and my emotions take in her words – over and over again.

Nights are slightly less difficult but only because they are short. Between a dance class, the gym, a client, and an appointment for an eye exam, I get home late almost every evening. I have no candy, cookies, other baked goods, or soda in my house by design. However, there are two almost-full half-gallons of ice cream in my freezer, the result of a weak, hungry moment and a sale at the supermarket over the holidays.  Between them, the two half-gallons feature coffee, chocolate, caramel and nuts. Similar to my friend, ice cream is a food group I doubt I could live without. 

   

I have been making salads nightly for dinner. Large filling salads with yummy but not bad-for-you items – assorted greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, raw mushrooms, artichoke hearts, black olives, cauliflower – that are delicious, but they are not ice cream. Ice cream has been my evening struggle.

On Tuesday night, my friend’s strategy for ice cream consumption floats to conscious awareness as I contemplate my freezer contents. I decide out of nowhere that I will allow myself two teaspoons of ice cream a night. Only two. This means I have to pay attention so I don’t miss the event. It seems to work. I stop after two and put the ice cream away. I only feel a little deprived.

On Thursday night, when I think one more wouldn’t hurt, I tell myself that if I give in to the craving now, I’m going to have to start this all over again. I believe the anonymous responder [see Comments from The Route to Resolution, 12/31/10] that eventually I won’t be drawn to sweets if I can just get over this hump. Sometimes repetition is comforting but not in this instance. I know for certain that I do not want to have first-week-resisting-sugar experiences more than once.