Cracker Barrel Revelations

I had coffee with God this morning.

We've been hanging out for a while now, and even though he's always with me, we decided to meet up at Cracker Barrel.

We stayed there quite a while and enjoyed fresh coffee and even biscuits and gravy. We talked for a while. We sat in silence. He watched me while I journaled. It was nice.

For a while I just watched the people around me. I noticed I was the youngest person there by almost 40 years. No joke.

It made me start thinking... about how I always rush to grow up. And it made me wonder... why?

after observing those wise in their years, it hit me...

I have the rest of my life to be old... why am I trying to grow up now?


I also observed the couples there. Some looked like life long friends, others looked tired of each other. One younger couple walked in and I noticed that the man and I were dressed almost exactly alike... brown sweater, dark jeans, black shoes, all topped off with a hat. I don't know if that means I dress like a boy or he dresses like a girl.

Anyway, you could tell his wife was hip and trendy. She definitely dressed like a girl. To me they kinda looked like opposites, but I began to wonder if that's what attracted them to each other. I guess it makes sense when I think about it, most guys don't go for girls that dress like them. My point has nothing to do with her husband and I having the same taste, but everything to do with her and him having different taste (but to be honest... yes... it crossed my mind if he and I would make a good couple). I have always questioned if opposites really do attract. My philosophy has always been "opposites attract... then they attack!"

But then I got to thinking about a support group I went to last week. We talked about how it was a good thing that none of us were God. Infact, that's what makes God and I's relationship so good... the fact that He is God and I am not. The fact that He forgives and I sin.

God and I are pretty different... think about it... I'm a mere human... He's the creator of the universe!

but the two of us together... WOW!!

I've heard if before, and I'll have to agree... God and I's relationship is proof that opposites do attract!

The Glory of God

through my eyes

Hypocrite

I almost started crying today at work.


A mother and her daughter came up to order some drinks. The girl was maybe 12, if even. The mom ordered her skim latte, and the young girl opted for her favorite drink... a tall (which is a small) vanilla bean frappe. After the young girl ordered, her mom looked at me and asked if that came in a low fat option or low-calorie. I told we did have a "light" cream base we can make it with, which always erks me when people order it, but propbably because I myself order them, and I know why. To be honest, I thought she was asking for herself, but then she looked at her daughter, her 12 year old beatuiful, healthy daughter and said "maybe you should start thinking about getting those from now on. Just think about it, as an option, you know? So you won't have all those calories." My heart dropped, and so did the young girls eyes... she just looked down at the floor as if she had something to be ashamed of. I honestly was kind of in shock. I didn't know what to say. I still don't. I looked at the mom and tried to smile and gave her my signature line... "everything is fine in moderation." She didn't say anything. She smiled, looked at her daughter, and said "well, just think about it."

The last thing that slim little 12 year old girl needed to worry about was her weight, and especially at her age, but the message had already been sent, and I felt so helpless that I couldn't do anything.


I went over to make the young girl's drink and when I finished I went up to the counter to call it out. The girl came walking up and as she started to say thank you, I pulled the drink back toward me and I said "now... you can only have this if you promise to enjoy every bit of it you want and always order it the way you like it." She looked at me and smiled... "ok... thank you!" I watched her walk back over to her mom's table and smile the whole way.



I honestly don't know if I was more worried about the little girl, or myself. Both of us were affected by that comment. I realize the mother had good intentions, and I'm certainly not calling her a bad mother, or even a bad person. I know she's "doing the best she can with what she has," as my mother would say, but seriously, that's an explanation for why we do and say the things we do, but not an excuse!




I made myself a vanilla bean frappe with whip cream. I drank it with the girl in sight and I could see her catching glimpses of me enjoying mine. We bonded as we enjoyed our frappes from across the room, and for a split second I started to feel like maybe I really made a difference, and who knows, maybe I did, maybe I didn't...




But... the girl and her mom got up to leave, and that's when I realized I was once again making an attempt to help someone else without helping myself.


I have been sent my own messages somewhere along the line, and these messages are so hard to break away from. Whether they be food related or not, I took control of how I responded to the messages by using food, or lack there of.




As soon as they walked out the door I threw my frappe away, without finishing it. Why? Because I'm a hypocrite. This is where I usually start to be really hard on myself and beat myself up, but honestly, looking back, the neagative action of throwing it away isn't as big of a deal as the positive action of drinking it in the first place. Yes, I am a hypocrite, but one with good intentions... aren't we all?

People who make good hypocrites are ones with good intentions.




I didn't want that girl to start absorbing messages that so many women are sent these days about the importance of weight, looks, calories, yada, yada, yada.... I just wanted her to be a kid. And even though I am trying to break free of believing them myself, I still find myself throwing away the things I enjoy, like vanilla bean frappes.




My goal today... I will enjoy a frappe... anyone of my choice... maybe chocolate, maybe vanilla... not because anyone is looking, not in an attempt to "save" a little girl from having a fear of food, and not because my therapist assigned me to... I'm going to enjoy one simply because I like them, and I deserve to enjoy the things that I like...

in moderation!




but more than that... I deserve to believe my own messages that I want to send out to others... and to myself!

letters in prision

What has happened to me is what will deliver me.

I'm stuck in these chains and I'm tied to the ground, and I lay here in doubt that I will ever be free.

I lay in my own prison.
And I wait.
I wait on you to get me out.

But you want me to stay.

You want me to stay so I can serve my time, so I can learn my lesson, so I can conquer my doubt.

But my doubt is what prolongs my stay. If only I could let it go... and be still... still enough to know who you are.

Each time I move I lose sight of you, till I can no longer see a way out... not even you, you who offers a way, the only way.

I want to be with you. I don't want to be left here.
But you tell me to trust you.

Listening to your voice I begin to calm down. I stay right where I am and I lay in my mess. I lay in my chains and I lay tied to the ground.

I lay in my chains and I sleep there every day and every night. It is in the stillness that I begin to see everyone else around me. All of them are trying so hard to get out... something I tried, but I couldn't do...
Didn't they notice?

If only they could be still. Still enough to know who you are.

At each move they make they lose sight of you. At each move they make they lose sight of the way.

This was when I realized why I was here, and the purpose of my chains.

Eventhough my chains held me back, they made me scream your name. They made me scream loud enough for everyone to hear.

And everyone was silent.
And everyone was still.

Everyone was still. And they knew who you were because they were still. They knew who you were because my chains screamed your name. They knew who you were because my chains held me down.


.....................................................................................................


Inspired by the letters of Paul to the Phillipians

A glimpse...

Journal entry prior to treatment...

1/22/07 10:58 AM

I had a breakdown yesterday. A real melt down. Last night after I left my sister’s I couldn’t go home, so I just kept driving. I drove all the way to Charleston (hour and half away). I just sat in an empty parking lot once I got there. I felt like a real nut case. I listened to sad music. I sat in silence. I cried. I yelled. I “prayed” in a very loud tone. I did all the things nut cases do when they drive to an empty parking lot an hour and a half away from their home and just sit there. In the moment I really felt like I was going crazy. Today I feel kinda stupid, especially cause I skipped work, and didn’t call, and they called here looking for me, to which I didn’t answer. I did the mature thing and called my mom and asked her to call my work to tell them I was sick, which I was, but it was more of an emotional sickness.
So now I’m sitting here, staring at my computer screen… thinking about all the things that went through my head last night… feeling like an idiot.
When I finally got home last night at 3:00am, my mom was just waking up. I walked in the door the same time she walked out of her bedroom door. Perfect timing huh? A real spiritual person would say that was so God, but I don’t really feel real spiritual right now, so I don’t know what it was. Anyway, when I walked in at 3am of course she was worried, which I knew was going to help me feel even more sane. I told her I was fine and that I had been over at Bonnie’s. She walked into the kitchen and I followed her. I guess she was getting up to work on some papers or something for work because she had her briefcase and all these books and notes in her hands. I sat down at the kitchen table with a blank stare on my face. She asked me what was wrong. I knew I had to tell her, but I didn’t want to because it’s so hard for me to talk to her. She always gets that worried, excited tone of voice when she asks “what’s wrong, what’s wrong?” When I said it was hard for me to talk to her she said she was sorry and that she was only human. I got so mad when she said that. No duh she’s human. I felt like here I am having a crisis and my mother is playing the victim. A role that I’ve felt that she’s played for a very long time, and I’m sick of it. I was about to storm off, but I sat down at the table and she sat in silence waiting for me to respond. I started to cry and said it was hard for me to say. Finally I blurted it out, “I have an eating disorder.”
Maybe it was because I was expecting this dramatic response from my mother, or some sympathy or I don’t know what, but after I said it she just sat there and said “I know.” I was furious. I couldn’t believe that was all she had to say. Then she went on “is that what was so hard for you to say?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here is this thing that I felt was controlling my life and my mother was asking if that was what was so hard to say. It made me feel like an idiot. It made me feel stupid for even trying to make an effort to help her understand. And for me, it justified why it was so hard for me to talk to her. She just doesn’t understand.


Journal Entry while in treatment....

6/27/07

Wow… so that was a while back, and I’ve come a long way since then, not only with my eating disorder, but with my mom. I’ve been in treatment since the beginning of February, and to this day remain in a group home for girls on the road to recovery from their eating disorders. I’ve been doing so well for so long that I sometimes convince myself that I never had an eating disorder… until I come across a journal entry like this. I have found many like this, and its entries like this that remind me where I was and where I am going. These journal entries keep me in check and remind me of my struggle within when I start to think I’m perfect, or that I’m “cured.” I sometimes wonder if this disease is even curable; manageable maybe, but not curable.

Weeping Guitar

I'm crying, but there's no tears.

A dry spell.

An emptiness. Too empty to even cry.

My guitar is sitting in the corner, waiting to be played.

It once had meaning and purpose, pouring out my emotions in the form of music. But now it sits.

Empty. Hollow.

As do I.



I can relate to my guitar...

full of potential, full of passion, full of soul.

But instead, it sits. I allow it to sit in a corner. Untouched, unused, unloved.

My guitar looks back at me, feeling the same way I do, and softly sings... "she's so full of potential, full of passion, full of soul. Why does she sit alone in that corner, allowing herself to be untouched, unused, unloved?"

Together we would be full of life.

But instead, we sit in our corners and give each other an occasional glance, an occasional thought, and sometimes an occasional strum.

I've forgotten the chords I used to play, the strings I used to pick, the songs I used to write.

If I sit long enough, I forget the sound it makes and the tune of its voice.

Much like my guitar, I feel I have lost my voice.

Much like my guitar, I am waiting.

...To be touched, to be used, to be loved...

and to live the life I was meant to live.