Untethered.

So I haven't been holding myself accountable and I'm trying to figure out why so I can move up and on.  I have been really proud of myself and how well I've been eating and exercising the past week or so. 

It started yesterday.  I ate a normal breakfast- oatmeal, berries, almond butter, chia seeds.  I then worked a short shift at Tatum.  And I wasn't hungry and by that I mean stomach growling hungry.  But sometimes I get a feeling in my stomach that sort of feels like hunger but isn't stomach growling hunger.  It's like bees buzzing- as opposed to the feeling of butterflies.  I guess it's an anxiety.  I had a very small glass of milk to distract myself but the unsettled feeling lasted until lunch.  I didn't want to eat what I had brought- left over cabbage mix and salad- two meals I had happily eaten before.  My friend and I went out to lunch and I was good.  (I don't even really mean good, because I think having good and bad food is dangerous).  I got my favorite salad- lettuce, black bean and corn salsa, avocado, chicken and cilantro.  Plus a piece of wheat bread.  But I didn't give it a second thought as I ate it, or rather, inhaled it.  To the point where I was uncomfortably full- something I haven't done in a while.  That's okay.  It happens.  They aren't the worst things to get too full on.  Back at school I was feeling the effects of this, feeling sluggish in class.  When I left school a couple of hours later, I went to Trader Joe's to buy bananas- to be able to later have a snack I genuinely had been craving all day, partly to help my sore muscles.  But the bananas weren't ripe and wouldn't be for days.  This pushed me off track.  I bought junk items- things I had never bought before and then went home and ate a lot.  I won't write what and how much because I'm embarrassed.  I didn't do anything the rest of the day but laze and eat.  I had work to do but it was work I didn't have answers to- finding a short piece to direct; writing a script for my puppetry piece; finding a direction for my Measure for Measure design.  So I ate and watched 2 documentaries.

Today was going to be a new day.  The moment after you regret eating something is the moment to start anew.  (But I think regret should probably not be a part of my new outlook on food.)  I ate toast, almond butter, and strawberries.  Delightful.  But again, by late morning I had been sidetracked by food I didn't really want and eating when I wasn't actually hungry.  So here I am. 

I don't feel great- mentally, emotionally, physically- because of my choices.  And they are choices I didn't want to make but I found them happening.  So I want to know why.  Yes, this week has been a certain kind of stressful but what makes it different so that I felt distracted from this successful approach I was having? 

There was a certain helpless feeling about being so sore from all the exercise I was doing. 

It wasn't a cocky feeling I sometimes have once I have started to feel successful with eating and exercising.

I guess I was sad about something, though I'm not sure what.  I'm certainly sad right now, though I think this one is a resulting sadness, not a cause. 

I feel like these feelings and this sidetracked feeling occur a lot when I am in the design process of a show.  I am trying to find answers in food?  They certainly aren't there.  I am trying to find comfort for the fact that until that final design presentation, my ideas are not certain?

What keeps me tethered to the ground?  What keeps me balanced?



Oh, right, I also almost forgot it's almost that time of the month.  Perhaps that's where all my answers lie.  Yes, in the days leading up to my period, there is usually one day where I am ravenous (I have read happens to other women, too).  There is also usually one day when I am very sad and emotional and, though I know it's cause, I always seem to forget.  Funny because I figured this out yesterday but forgot it today.  Perhaps my feet- and head and heart- will come back down to the ground in just a matter of days. 

I have to learn to forgive myself.  To remember this is a journey.  I have to forget that this is about outward appearance and I'm trying to figure out my insides- my stomach, my muscles, my head and my heart.  Today is one day and tomorrow is another.  Right now is one moment and the next will be different.