Contemplative Jenn is longing, forcefully
Since I have put out there the subject of complsive eating, I figure I’ll go one step further, a step into my past, really, and post this journal entry I found from a couple of years ago. The insights, the fact that they were mine, surprised me, but they obviously still apply, and resonate with my mindset still from time to time. For what it’s worth…
There is hope as well as fear in that there’s no telling what I might do next. The mystery of my future is its strength, because the present holds nothing I am proud of, nothing that sustains me. I look at each day as a possibility, a responsibility to do what is right and healthy, and each day I am disappointed, or really, I disappoint myself. I wonder what it would be like to be the best at something, to try and succeed, or to not be afraid of trying. It’s funny, I have these two eating lives, one which includes variety, color, texture, and flavor—whole, healthy foods that nourish and tantalize. I love food for its diversity, its balance, its possibility. The other eating life is something of a blur. In this other eating life I eat, too much, too often, not for taste or nourishment, but for comfort or control. I often eat the same things, each time thinking that placing that substance in my mouth, feeling it on my tongue, and swallowing will make me feel good inside, and yet I am never happier or better for it. Sometimes I do not even recall what it was I ate, or how it tasted. The almost robotic act of putting food into my mouth in this other, secret eating life holds no joy, leaves no imprint on my psyche, only on my body. The resulting fullness of my hips, stomach, buttocks, the increasing tightness of my clothing, the ongoing change in my silhouette, makes me miserable on a daily basis. This eating compulsion, the urge to fill myself, the one that occurs when no one else is around, is driven not by hunger but by emptiness, and by a yearning for fulfillment. I recall that when I was pregnant with my two children my eating compulsion entered into a remission of sorts, and I actually lost weight when pregnant, not due to morning sickness or nausea, but just because I ate when I was hungry, enjoyed what I ate, and ate for health. Most of all, though, because my body had import, my being purpose. For once in my life I felt beautiful. I was good at being pregnant, and as my body blossomed into fullness I was content, joyful, hopeful. For perhaps the first time in my life, I embraced my curves, my convex shape, and I was emotionally and physically full.
