Month: June 2017

Shattering effects.

Posted on by Rachael

I smashed my scale a few weeks ago, on the pavement in my driveway with a sledge hammer.

What I learned from this experience was more than what I anticipated. I wanted to do it as some sort of relief, and ritual in order to finally stop the worry and get rid of the thing in a way that was more fun than just throwing it in the trash. If you decide to take on this endeavor, I suggest put it in some sort of container before you actually do it, wear long pants, and goggles.

What happened: When the sledge hammer hit the glass, it exploded. I didn’t realize until after I had cleaned it up that it had actually hit me, and made my knee bleed. Also, the glass was everywhere, under our cars, in the grass, on my body… everywhere. I did not expect this to happen… But I guess I’m not surprised either.

When I was cleaning it up, it became this metaphor of eating disorders and weight obsession. Anything could trigger me at any point, which would leave this shattering effect on my life (or so I felt). When ever I felt like I had accomplished something (weight loss goal, conquering food goal), things would come up that I hadn’t fully addressed and then more would unfold, and then suddenly I was entrenched in food again and the obsession.

When I was cleaning the glass up with the broom, I would find new patches of glass I hadn’t quite gotten and would find more as I would push it to the main pile.

And after all the glass was swept up, all that was left were shards that were glimmering in the sunshine. Letting me know that the issues will probably always be around in some form or another.

Few weeks, or months later—–I can’t believe that I didn’t actually post this or finish it when I had written it… At this point it’s just this distant memory of shattered memories. Unrecognizable and I’m glad I thought It was something that I deemed important to write about. Smashing it was liberating and super telling. As I moved into my new place, I no longer have a scale to determine my worth. I’m not sure if it’s liberating or if I’m just curious. At this point, I am not in a mind set to be curious. I’m pretty stressed about my weight.

May 6th

Posted on by Rachael

My childhood home has been vacant for the past three years, and recently I had a realtor friend of mine take me there. It was a weird, time warping experience.

I lived there from ages 6-14. What I remember from this experience was a collection of memories filled with community, grief, sadness, solidarity, joy and well all of the things. My house was white, the tiles were pink, the master bath had a jet tub, and it was two stories. There was a back yard, and my dad had built a swing set for me to play on where I spent many hours alone conjuring potions and sweet memories.

The road up to the house was over grown, uncomfortable and sad. I think I had this weird underlying expectations, at the same time had no expectations. The house itself had one large change, and other minimal changes. It was green on the outside with a purple door and the land surrounding was overgrown and changed (there were more outside changes than inside changes).

The person had rebuilt the back deck, added a hot tub and a door off of the back master bedroom. They had also taken out the swing set my dad had built, the garden beds, and planted trees where my dad’s RV use to live. My memories of the space though were so present, the nostalgia was there and then it hit me: I cannot get back any of it. It was gut wrenching.

I wasn’t really expecting to get any of that back by visiting there, or even by dancing with the idea that I could even buy the place.

What I did get out of it, was that no matter how sad I was there because my dad was so yelly, it was a reminder that he did do nice things for me. As an adult I value that swing set memory more than I ever had. I appreciate it more now because when I was a child I didn’t understand or value the time it took to him to build that swing set. At the time I was fairly selfish, and impatient. It was the one memory I had of him that didn’t include traveling, playing video games, or sourdough pancakes. It was the one thing he did that was outside of his comfort zone, it was something he did for me. In all that I’ve processed about my childhood, him doing nice things for me wasn’t something that I’ve been able to see.

 

 

 

 

Bread day.

Posted on by Rachael

Every Wednesday where I work we get a donation from Panera at the organization I work for. We call it bread day, but we get a variety of pastries, bagels, flat breads and whole loaves of different kinds of bread. Sometimes we get a lot, and sometimes we don’t get very much at all. On a side note: I work for a non-profit where we distribute the donations out to the people we serve. When there is an abundance, we tend to get a little excited about our personal interest in the donation.

I have always been triggered by this day, and I consistently wonder where else we can store this crap as right now it lives near my office and in the staff lounge. Last Wednesday, I noticed somethings interesting, that I too have been guilty of before. Greediness.

Because the staff lounge is so close, and Panera just happens to be so fragrant, we know when it’s arrived. The first thing that happens when it arrives, is it gets sorted. It gets sorted into boxes and then gets distributed to other programs through out the county. Then whatever is left, goes to our youth and families.  I got to work last Wednesday with out having ate breakfast, knowing that there would be a bagel that would be left behind with my name on it. As soon as the donation came, other staff members were in the staff lounge, excuse my french but like a bunch of hyenas. There was this scarcity in their voices, and sense of entitlement over whatever was present. It was an obsession with this bread day, what was available, what they could get, and who could get it.

It made me in the moment, take a step back, and really assess how I was feeling about the situation, which was; At first I jumped on the bandwagon of yes I needed to go grab the everything bagel I so desired, and then I breathed out and realized I just didn’t care. I didn’t care that Panera was there and I didn’t care what king of bagel I got (as long as it wasn’t one of those sugar bagels, cause those are disgusting AND if that’s was the only available bagel, I just wouldn’t eat it).

It made me realize again how far I’ve come. It was also awesome to be able to react to my own accord and be okay with not caring about which bagel I get. With this said, I remember eating my bagel, finishing it, not believing it was all gone and then wanting another one. I didn’t eat another one, just said out loud what I wanted and let it go. Next time I’m going to work on enjoying my bagel a little bit more. I will probably write about it.