Longing For Gray

I have such a love/hate relationship with girly girl emporium Vict*ria’s S*cret. All that pink and those frills and bows and impractically padded D cup bras. All those absurd undergarments that never support me like they should. So why is it every time I walk in there I feel like all I need is one matching bra-and-panty and then I will be the hottest, sexiest, most desirable woman in the world? Just a $90 set of underwear and I am good to go. This urge to buy underwear/instantly become sexy has been so strong in the past that I actually once applied for a VS credit card on the spot and charged everything because it seemed so frivolous to spend the money I had on all that. It seemed MUCH smarter to spend money I didn’t have, and pay that off $20 a month plus 25 percent interest. In my defense, I was in my 20s. I know better now. Sometimes. But still, today, I really really wanted that overpriced matching set of anything. So sparkly and frilly and lacy and impractical….

Yesterday I bought jeans. It seems like a practical purchase, considering my current stay-at-home status. Of course, the process of trying on clothes kick started all those lovely body issues. I got mad at myself in the dressing room. Because the jeans aren’t the right size (I should be smaller) and they are a little too snug where they should be loose (my waist should be smaller) and because my stomach mushrooms or muffin tops (pick your metaphor) over the top of the jeans in a new and not-so-welcome way.

I don’t have unrealistic expectations for myself. I just want to be perfect. So let me rephrase that: I have extremely unrealistic expectations for myself. I am trying to get past them, I really am, for many reasons, not the least of which is that I don’t want my two children to grow up with issues like this. But this whole getting older thing (the body breaks down in new and unusual ways; your metabolism changes; gravity becomes a bigger issue) really compounds the issue. And food issues add something undesirable to the mix. And the all-or-nothing attitude thing. And the I-fucked-today-up-by-eating-two-pretzels-so-I-might-as-well-just-eat-a-box-of-crackers-thing. I could go on.

Here’s a perfect example of my all-or-nothing attitude (heretofore to be referred to as aona because I don’t feel like typing it out): I went to Jen’s house the other day, but made a stop on the way to pick up some supplies for some projects I am working on. I grabbed a bag of gummi bears for Jen, since she is pregnant and craved them. I also got a candy bar for her. (I figure she can indulge in this without guilt if it is a gift.) Anyway, so I get in the car and the girls are getting fussy. They both are crying and I am trying to navigate my way through roads I am not familiar with at all. I felt disoriented and the crying oh the nonstop crying in the car makes you INSANE after a while. I was hungry. I had to pee. I figured gummi bears would make ALL this better. So I ripped open the bag with my teeth and saw no harm in eating just a few of the green ones. I ate the entire bag. Not the snack-sized bag, the big share-with-other’s sized bag. A bag that would sit in a normal person’s cabinet for weeks!

That might seem harmless enough but the problem is that these singular events snowball into entire sequences of bad events that can spans weeks if I let it. One bag of gummi bears leads to one box of the treat that is something like a cracker but more like a snack which leads to not my sensible ice cream bar but half of a pint of ice cream for dessert which leads to skipping the gym which leads to eating whatever I want whenever I want which leads to low low low self esteem which leads to more body issues which leads to a viscous cycle of eat/don’t work out/feel like shit until I wake up one day and just say enough is enough. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes a few days and sometimes a week (and sometimes, sadly, much, much longer) to get to the point where I reset myself. And let me tell you, people, a week (day or even hour) of eating crap and not working out and beating yourself up for it and feeling like shit every time you looked in the mirror is not fun.

So that is life with aona. When I am good, I am very good. I can be very disciplined and dedicated and controlled and organized. And when I am bad, I am ridiculous. I can be perfect and the second I am not, I dip so far into the opposite side of perfect that it is crazy.

I am not terribly comfortable writing about this sort of stuff, but oh well. And let’s be honest, the only reason why I can write about this now is because I am in a good phase.
This blog has always been about me having a place to vent/share/opine/record/reflect. The fact that other people read these long, meandering not-very-well written posts blows my mind. I can’t imagine how others might find my life interesting!

I am also a firm believer in admitting you have an issue as a precursor to changing it. And since this is something that is so hard to talk about because it is embarrassing/some people just don’t get it/makes me seem weak and imperfect/here we go again, I’d rather write about it and then go about my life as if everything is just fine. My life has always been about such extremes. One of these days, I hope to live happily in the middle.

Pictured above is my adorable Madeline. How cute is she? Wow, do I need a manicure.