Masks

The subject of discussion at girls' group last night was removing our masks and being real with one another.  Or that was the plan.  There was little discussion, and any masks being worn were decidedly not removed.

There are six or eight families represented in this group, most in various degrees of fracture.  Honestly, they run the gamut from "strong, well-parented, and healthy" to "I quit".  There are masks aplenty.

 I hope the girls, average age 15, have adults they trust, who give them wise advice or just a compassionate ear and shoulder.   I get barely twenty minutes a week with them so of course they aren't going to confide in me; they don't know me, and don't believe I know them.

I don't know them individually on an intimate level, but I know them better than they imagine.  I have at various times of my life been most of them.  One great advantage of being old is that one has many lives and personalities to look back on and draw from.  I also have the advantage of being friends, or friendly, with many of their parents.  Their mothers, WHO WOULD NEVER BETRAY THEIR CHILDREN'S CONFIDENCES (yes, I am yelling) do turn to other mothers for advice and comfort.  This is what mothers do, beginning with "is this normal" and "what is this rash" and ending -- never.

I did not have much hope that masks would fall during the evening.  Two of the three adults sponsoring this group also have daughters in it.  In this situation there are two possibilities:  either there is already open communication and things are okay in the relationship; or one of the pair, most normally the daughter, is surviving by clutching that mask and hoping to ride it out until freedom arrives in some form or other.

It has never before been so clear to me that sometimes the masks we wear are foisted upon us by other people.  We are pounded and pummeled with expectations and demands and the absolute refusal by the other to believe that we are in any way outside the box they have constructed for us.  This is frustrating at best, and at worst leads to "unexpected, unexplainable" rebellion, and desperate demonstrations of autonomy that may bear tragic lifelong consequences.

I don't know all these girls well, but I know their situations well enough to speculate that some of the ones in the harder places will come through with banners flying, and some of the ones with the best looking "boxes" are in real danger.

Woot!

I have *doubled* my followers.  I now have TWO!!  Now we do the dance of joy!  (Bonus points if you can identify that reference.)

Of Two Minds

I'm watching myself in amazement; it's like watching the Good Twin and the Evil Twin, both happily going about their lives, unconcerned for the other, except they're both me.  It's freaky, I tell ya'.

Okay, some background.  During fall semester 2010 (I think -- awareness of time suffers when you're living two lives) sons 3 and 4 were memorizing the book of Daniel; I decided, as an act of solidarity, to do the Daniel fast.  I initially committed to a month; at the end of the month I could bow out with honour, or continue to the end of the semester.

There were, of  course, more reasons than a coincidental memorization schedule.  I had seen myself as increasingly out of control, living on impulses and whims, and my prayer life was littered with "I want, I want."  I was ready to unseat "I want" from the throne of my life.  I needed to really learn that I was not at the mercy of "I want".  So, the timing was a gift from a Father who was also weary, I imagine, of hearing all about what "I want".  Many would say that such a change requires planning and strategizing, but I made the decision on the fly.  I looked up the food list, decided that I could live with it for a month, and started the next day.  It worked for me because . . . we'll get to that shortly.

My purpose, as stated, was primarily spiritual.  I expected to drop a little weight, because that happens when you treat your body better.  It's kind of like a living organism that way.  But holy smokes!  Seventy pounds?  In a semester.  Yes.  My little world was rocked indeed.

Fast forward to present schizophrenia.  You may know that this past half year has been personally difficult.  That would not be too strong a word, would it, to describe the impact of having lost nearly every friend and extra-family connection one has?  So I slid dived into depression and I have been splashing and bobbing in that cesspool for five or six months.  I was sad, so I ate.  I was angry, so I ate.  I was bored, so I ate ate ate ate ate.  I now have what I call a "toilet paper" figure -- double rolls.

So I was commiserating with the friend I mentioned in the last post, regarding her diet-aggravated health problems.  She has been advised by her doctor to do low-carb to improve her blood pressure and ease the pain of her fibromyalgia.  Being a carbon-based life form I cannot live without carbs.  No, really, I can't.  I don't eat eggs, or much meat.  No, the Daniel fast works for me; I can live happily and lose easily eating fruit and nuts.  You can keep your eggs and . . . lobster?  Really?  For breakfast? Urgh. No, thanks.

So, she would do the low-carb thing for six weeks, and I would do the Daniel, and then we'd meet up and shop for skinny jeans.

She is being faithful and I, frankly, am not.  And here's where it gets strange.  I had a week or so to look forward to the "official start" of this campaign, so I did quite a bit of preemptive eating.  I was simultaneously comforting myself against my anticipated deprivations, and lying to myself with the old sop that I was going to lose it all in a few weeks anyway, and a few more days of wild living could not make much difference.  Ha.

The chosen day dawned, and I started strong.  I had the oatmeal made (steel-cut, cooked overnight, yummy!) and I ate it with gusto.  Oats are revered on the Daniel fast and on my original, spiritually motivated one I had sweetened them with only the sanctioned raisins.  This time I used cranberries.  Dried cranberries sweetened with sugar.  Cranberries are Daniel-friendly; sugar is not.  So there it is.  I had decided to allow myself certain "exceptions", since I was "dieting" and not "fasting".  So, cranberries, coffee, Cheerios.  Did you know that only Target brand cheerio-type cereal has no sugar.  Every other oat-circle box I read listed sugar in some form.  Even Kashi which, let's face it, has less flavor than the box it comes in even with sugar.  Sugar is definitely not Daniel allowed.  Not white, brown, maple, honey, or artificial.  Milk is not allowed on the Daniel, either, but I put it on my slightly sweetened and sweetened-cranberry-studded Cheerios anyway, because I decided to add it to my exceptions list, rather than buying the soy milk I used when I was being good orthodox.

All this was okay.  I was losing weight, albeit slowly.  Then I realized that Lent is only three weeks away.  Hey, one of the Twins thought, I can kick this in gear during Lent.  I can put a spiritual emphasis on it, do it regiment-perfectly, and stop messing about with these cranberries and such.  Well and good.  Except.  I am looking down the barrel of three weeks of preemptive eating.  And I am eating, believe me.  You know those Otis Spunkmeyer muffins?  The ones that list one muffin as two servings, and each serving has about 400 calories?  I ate three of those yesterday while I was working.  Three.  And one on the way home.  And one this morning.

Good Twin turned down honey-roasted nuts at the grocery today because sugar is a Daniel no-no; meanwhile Evil Twin was buying cookies, the worst cookies with all the chemicals and hydrogenated stuff, to dunk in coffee.  While I was contemplating how to blog this interesting turn, things got stranger.  Good Twin was looking up Daniel-friendly recipes and beginner strength training routines; Evil Twin was steadily dunking and snarfing those cookies.  When these two meet, it will be a train wreck.