i'm really tired this morning. i was up late, as R was finishing laundry. i am cold, because it's bloody cold in this house. 34 degrees outside. it's the kind of morning combination that makes me want to get a ride for Syd and go back to bed. but i'm not going to do that, because it will get nothing done. instead, i'm drinking a good cup of coffee and i'm going to go to the gym. got a bag of trash that's to go to a dumpster and a certificate of appreciation to print out for wednesday's meeting. so i have things to do.
R's visit was nice enough. we didn't speak much, but we did watch a movie and that was cool. she did her clothes, she sat snuggly against me while i laid on my bed. it's one of those things, unspoken, that deepen my appreciation for her being a part of my life. in whatever capacity that may be.
i told her, and it's true, that going to the Kingdom Hall let me know that the orbit i'm in is working, though i do need to tighten up on the discipline of logging my food and calories. the suit jacket i wore fit well, and i've worn it to funerals in the past several months and it had a tendency to gap in front. it's strange how perspective works. you can get so big that any smaller doesn't really seem to register. but that's why the discipline is necessary. because when it's said and done, i have to lose the weight of my mind, which will make losing the weight on my body a reality. besides, i'm almost done with my system check, from my recollections, and once that's done, we can begin this flight in earnest.
i was thinking about the fruit cellar in our basement when i was a kid. it's funny, you have a cellar in a cellar. i thought so as a kid too. but it was a fruit cellar, or a cold cellar as some would have called it. it was where you could find and mine treasures that no one else would think of, at least when i was a kid. it was where the canned stuff went, and by canned i mean jarred and sealed as people used to do effortlessly. we are forgetting so much as a group of humans, and while we're forgetting tons we need that knowledge more than ever, its right at our fingertips but we don't bother accessing it because it's not dramatic enough. we had jars of tomatoes and other weird things that were almost too awesomely strange to even contemplate opening. but we also had homemade jams that, once i discovered them, disappeared like a magic trick. there would be a seal of wax on the top, and good, gooey homemade jams beneath. i mention this because i had a lot of things like this, secret food places, where i would sort of anesthetize myself with whatever delectables i could find. like my trick of burgers and fries when i wanted them, because i was denied food when it was concluded that i wouldn't work on losing the weight voluntarily. i would be the one to bring in and put groceries away, because then i could see what was available for me. if i wanted burgers and fries, the fries were easy, because no one was going to cut potatoes for me and no one was going to stop me from cutting them for myself. the burgers were a trick. carefully unstick and pull back the cellophane. take burger meat from the bottom of the pack and put the cellophane back over the diminished pack. wrap the liberated hamburger meat until i was ready to fix my meal. two huge cheeseburgers, usually, and home made french fries. when i reflect on it now, my learning to cook served two purposes. it was a way of trying to smooth out the quickly fraying fabric of our home in the war between my parents, but it was also a way to ensure i got the 'fixes' that i wanted and needed by getting what i wanted to eat. it was, in reflection, incredibly self-centered and selfish, as i was depriving someone down the line of getting as much as they wanted or perhaps needed. it was also indulgent in a great way, because though i would, at times, offer someone else some of what i made, it was isolated eating for the most part. it is how bad rituals are born.
i honestly think back and can only say that the anguish of growing up with my parents at war with each other, both heated and cold wars, was the motivation for my pacifying eating habits. because there were not a lot of bad things. there was the ridicule, but you learn early on whether you could deal with that or not, and i found i could. i had friends and associates who helped greatly. you learn early on whether you can function in the social strata in which you have to exist in, like school, and i functioned there, even somewhat on my own terms as i was a clown early on, a creative spirit later. it was only when i would have to go home and stay there that the bad thoughts would start. i remember contemplating suicide early in life. i honestly don't believe i ever tried. i think that is a false memory i planted in my head, a point of relatability for someone i may have been speaking to as a recovering addict. but i was not happy being alive, and would contemplate killing myself as a young boy. and eating seemed to take the sharp edges off being at home, as weed and freebase and alcohol dulled the edges of the rest of the world when i was a teenager and a young adult.
i hit the gym this morning and i bought books, though i have to pay for them tomorrow. i ate good, and i got over to see my mom and dad and my aunt. i got some rest, i've been writing, i'm finishing this entry now. caught up with the latest episodes of Dr. Who, which was cool, and i am just about ready to shut it down. have to make sure Syd takes her shower, and try to stay on point for tomorrow, where i do it all again, except slightly differently and with some other things added in. when i look at what i wrote earlier in the day, it makes me a little nostalgic and a little sad. i really did want to make things better for my family, but i know now that was an absolutely futile plan. it was self-serving, but things can be more than one thing at more than one time. i wanted to take care of things so my mother wouldn't have to be burdened with us. i wanted my dad to have what he needed from his family so maybe he and my mom would stop fighting. and i ate a lot of crap to numb my perceived failure and the ridicule and humiliation that i took, though it wasn't perhaps quite as bad as i remember it. and i see that a part of me, not the inner child, but a part of me that has been conscious the entire time, has been super-reactionary to these things. i guess, in looking at it from an analytical perspective (which i can do because it's my log), a child can't simply decide he's not going to speak to family anymore. a child with a family usually has no choice in those things (personal experience). but an adult who remains immature often makes decisions of that type. a child will lie, oh lord do children lie, but it's to avoid punishment, and they rarely lie to themselves. an adult will lie to themselves, rationalize and minimize in order to make an unacceptable thing perfectly acceptable and able to fit neatly in with the rest of their denial system. so, perhaps a lot of what was wrong with the original focus on the inner child was simply how it made excuses for the adult to continue being the broken, fractured, unresponsive, reactionary, self-centered borderline sociopath that he'd become comfortable being, while blaming every questionable act on the 'inner child'.
well, i'll tell you what i've learned in a month and a half. this is not the fault of the Tim on the inside. this is the fault of the Tim that has continued holding on to defensiveness and isolation despite seeing how the help he needs is at a perimeter of his own creation. now, what to do about that? good question, eh? Thanks, Father, for an insightful day, and good night.
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