I tried to eat tonight, in an effort to stifle some feelings, and it didn’t work. It was the strangest thing. I’d had a rough day, I’m not even entirely sure why. I made an old family dish that I love, some real comfort food. After I’d piled my bowl high, I sat down with Greg, and started eating.
To my total surprise: nothing happened.
In the hours before this, I was agitated, irritated, and restless. I wasn’t intending on overeating or anything, but I hoped that a bowl of this comfort food would calm me down. So why didn’t it work? Want to know the funny part? After telling Greg the food was broken, I went back for seconds. It still didn’t work. It wasn’t doing its damn job! I was supposed to be reassured, soothed, distracted!
I decided to take a bath. An hour later, looking like a raisin and smelling like hippie perfume (LUSH bath melt FTW), some things had floated to the surface (no pun intended):
1) I’m worried about my son. He’s still sick with a fever he can’t shake; we visit the pediatrician tomorrow. I recalled earlier in the day when I felt worry for him, how I shook it off so no one would see it (was anyone even looking?). I didn’t want to appear irrational. But I was worried. Caring for myself means letting myself have my feelings when I have them.
2) Getting overfull and feeling uncomfortable is a convenient distraction from what’s going on in one’s head.
3) Besides worry for my little one, there’s the general agitation that comes from just changing ones life in a significant way. It doesn’t have to mean anything, other than, holy crap, what do I do now? I said something like this to Jason on the phone.
“It’s like, what if someone has been playing World of Warcraft for the last four years*? And then suddenly they stop? What are they going to do with all their time?”
“Wait, like they just stopped?” he deadpanned. “Can they even do that?”
“Ha ha,” I said.
“I mean,” he continued, “they can still read about World of Warcraft, right? Like in forums or in articles, right?”
But seriously; this is something I’ve never tried to do before. Food has been more than food for more years than I can remember. It’s been reassurance, security, distraction. With that gone…..well, it’s kind of like what happens to Greg when he stops drinking coffee, except worse (I know, right? Like how could anything be worse?). There doesn’t necessarily have to be another reason to feel agitated. This is really plenty.
I’m wondering how long this will go on. Am I done? Has some spell been broken? What now? When the food isn’t there, and it’s just me and My Thoughts, what will I find? It’s a little terrifying, isn’t it? I mean, FOR ALL OF US, because crap, I have access to the internet, and look at me go!
This reminds me of a friend in college, years ago, who used to get high on a regular basis and thought she had the MOST AMAZING IDEAS whenever she lit up. So one night she got a notebook and wrote all these thoughts down. I’m pretty sure she figured she’d come up with clean fusion, or at least figured out how to get perpetual motion going. The next morning, she was shocked to discover such deep and robust ideas as, “Doritos can melt in Coke,” and, “Bill Clinton should send more rice.”
I’m hoping when this is over that I’ll still have interesting things to say. I’m hoping I won’t need to change the name of this blog to “SEND MORE RICE”.
One of my birds died this morning.
My female budgie, Annette, died sometime this morning. I’m not sure when. We got up at 6:30am, when the kids woke us up because Miles was feverish again, and now his ear hurt. I spent a half hour trying to reach the pediatrician, finally getting through and grabbing her first 8:30am appointment. Right before we left I remember hearing the birds doing their morning chirping, and I swear I was hearing both voices.
When we got home, I walked over to the bird cage to say good morning, and Annette was on the bottom, on her back, clearly passed on.
We haven’t told the kids yet (they’ve been so busy, they haven’t noticed Frankie is alone). I was so weepy and tired today that I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together if we talked about it after the kids were both home, so we’re waiting. We’ll tell them tomorrow, when we can also bury her and have a little birdie funeral for her.
I still feel like I’m in shock. It’s been one hell of a week.