This is hard

Harder than I thought it was going to be. I am feeling a bit unhinged with everything that is changing in my life and this is just one more thing, this trying to confront my overeating. This blog adds a bit to that stress; even though I know there are not that many people reading it, the very existence of a place where I have pledged to be entirely honest about things and to write about what matters most to me fills me with dread as well as joy.

Someone close to me may have cancer. It doesn't look good. (It's not my wife, for any of you who know us, so don't worry). Life is so fragile, yet it also amazes me how much punishment a body can take before it gives out. I certainly punished mine enough, yet it continues to serve me well. Cancer is such a wild card, it can pop up in anyone anytime. Of course, this person is quite old, but still....Another friend, somewhat younger than I am, has already been diagnosed with breast cancer and gone through the mastectomy. Yet here I sit, a tubby 55-year-old alcoholic who smoked a pack-and-a-half a day for 20 years, and I am doing fine. Not that I am looking for justice; God knows, there is precious little of that to be found in our world.

So, I went to the Harry Potter movie today. I love movie theater popcorn. I looked it up on the web, how many calories and such I would have to count. Jeez. I didn't get any popcorn; I took my own snacks. I will confess that I'm not sure I can be so pristine about all of this forever, but today I jumped a hurdle. Not that it's my first movie without popcorn, but I have to say that it wasn't easy. (I loved the movie, by the way. A wonderful ending. I am a sucker for a tidy fantasy).

On the other hand, it also wasn't particularly hard. That's really part of the point I'm trying to make about meditation and all that. What meditation does is create a larger space, so these feelings of grief and loss and deprivation and anger don't eat me up and make be believe that I must DO SOMETHING about them. That is one of the biggest fallacies under which we labor, that when we feel badly, something must be done. It just isn't so. I do not need to eat or drink or yell or escape or shop or run or play a game or write or read or do anything to remove these feelings. They simply are, and cannot be gotten rid of. What I can do is exist in a plane where they do not have the power to control my life. And one big part of that is allowing myself to simply be with them. When I do that, among other things it causes me to realize that they cannot kill me; in fact, they cannot even really harm me, unless I let them.

I am aware that I promised to return to the subject of meditation, and I will do so tomorrow. It really does have everything to do with this compulsive eating thing, I promise. If you are following this blog at all, or have read up to this point, I assure you there is a comprehensible way of living and eating that can grow out of this. Obviously, I am not there yet, or I would already be at my goal weight and there would be no need for this blog. But I am thoroughly convinced that it is there, and that we can go on that journey together, if you wish.