new york city

I’m back!  India was amazing.  Amazing, amazing, amazing.

I’m back.

New York is good.  But–I haven’t been going to as many meetings as I was going to before I left.  Need to commit to more. By some miracle I am still gratefully abstinent, though–and daily getting better.  My daily reprieve.

Yesterday my eating-disordered office sent me out to get cookies.  And not just cookies, like cookies from the supermarket.  These were cookie cookies.  Probably a stick of butter and cup of sugar in each one.  Arguably they’re the best cookies in the city, and I can attest to that–at least for someone who likes a full-pound mound of barely-cooked, chocolatey walnuty chipity dough.  So.  I was sent, $20 in hand (these suckers are $4 apiece), to fetch cookies for the team.  I had no idea if I’d be able to stay abstinent.  I was pretty sure eating one would end my abstinence immediately.  Although I have an extremely inclusive food plan at the moment (I am in the process of healing from a restrictive disease), I’m pretty sure a consuming single one of these things would end my abstinence on the spot.

And not necessarily because of the cookie itself.  Crazy food items exist in the world, and normal people eat them occasionally.  I am not normal, and I recognize that, but let me make my point anyway: it’s not just about the dangerous, sexy food itself.  It’s about how I berate myself after I eat it.  It’s about telling myself that I’ll start trying to lose weight right after eating it.  It’s about passing a judgement on how my stomach looks instead of taking an internal inventory of how I feel.  It’s about the compulsion, the obsession, not the food.  There are no isolated experiences–every action informs some sort of ripple in the water of self-deprecation and disease.

So the cookies.  I was on my way, not sure if I’d be able to pass on one myself, and I happened to look at my phone (not so much of a coincidence in the year 2010) and I had a voicemail and normally I wouldn’t have listened to it right away but for some reason I did and it was a woman, such a kind, good-spirited woman, from program.  I returned her call, and Serenity prayer the rest of the way there and I was home free.  The predicament passed.  It always does.

I choose to believe that this is the hand of God.  I did not eat a cookie.  I did not want a cookie.  I would have tormented myself ceaselessy about it.  Or, maybe not.  But it wasn’t a risk I wanted to take.

Since being back, I’ve met with my sponsor.  I had dinner with a program friend last night (so amazing!  I feel such a strong connection to this person).  I’ve made some decisions about where I want to go professionally.  I had a birthday.  Other stuff.  Work.  Dance.  Art.  Keeping super busy.

I’ll update more about India as I go, but mostly I just wanted to come back to the blog, return to life as a Recovering Compulsive Overeater (did I, could I, ever really leave?  No.  but travel was a bit of a hiatus from working the program as far as meetings, etc. are concerned).  And yes.  Every day I am still a Recovering COMPULSIVE eater.  So God, I’m here.  Take care o’ me.