My Sexy Evening

When you’re 36, married for 16 years, have a full time job outside of the home, have two crazy kids and a few pets, nothing says wild, sexy, crazy night like…crashing at 10:00pm in a deep, drooling, doze.  Bring on dreams of Ryan Gossling.  Ahhh…..there you go.  The perfect sleep.  Warm sheets, a nice pillow.  Yes.  I have waited for this moment all damn day!

Now, what can snap your ass awake from a make-out session with the above mentioned?  The following 4 words:  “Mom, my tummy hurts.”  Shit!  What?!  “Are you going to throw up?”  All of you parents out there, you know that when a child confirms that vomiting will commence, that means you should have been ready for this 20 seconds ago.  “THE POT!  GET THE POT!”  The pot you ask?  Our 6 year old is overly dramatic about the act of yaking and insists it be done only in “the pot”.

My snail-like husband stumbles up to find the blessed receptacle.   I hear him looking in cabinets, then the dishwasher as my daughter proceeds to spew.  I desperately try to catch the chuck in my futile hands.  It was hopeless to even try.  The warmth hits me.  The smell hits me.  I yell for my still absent husband!  “FASTER!  HURRY UP!”  I hear him pick up the pace.  Any damn pot would have done at this point.

Apparently when you are a cat, you don’t have to do a damn thing when someone is sick.  You can continue sleeping and dreaming about whatever the hell you want to dream about!  Lucky.

I sigh, my little angel looks at me scared.  “It’s ok.”  I soothe her.  “It’s alright.  Let’s get you cleaned up.”  I strip the bed trying to beat the seeping into my mattress.  My cat finally moves.  I stumble dizzy and adrenaline filled to the washing machine trying to not actually touch any more sick; as if it matters, the girl threw-up in my hands for God sakes!  I get the machine going on hot, hoping the noise does not wake my 10 year old.  He’s obliviously in dreamland.  Lucky.  I sort out the laundry while I am at it.  putting in the soap, the softener, checking the settings.  I am there for a good few minutes trying to compose myself.  My husband stumbles over after remaking the bed.  “How is she doing?”  he asks me.  I glare at him, “I don’t freakin’ know!”  I snap.  “I have been here doing the laundry!”  The poor man backs off.  No question is a good question when you have just been puked on.  I think he understands.

I try to clean myself off as best I can.  Nope.  A shower is the only thing that can get this smell off.  One does not simply wipe off the smell of spew.  This is a smell that must be scrubbed off.  I get in the steaming water.  Might as well wash my hair while I am in there.  I finally make it back to my bed.  It is clean and fresh, thanks to my sexy man.  My little girl lay between us, feverish and innocent.  I kiss her goodnight.

My sexy evening.

What did you do?

Live on!

-Kristy

Letting Go- my journey into Radical Acceptance



Girl with the red balloon by Bansky

My thighs touched this morning.  I accept this.


As a woman who has struggled with an eating disorder for most of her adult life, the idea of Radical Acceptance seems foreign.  Crazy.  Impossible.  After all, the main function of an eating disorder for me and for many others, is a fight to not accept reality.  It is a way manipulate or avoid the facts.  If I don't like what is going on in life, if I don't like how I feel, if I can't accept and let be the world that is, well damn it all I can lose weight!  That is what I can control.  That is what I can change.  I can put my blinders on.  While to the unknowing population an eating disorder is a vain attempt to "look good", this is not it at all accurate.  In reality, it was a way to pigeonhole or disengage from everything.  The world is too scary, chaotic and out of control.  If I can focus on what I eat, how much I eat, how I eat, where I eat; then I don't have to really think about the deep shit I don't want to think about.  The hard stuff.  If I can focus only being the perfect version of myself, if I can focus only on getting that number on the evil metal and plastic square down, down, down; then I don't have to think about the world around me.  I don't have to think about my fears, my failures, my hopes or  my dreams.  There are none.  There is only a shell of a woman, and her eating disorder.  The never-ending plight to go lower.


I can no longer feel my bones.  I accept this.


Now that I am this far into my recovery, I am having to practice something new; something besides the strict behaviors and rituals of an eating disorder.  I am having to see.  I am having to experience.  I am having to practice Radical Acceptance.  It's weird.  It's scary.  What is it?  Psychology might describe Radical Acceptance as the letting go of control.  Letting be what is.  Not trying to change, alter, hide, manipulate reality.  Things are what they are.  The good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly.  They just are.  So what am I having to accept in myself that I previously was not able to?  Well, Before I was only able to hide or change the things about myself that I did not like or accept.  Now, they are all in my face.


My body is what it is.  In recovery, I am obviously having to let my body find its natural balance.  It is doing what it needs to do.  I am learning to accept that.  If I want to be fully well, I have to let my body be.  I cannot fight to change its shape and size.  I cannot fix that lump here or starve away that bulge there.  I cannot purge away arms I don't like or the tummy that has carried two babies.  I have to look myself in the mirror and say to myself, "Yes.  That's me.  That's what I look like under my clothes."  I have to take a deep breath and take it in.  It's hard.  Sometimes it SUCKS!  Sometimes I can't look for very long.  But the next day might be different.  I accept.


My age is what it is.  Now I know you may roll your eyes.  I know I am not an old woman.  However, I am not young woman anymore either.  This is a recent realization for me.  We all come to this conclusion or will at some point in our lives.  I will be 36 this month.  I am closer to 40 than 30.  And it's ok.  We're all going the same direction.  None of us are moving back into youth.  I am getting wrinkles around my eyes.  I have tinsel in my hair that I am not dying away.  I have made the conscious decision that I am not going to fight this process.  I will not let my daughter see that I am desperately trying to turn back the clock.  I will show her that I accept and respect myself.  I will not cling to the past.  I will not dwell in my youth.  There is something beautiful in letting nature take its course.  I do not want to play into the culture of fear.  I do not want to buy jars of hope and clothes of fantasy.  I want to age as gracefully and as beautifully as I can.  I'll still wear a little make-up because it makes me feel pretty.  I'll wear my hair long or short whatever suits my fancy.  I will get a tattoo because it tells my story and feels real to me.  But I will not try to alter myself to stick to something that is passing away for everyone.  I accept.


Who I am is who I am.  This one is tricky.  I'm not entirely sure who I am yet.  I am still trying to figure it out.  I suspect I will always be trying to know myself.  Accepting myself as I am inside is hard.  Forgiving myself  for past mistakes is hard.  Letting go of expectations of myself is hard.  Putting away the individual masks I wear for each person is hard.  I have to come to terms with the parts of myself that I don't really care for.  I can be loud.  I swear like a sailor.  I am often judgmental.  I can be immature.  Sometimes I have the patience of a 2-year-old.  I am often kind of scatter-brained.  I can be terribly lazy.  I am extremely gullible.  I don't say theses to berate myself.  I say them only to accept them and remember that everyone has characteristics about themselves that they don't' like.  I just happen to be writing mine down today.  There are great many other things about myself that I think are pretty badass!  Instead of trying to fix or ignore, or deny these things about myself, I am going to say, "Yes.  Those things are there."  They are only pieces that make me who I am.  The are not all of me all the time.  They don't' need to be denied or shamed.  I accept.


My world is what it is.  I have a depressive organized brain.  I tend to lean into the sadness of the world.  I can relate to sorrow.  I have immense empathy and sometimes it all feels too much.  An eating disorder was a way to turn off that part of myself.  I cannot change the atrocities of the whole world.  I cannot make children come back to life.  I cannot make the "bad guys" disappear.  Natural disasters are not up to me.  I have to understand that sometimes bad things happen without any rhyme or reason.  Things are out of my hands.  I can do the best I can in my own little space, but I cannot be responsible for the world.  I can see it and learn lessons from what I see.  But it is not all mine.  There is great beauty in the world and in people that often gets overshadowed.  The good and the bad exist.  I accept.


My middle is round and soft.  I accept this.


So this is my journey right now.  I have to remind myself to practice of Radical Acceptance every single day.  There are some things that can be changed and should be.  There is a great many things that just are what they are and need no altering.  I accept.


Live on,


-Kristy


For more reading on Radical Acceptance try
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/pieces-mind/201207/radical-acceptance