Why did I EAT that?

Alright. I just ate an entire bag of Cheetos. Followed by (oh god, this is embarrassing) frozen Cool Whip with chocolate flavored Magic Shell. And I wasn't even hungry. WHY?!

I'm on the verge of something new, but altogether familiar. I'm calling it conscious consumption. Of food, of things, of information, of environment... I'm beginning to notice that I consume stuff entirely too unconsciously, barely awake, reacting to a mood or a fly-by thought. I eat because I'm anxious, waiting for a boy to call. I go shopping because I want to avoid being at home. I buy stuff to feel important, lovable, okay. I know that we all do; I know I'm not hitting on some new concept here. However, I do believe that I'm seeing a way out of it that I have never seen before: through consciousness.

Conscious consuming, to me, looks like asking the question, "Do I really need this right now?" If I had asked myself that question prior to eating the Cool Whip, the answer would have definitely been no. So then I can ask myself, "What is the Cool Whip doing for you?" To which I could answer, "It's providing a distraction." "From what?" I would ask myself. From what?

From feelings of aimlessness, dread, unworthiness. From a sense of isolation. From the incredibly overwhelming feeling of responsibility in taking care of myself and of Jack. From despair. From the nagging voice of my mother who is always telling me that I'm not doing enough.

There are a lot of things that we all do to avoid feeling this stuff and letting it wash over us. We watch TV, smoke cigarettes, drink a few beers, call a friend, shop, eat, check up on the latest Britney news, check our friend's blogs... I know I'm afraid of stillness. I think I'm afraid that all of those feelings are real and that they will overwhelm me. and that I might not ever recover from it. So I eat Cheetos.

At least, this is what I have done up until now. I'm setting an intention to be still. I'm setting the intention to ask myself the questions: Do I need it, What is it doing for me... Most importantly, I intend to ask myself, "What do I really need right now?" Most likely it's not Cheetos or something from the dollar spot at Target or another VH1 countdown. What I could use is my own company, my own presence with myself as I feel whatever sadness or depression or anxiety that I may be feeling at the moment. What I need is to be able to listen to myself fully, completely, as my best friend would, and then say with the utmost confidence, "You know what? This will pass. It always does." I need to give myself permission to fall apart, to throw a tantrum, to be in a bad mood. I need to trust that I won't get stuck in it as I go through it.

I have been exceedingly lucky to have people in my life who, through their loving friendship with me, have shown me what it looks like to treat me with compassion, grace, and unconditional love and support. It's as if Carrie and Billy and Melissa and Donovan and Lynette and Craig and Mirna and Lisa have been my guides and teachers, demonstrating to me how to be more loving with myself. I am truly grateful for having been shown the way.

And now I want to share with you what spurred on this whole shift. My friend, Kate, sent this to me a few weeks ago and I avoided it for a while because I knew it shake the ignorance out of me. Given my penchant for extremes and black and white thinking, I kept all of my radical reactions in check and have not, so far, decided to sell all of my belongings and live with Jack on a commune raising Alpaca. I did, however, rent some of the suggested books listed on the website from the library. This is just an excerpt from the actual, 20 minute video that you can see in it's entirety here.*** I highly recommend it.

The Story of Stuff


***update: The story of stuff website (http://www.storyofstuff.com/) appears to be out of commission, which sucks because there are great links to resources and easy ideas on how to get out of this cycle. I think Big Buisness had something to do with offing the website, if you know what I mean. You can see all seven chapters here. Mahalo!

Why I Hate Poland

My best friend, Carrie, moved to Poland just before my son was born one year ago. At that time, my life was radically changing: I was expecting my firstborn child, I was finishing up my Master's Degree, I had started a new job and left an old boyfriend. Her leaving, while sad, was overshadowed by the excitement of becoming a mother and the adjustment to life with a baby, and I didn't really have time to notice how much I missed her.

I have never loved someone like I love Carrie. The day we met felt like a reunion of souls that had been apart for a while. What I remember feeling when I shook her hand was the comfort and relief of familiarity, like the smell of the house you grew up in. We were instantly and fiercely friends. One person we met told us that we were "twin souls..." I don't know what that means, but it sounds right.

I know that the term "best friend" is usually reserved for fourth grade girls and charm bracelets, but Carrie really is my best friend. In fact, my admiration and love for her was problematic with my ex boyfriend. He got mad at how often I compared him to her, with him always on the short end of the comparison. He suggested I just marry her, something she and I had considered before we remembered that we aren't lesbian.

When she left, I didn't realize how hard it would be for us to stay connected. We've been separated before- like when I moved to Orange County to become a foster parent and when she moved to Virginia to mend a broken heart- and we've always been able to maintain an almost surreal closeness. However, over the past year, the time difference and Jack's need for my attention made conversation almost impossible. Not that I had much to say: Jack isn't sleeping, I'm going crazy, he rolled over today, he's got diarrhea, he gained two ounces, I've gained 15 pounds. New mom talk is only interesting to other new moms. Really.

And she's in Poland, for chrissakes, living through culture shock, blizzards, and bad, pickled food. When she would talk about it, I would try to imagine her life but my only reference for cold weather is San Diego at night. And not knowing what the town she lives in looks like, only that it is "a small, country town," I am embarrassed to admit that I imagined her in Main Street, USA at Disneyland.

I'm so used to getting my support from her, but for the first time in our life together as friends we had to go to separate support groups for our individual traumas. I'm so used to calling her when I need to laugh or to bitch about my job or my tummy fat or the price of cigarettes. Our parallel lives made this easy, but our lives look really, really different now. I have a baby that I love so intensely that it hurts while at the same time want to auction off to the highest bidder on Ebay. She is living in a country where people are not friendly and do not smile, and where Taco Bell does not exist.

She sent me an email today, a rare commodity since she does not have a computer. As I wrote my reply, which is posted below, I felt the sting of her absence in my life, a hollow, empty pain that I had not realized was there. I will see her in July, at the wedding of a mutual friend, and I look forward to that sweet reunion, once again.

I miss sharing my life with you. I miss having you to call. I like having you as a witness to my life, someone who shares in the beauty and the mess of it all, someone to rejoice with me and be awed with me and devastated with me. My life is devastatingly beautiful, Carrie, and I want you to see it. I want you to witness it with me. Without you here, events in my life bounce around like an echo, unabsorbed by anyone but me. And they're such great events: Jack's smile in the morning, the way a Cheerio sticks to his cheek when he eats, how his chubby baby legs just seem to get fatter and fatter, the sound of his voice when he sings as he plays with a straw.

Maybe it's just loneliness, period. Maybe it is that I am ready to invite someone into my life to bear witness to what I am creating, what I am, who I am. I'm just used to that person being you, Carrie, and I like it when it's you. I like standing with you in the rooms of my life.

I don't want you to come home for me, and I don't want you to stop creating your own life. I support you, and always will, in your journey and in your life wherever that leads you and I want you to experience the hell out of yourself! I just miss you, am incredibly lonely without you, and I feel like you are missing out on me. And I, you.

I love you.

Amber.