Bad day on the scale, great day at Total Wine. I’m a girl who knows how to turn a frown upside-down!
My meeting leader always says that, when you go off the reservation, to basically get right back on it. Her way to phrase it is, “If you break one dish, you don’t smash all the dishes in the house, do you?”
She noted my hangover-induced absence from last week and asked how it’s going. I said I smashed a couple dishes but I got the glue I needed at today’s meeting.
I stayed within my points; it’s just that I substituted wine for food with nutritional value. And a half-pound gain in my world is just as good as maintaining.
This week’s theme is emotion — whether it causes you to eat, or it depresses you when you see a lousy number on the scale. And I am nothing if not emotional. Half the time, anyway. One might think I had a dead, cold heart the other half of the time. Which, if that’s what I was able to convey, go me.
I got an interesting string of texts in the last 48 hours from various people in my life. And I realize I don’t need Halloween because I’m in costume a lot more than once a year.
When I get (I think “too”) close to people, they get it all. Every weird thought or feeling or mood. Laughter, tears and everything in-between. And truth. All of it. If they want it. And sometimes if they don’t.
Other people, I hold at a distance. This is the bulk of the category. I become aloof so they run away. This is my default status.
(This doesn’t work, by the way. It’s like a signal to come hither. My friend said at a happy hour last week to my work friends that I have a bunch of guys who stalk me. That is an understatement.)
Most, I wish would run away. Some, I admit, I hope will rise to the challenge. But I am not terribly disappointed if they don’t.
The “Queen of Mixed Signals, am I,” says Yoda.
So the texts. One, from someone I think I need to protect by throwing the force field around myself. I’m not saying they deserve better. I’m saying I see where this isn’t going and I’m going to save us all the effort and time. Being the daughter of a psychic has its perks. If I feel it (or don’t feel it) and Mom confirms it without me ever saying a word, so be it.
One, from someone who makes my heart leap out of my chest the second I see his name … and then I read it and feel like shit under someone’s shoe. Like, he knows when I’ve strayed too far away and he wants to make sure there’s still a lifeline there.
I often feel like I drove him away (evidence A: THIS BLOG). And I thought, hey, when you sign up for “All This,” that means you get a starring role on this page.
But then I got a text from someone else, someone I’ll love the rest of my life as an amazing, incredible friend.
I don’t talk about him at all. There are sacred people in my world. I talk about myself to death. But some others? You can waterboard me all you want; I ain’t sayin’ a word about them.
All my friends (that’s what I call them all) are writers. And this last one, I had given him permission to use me for material in what he’s unleashing to the world. Because, let’s face it, I have provided some chapters in his autobiography, and I own that.
He said no, I am sacred territory. I love that he said that and I’ve always felt the same. We continue to honor it, and always will.
That doesn’t mean all sacred cows aren’t slaughtered on this page. Some I just can’t give the “press coverage” to. It’s as simple as that. Sometimes I read through these posts and wonder who the fuck I was talking about. Other times I see a mention of someone who didn’t deserve to be immortalized. So now, I just don’t.
In any event, he’s one of the few who KNOWS me. I can tell him something I said or did and he’ll have the immediate and accurate interpretation.
If I ever say I am being a bitch to someone, he’ll remind me what they did to drive me to batshit-world and fuck them if they can’t stand seeing themselves on the blog.
If I say I’m aloof he’ll say I’m loving and that’s gotten me next to nowhere in life so of course I’m not going to get fully invested until they’ve given me a few good reasons to lower the chain bridge across the moat.
I said in a past entry that I need a guy who can give me Europe and mind-blowing sex. Which, Mom says is impossible. And so far she’s right. But I need to add that I do break dishes and I do push people away and I do pretend that I’m tougher than I am because too many people have treated my heart like their own disposable dish.
But let me add this to my list: I can glue my own heart back together. But I need the guy who love it for all its imperfections. Not to look past them but to understand why they became that way. Most people don’t hang around that long. But as you can see, I’m loyal for life to those who do.