January ...a 31 Things update.

This year, I've decided to challenge myself to complete a list of 31 things that will challenge, inspire, and renew me. You can find the complete list here. 

I hope you'll let me know that you're following my adventures by clicking on the link to the left that says "Join this site" or by entering your email. I appreciate having you here and always read every comment!


One of the goals around the "31 Things..." list is to help me re-engage with my blog; to give me a few things to talk about and get me back into the writing routine.

You have no way of knowing this (so you'll have to take my word for it) but I've been writing a lot lately without posting it. Nothing is quite finished... nothing is quite good enough... I can't make the point I want to, or I follow some tangential thought until it doesn't make any sense any more.

But in an effort to live out both the spirit and the details of my "31 Things..." I thought I could at least give you an update on how the list is going!

Here are a few areas where I've made some strides:

#3. Make one new recipe each month
January's recipe was Broccoli/Mushroom Casserole from the "Moosewood Cookbook" by Mollie Katzen. My lovely friend Meredith (who has a few more culinary "gifts" than I) gave me this for my birthday TWO years ago and I finally put it to excellent use. 

One of the best dishes I've ever made, and one of the best casseroles I've ever tasted. Lots of fresh veggies, "healthy" sauce using sour cream & cottage cheese (all things are relative folks), and lots of yummy leftovers.

Not sure what next month's dish will be... but I know I'll be coming back to the Moosewood Cookbook again before the year is up.

#7. Read 12 "real" books
I just finished "Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown, and if we've had a conversation even once in the last few weeks, you probably already knew that. I loved this book. I've been talking about it with everyone I know. One way I've described it is that it is filled with a truth that you realize you have always known; and yet no one else is saying it! 

This book has helped me to think more clearly about my own sense of vulnerability and has given me some tools to live more fully in the moment -- even when the moment feels really scary, and I'd rather be defensive or hide away.

I'm sure I will be writing more about this book in future writings. More books up for consideration are "Tattoos on the Heart" by Gregory Boyle and "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin.

#26. Grow my savings account
Late last year, right before I moved to Redford, I re-opened a savings account and starting contributing small amounts. Up until a couple years ago, I was spending a lot of energy at getting out of debt, which I did (yay!) But I wasn't giving any attention to a savings account.

My friends Jeff & Bridget introduced me to a savings plan they've recently adapted called the 52 Week Money Challenge. Each week you put away that week's amount in $$$. (Ex: Week One = $1, Week 18 = $18, Week 43 = $43) Each week's amount is added to the amount already collected, and at the end of 52 weeks, you will have accumulated $1,378.

It's a pretty pain-free start... but check in with me around November and we'll see how I'm feeling then. ;-)

Those are the three areas I have actually "done" something, but I already have plans to fulfill #4. Perform a poetry open mic; and #25. Watch a film at the Detroit Film Theatre; as well as offers for a few more! 


How are your goals for the new year going as we wrap up the first month? Are you keeping your resolutions, or thinking about re-starting again?

Mud.

I vaguely remember being on a community soccer team when I was in elementary school. And every practice or game was a reminder that I am not cut out for such things.

I remember playing once after it had just rained; it was miserable and wet and muddy. And I hated it. All I wanted was for the game to be over. I honestly felt with all my might that I could actually die in the middle of a stupid soccer field while my miserable, wet parents looked on.

In an unusually athletic(ish) maneuver, I tried to kick the ball away from an approaching player – and failed – landing instead on my wet and muddy rear end, while the game went on without me. I remember sitting there, thinking:  This. This is what my life is at this moment. I think I hate this. Why am I DOING this?

Well, mud; I’m back.

Half a year and many moons ago, I wrote what I foolishly thought could be a final chapter on weight loss. And for such a significant part of the year, I felt a new-found sense of control over food. But if that was a peak, then the rest of it has been a muddy ditch. And once again I repeat:  This. This is what my life is at this moment. I think I hate this. Why am I DOING this?

In the game of weight loss and new-life living, I can't really pinpoint any one moment of failure. I can't even tell you when I peaked because, not knowing I was about to slip, I didn't think to notice. All I know is that somehow I lost my footing and slid down to here. Again.

In an attempt to grab some traction, I recently quit my second job. It was a logical, intellectual decision about time and Sabbath and living a sacred lifestyle, but in those silent moments that I've created, I don't know what to do with myself. So I end up watching episodes of CSI or Bones or Ugly Betty. I sleep a lot or build villages with the help of computer-generated pirates. (None of which is very sacred.)

Truth? What I want is a brand-new me: a brand new start and a brand new life. I don’t want to figure out how to live this new life; I want to have lived a different life. Before writing this, I read someone else’s blog that said something like:  People sell the idea of going from misery to happiness in three simple steps. But really, it takes more like a million steps.

I guess the part they don’t want to tell you is how many of those steps are going backward.

Life is a lot more like ‘Chutes and Ladders’ than a three-step self-help book anyway. You exhaust yourself trying to climb up to yet another vantage point, trying to stay in control despite the unknown spin that may or may not move you on to the finish line. And then, just when you’re so close, you slip and go all the way back down to some stupid square you already passed by three times.

My brain gets it. It gets that my life is not so bad. It gets that what I choose to do or not do with my time is ultimately up to me. It gets the logical reality of cause and effect, decision and consequence. But sometimes I feel more like I’m back to playing a game I never wanted to play. And I want some assurances that if I do climb back up, there won't be some surprising fall again.

But, sigh, there are no assurances.

There is just the next roll or spin; the moment after you fall on your ass in the rain. Not the moment when the world closes in and not even the moment when you slap at the helping hand of your friend or coach or teammate. It’s not the moment when you lose your breath; it’s the moment when you find it. When you put your hand on the ground and push up into the rain. Into the miserable reality that in fact the game isn’t over yet. And maybe you aren’t the best player, but you can sure do damn better than sitting in the mud.

Have you ever fallen and given serious thought to just staying down?

The Food Fight - part two

“The Food Fight” is a two-part entry about my on-going relationship with food and overeating. You can find part one here.


I don’t know what gives birth to an addict and I don’t know exactly when I became one myself. Even in childhood, I could tell that the way I turned to food was entirely different than the way most of my friends did. It didn’t take long before that difference showed in a physical way. The school year would begin and I’d be just a little bigger than most everyone I knew, then the next year, a little bigger than before and so on.

Those are already difficult years and a lot of women I know barely survived. They entered high school or college or young adulthood devastatingly scarred. Though I tended a few deep wounds, for the most part I escaped relatively intact. By weaving together odd layers of confidence and self-preservation, I managed to protect myself, but I also succeeded in burying the root of my addiction.

This week has been a tough one food-wise. It’s the kind of week that reminds me that peeling back those layers can be a dangerous process. It leaves the heart more exposed than it was before and I have to retrain myself to face those little hurts rather than ‘layer up’ again.

I’m a work in progress.

Luckily, there has actually been some progress. Since the start of the year, I’ve lost about 30 pounds. And I’ve welcomed glimpses of a newer, brighter, healthier version of myself.

This is not a piece about ‘dieting’ or ‘how to lose weight with five simple exercises’. I don’t know much about those things. All I can say is that the weight I’ve lost came off because I started making food with my own two hands and moving around with my own two feet. And little habits like drinking more water and walking after lunch. Surprisingly, those small things weren’t really hard at all. So why wasn’t I already doing them?

Well that is a little more difficult.

I am coming to believe that we make poor choices not because they are easier (which they sometimes are) but because we’ve programmed ourselves that way. I’ve put a picture in my mind of a person who has no time to make dinner, doesn’t know how to anyway, couldn’t ever ride a bicycle to work, and is, in general, too busy to change.

So the harder, every-day-I-have-to-remind-myself kind of change is in reforming that inner picture. It’s in realizing that in my life I need to be number one – which means I can’t let anything become more important or time-consuming than taking care of myself.

I can be a person who carries a water bottle, who joins a work-out class, who walks during her lunch break. I can also be a person who cries when she is upset and is angry when something goes wrong without having to drive to Dairy Queen or McDonalds. I can become a person who is able to make good decisions in bad situations without ordering pizza and cheesesticks.

These may seem like small, specific examples, but they’re the outer face of an inner change. In the process of dropping a few pounds, I’m realizing that it is actually possible to see myself as someone new, not only in the area of food and weight, but in every area. That darkness I mentioned last week had been filling my head with nonsense, taking mistakes I’d made and telling me it was who I am. Telling me it was all I’d ever be.

So the question becomes how do we learn, as a community and as individuals, to fill in our empty spaces with positive, nurturing, compassionate things instead of these destructive lies? How do we become new and better versions of ourselves with visions for the future and inner strength to get there?

My first step was brutal honesty. I tried to dig under every defense and identify all the ways I use food to hide from conflict, from pain, from my past, from my future. It requires me to be ruthless, to take stock of all the ways I’ve been reinforcing what the darkness has been whispering all along – that I’m not strong enough to handle this. The darkness lies.

With list in hand, I began to chip away, to analyze how I respond to anger, fear, loneliness and other all-around bad feelings. Where my instinct might be to crack open a pint of Haagen-Dazs, I’m learning to train myself in healthier responses. And by not covering the pain with food, I give myself space to identify what upset me to begin with, which helps stop the cycle from repeating.

Now to be truthful, this is pretty much as far as I’ve gotten. Because it’s really, really hard to be honest all the time. And it’s really, really tempting to say – next time. Next time I’ll make a better choice. Next time it will be easier.

And that’s why I do this.

I write and share and talk about how hard it is, because I’m afraid I might otherwise bury my head in the sand. I basically tell everyone:  my small group, my bosses, people who come in the coffee shop, singers in our band, strangers on the street.

So, this week? Not so good. Next week? Maybe better. When it comes to food, I might always be trying to balance the darkness, searching for a new beginning. I know food isn’t done fighting and I know I’ll always be deciding whether to give in or not. But now I’m holding on to hope and have no plans to let go. Not for food or fear or anything else that tries to take root.

Because I’ve had a taste of something new and no interest in losing it.


Your fight might not be with food, but I welcome your own stories of struggle and renewal. Are you seeking a new beginning?

The Food Fight - part one

“The Food Fight” is a two-part entry about my on-going relationship with food and overeating. Here in part one, I am reflecting on my struggle with obesity, self-control and fear. In part two, I will reflect on the small but important success I’ve had this year with eating, finding strength and redefining myself. You can find part two here.


I have grown tired of being the one in the room that proves the obesity statistics. I am exhausted from worrying and wondering about five million things every day that have everything to do with my weight and nothing to do with my self. I am terrified that I might become someone I don’t recognize.

But as tired and exhausted and terrified as I am, I’m also inexplicably drawn to the self-destructive therapy that food provides. When I’m sad, food picks me up. When I’m happy, food is my celebration. Whether I’m with friends or alone, food makes me feel more connected. Food is my meditation when work is overwhelming. Food is my closest friend when I feel like no one understands me. Food has always been there for me.

The truth is: I love food.

And maybe that is why I find it so hard to understand why food hurts me the way it does. I want to call the world a liar – “Food is not my enemy! Food feeds me! Food fills me! Food gives me something when I feel like nothing!”

And yet food is killing me.

Sometime since our love affair began, food started to abuse me, to hurt me, to look for my weakest, most vulnerable parts and squeeze the life out of me. Maybe it started before I even really knew food. Somehow food found the darkness in me and rooted itself there, waiting for me to mess up, waiting for me to come back, tail between my legs, begging for food’s help again.

Rooted in the dark, food became the seed of fear. And it fed the fear. Fear of losing control, of dependence, of addiction – it grew and flourished until finally fear became reality. I have found myself out of control, dependent and addicted to the lies that food feeds me.

This idea of the darkness is the only way I have found to express myself and my overeating. But don’t get me wrong, I know there is no mysterious force driving to Taco Bell at night and forcing a cheese quesadilla down my throat. Just as I know there is no cloaked villain, forcing cigarettes, alcohol or other drugs down the throats of hundreds of thousands of people fighting those addictions every day.

We make choices, all of us, but the reality is that sometimes we get caught in a cycle of really bad choices and “darkness” is the best way I have of describing something which feels overwhelming and all-encompassing. I am almost thirty years old and am only now discovering how truly out of control that cycle can become.

But all is not lost.

Because over the years of struggling with my weight and eating habits I have managed to learn a few positive lessons as well. For the most part I haven’t had much luck putting these lessons into practice, but over the past six months or so I’ve begun to experience a change. I’ll write in more detail next week, but want to leave you with a hint of that here.

Perhaps the one most consistent part of this struggle is that I have never been alone in it. Don’t get me wrong – addiction tries to isolate the addict. No matter who you are, what the problem is or how innocent the behavior might seem to the outside world, the darkness will tell you that no one understands, that no one can help you or, perhaps worst of all, that no one wants to help you.

These are lies.

People do want to help. In my life, I have found these people to be my family and my friends. And in lovely, surprising ways, to be the people I work with and work for, sometimes even complete strangers. The world, as it turns out, is full of people who want to love me. More importantly, the world is full of people who want to love us all. And these people want to help us succeed.

The other truth I’ve uncovered is that failure, partnered with forgiveness, is in fact the key to success. And believe me that has been a difficult pill to swallow. But forgiving myself for bad choices has been the only way I have been able to find better ones. And forgiving others for their own ways of brokenness is what has bonded me to the support system I have now.

It is possible – even likely – that you are caught up in a dark cycle of your own. And if that is the case, I invite you to tell us about it. If you are tired or exhausted or terrified of being overwhelmed for even one more day, this is my invitation to you to say it out loud. Write it down, lift it up, tell your friends, call your mom or your church or your best friend.

Don’t let the darkness keep you silent.

I welcome your own stories of struggle and triumph. Have you felt isolated or alone in dealing with a particular issue in your life? Have you been able to find your way out of the darkness?