Love Me, Love My Eating Disorder

   During the last week of Walt's life, I was visited by a very special person. Someone I love but never get to see.  I spent a lot of time sitting in the car with her. If you know me then you have probably sat in a car with me and talked. A car is better than any therapist office. So me and my lovely friend talked.....about food. Death makes you deal with things. Sometimes it makes you talk about weird things. Sometimes it makes you face things. During this week  food was not on my mind so maybe that is why it was so easy to talk with her. Anyway, I spoke with her again last night. After almost an hour of  "talk", we finally got into the food conversation again. I am so glad that I  have her. I am so glad that she understands. It may be a familial disorder that we deal with, but  that fact that I can tell her my deepest food secrets is a big deal. I think maybe it's time that I come clean.
    I am not a foodie. I would rather watch Man V. Food than Paula Deen. I don't want to watch you cook, I want to watch you eat. And don't try to sell me on expensive or fancy. I want quantity...or at least I did.
Growing up I was an only child and there was not a worry about going hungry, but I was very attached to food. It was my best friend in so many ways. As I got older and moved into my own places I began to hide food. I began to deny knowing the existence of said cheesecake that we just bought. I also would drive home from work plotting my every minute: Off work at 2.00 means Bojangles at 2.20, means home at 2.35, means eating alone until I have to pick up kids at 2.50. Oh, and Bojangles consisted of 2 adult meals. I despised getting caught, and I despised having to share.    At some point I realized that if you arrived at the Buffet at 10.00 a.m. then you could have a late breakfast, watch the workers change over to lunch, then get the really good food.
    I am not at all obsessed with food today. I changed at some point. Perhaps I became happy with my curvy body, perhaps I became happy sustaining myself. Perhaps I just found a comfort zone in something else. Maybe it was just being able to talk to someone else about how guilty I feel all the time about something as simple as food.  I don't know. What I do know is that food still makes me somewhat happy. Laughing at it and about it makes me incredibly happy.
   I am glad to have come from a family of big eaters and big talkers. And no, there isn't a plate in front of me right now,  because I  came from a family who would never make a plate of hot food wait just so we could finish a sentence.

~ Love who  you are and what made you, you. Love even the dysfunction and the disorder, because without those we would have no beauty, no individuality, and no secrets   to share in locked cars. ~Mama Shey.