Does this ever happen to you?

Do you ever decide to make a change, like deciding, okay, now I’m going to eat well and be healthy, and as a show of a last hurrah or a good-bye to your former ways, then binge eat something terrible?

No? Yes? Well, that’s precisely what I did yesterday, and I find it mildly amusing. A friend brought me by a juicer; I’ve been reading this Kick Cancer in the Kitchen book; I’ve been contemplating cooking again. And so yesterday, I did indeed cook. I went to the store and bought organic quinoa and broccoli and an avocado, some happy chicken breasts, and peanut sauce that didn’t have things I couldn’t pronounce in it. I brought it home, and delighted in making something that I hoped would work, but wasn’t sure. (I mean, put peanut sauce on anything, and I’m pretty sure it’s golden.)

I ate this wonderful, and surprisingly fabulous meal. It was really quite good. Then I went out … and bought three slices of chocolate cake. Three. I came home and ate them all.

Once, I’d decided to go vegetarian, and so the day before I was “to begin,” I went and bought some steak. It’s as if I have to get in my last taste of this thing, as if it’ll be off limits forever, or I need to ingest enough to carry me through the rest of my lifetime. I kind of think it’s hilarious and ridiculous at this point. But, it happens.

And, luckily, there’s a chapter in the cancer book called, “It’s Okay to Eat Chocolate and Cry.” We could call that the title of yesterday.

I felt really off yesterday, knowing how wonderful it was outside, but having met a friend at my house in the morning, I hadn’t left it, despite the near *70* degree temperatures outside. So, it was nearing noon, nearing one, and I still hadn’t left, and I was starting to almost panic. There was something fiendish in the way I wanted to leave the house, but didn’t know where to go, or how long I could be out, and didn’t have anyone to play with, and I sat at my computer cursing that there were no zipcars available, and almost started to cry.

That somehow having a car would give me a direction or a purpose for where to go with the rest of my day. I’m in such this limbo right now. I don’t have the energy of a normal person, but I certainly have energy, and CAN’T keep myself cooped up at home. That said, I’m all immuno-suppressed right now, and shouldn’t really be in public too much – but then WHAT THE HELL am I supposed to do all day. I didn’t just want to “go for a walk,” I go for walks all the time – I wanted to do something fun and different, and just couldn’t manage to get out.

Finally, I did. I got myself out of the house despite having no idea where I was going or what I was doing, and my mom called, and I ended up in a heap on someone’s stairs crying about how anchorless and lost I feel and how aimless and lonely and purposeless right now.

I knew how over the top it all was, but that’s how I felt, and I didn’t know how to change it, because I didn’t really know what was wrong, except that I felt off, and not right, and lost.

She started to suggest something about taking a bus to a different part of town, and my brain got in the way with, but I have to be at the doctor at 3pm, and I shouldn’t be taking the public bus, and I don’t know how long it’ll take, and where will I go anyway. …

And a bus crested the hill, and with tears still leaking out my eyes, I ran down the street and caught the bus. I told my mom I’m taking this bus, and I didn’t know where I’d go on it, but I was going.

I ended up where I actually really wanted to go yesterday anyway, before my brain got a hold of me – at the arts reuse depot. It’s a junk shop basically, with everything you can imagine to use as art supplies. I’d been wanting to go to buy a wooden frame that I want to paint a la these frames a friend has in her house.

And, voila. I ended up at the depot, and actually found a frame. I bought a veggie sandwich and some coffee, and caught the bus back to the doctor’s in time.

It all worked out as I’d wanted it to – with the crazy intermission of my brain eating itself.

I simply need to get up and out when I need to. Not hem and haw about where or what. Maybe I’ll end up somewhere stupid, or somewhere bored, but it’s got to be better than staying at home feeling like a self-imposed prisoner. It’s enough to feel caged when I’m in the hospital; it’s unacceptable to cage myself when I’m at home.

With that, I’ll leave you. I have to go meet some folks now – outside.