I know what I need to eat and when I need to eat it in order to feel satisfied on the number of points I'm allotted on Weight Watchers, and I also know exactly what not to eat and when if I don't want to trigger a binge. Lately staying on plan feels effortless. I've got my morning & evening housecleaning routines in place, I do 15 minutes of cleaning in my �Zone�, I declutter my �Hot Spots� several times a day and I scoop out the cat boxes every morning on the way out the door to the gym. My dishes are done every night after supper and the dishwasher is unloaded every morning during the 2.5 minutes it takes to heat my tea in the microwave.

It feels like I�m walking on water.

Suddenly I�m doing things I�d begun to believe were impossible for me to do, and it�s exhilarating � but at the same time, scary. The thing that's holding me up there is an incredible amount of focus fueled by� what? Frustration? Desperation? I'm buoyed up as well by the novelty of seeing actual results from my efforts.

After hitting what I hope to god was my personal rock bottom a few weeks ago, I took a few days of vacation; and over a five day weekend and the three day holiday weekend that followed I began the arduous task of decluttering my living space. I never thought I was THAT much of a packrat�I don�t save anything junky to speak of�but my penchant for throwing money at my problems means that I have acquired an astonishing amount of material goods that get slightly used and then cast aside, no longer wanted but too good to throw away, and undonated for various reasons. I made a huge dent in the clutter over those two weekends. HUGE.

And then I set up the FlyLady system for doing housekeeping on a schedule, and I got back on board with Weight Watchers, and started going back to the gym. Even the money situation is starting to work itself out now that I have fewer problems to throw money at; and with the memory of the hundreds of dollars� worth of previous impulse purchases I've carted out of here in trash bags over the last few weeks still painfully fresh in my mind, I�m finding myself less willing to spend money to bring more useless crap home to take its place. It�s all getting better, much better, quickly; and I am growing increasingly uneasy. This recent small taste of success has proved much more unsettling than I imagined. I am frightened of going backwards, of sliding back into the desperate dogpaddle I�ve been doing my entire life to keep from drowning in an angry sea of clutter and chaos.

Will all this eventually become second nature to me, this tripping lightly upon the surface of the waves, this energetic kicking up of sea foam as I flit from task to task and back again? Will I always have to concentrate so hard on picking up this and putting away that, on swishing and swiping, baby steps, baby steps, newly sharp eyes constantly darting about in search of the little smoldering molehills that are always threatening to erupt into big volcanoes puking crap all over my apartment? Will physical fitness have to become my new religion? Will decent food choices ever become a habit? Will there ever come a time when I automatically reach for produce and chicken breasts at the grocery store when I go in without a list, the way I�ve always reached for pasta and frozen pizza in the past?

For too long my life has been focused on my unhappiness at being fat and disorganized. And while I want, need to break away from that, I really don�t want the rest of my life to be ABOUT fitness and organization, either. Anyone who has ever lost a lot of weight knows that the real trick is maintaining. And while I know I can�t go back to my old eating habits, or my old cluttering habits either for that matter, it irritates me to think that I might always have to give the lion�s share of my attention to making sure I don�t backslide into my old messy ways of eating and living.

I just don�t want this to wind up being the biggest accomplishment of my life, these normal basic things that most other people manage to do almost without a second thought. I don�t want slipping into a pair of size 8 jeans to be the most amazing thing I ever did, or the biggest pat on the back I can give myself to be for getting the dishes done every day. I don�t want to settle for the bronze medal in the Special Olympics of life. Hurray, you did it, you're almost normal!

There is too much at stake for me to throw in the towel, though; to activate all those old mind tricks that kept me semi-comfortable in my discomfort. I need to get out of the mess if I ever want to accomplish anything more in life. I�ve already let it hold me back for far too long. The weight has also held me back from living the life I want to live, and now it has started KILLING me as well. Enough is enough already.

There are a lot of things I want to experience and accomplish that I don�t want to have to turn away from just because they don�t happen to be on my schedule or my menu. But what happens when the novelty of a clean house and a thinner, healthier body wears off? When I finally get the confidence to try to turn my time and attention to something newer and cooler? Do I get to keep the new improved body and living space when I finally try to take a swipe at the brass ring, or does the whole merry-go-round just slide into the shitter when I relax my grasp on the reins a little?

I�ve finally found a therapist who I think I can work with, who is empathetic and supportive and seems to be completely on board with what I am trying to do. Having some support while I basically set about trying to become a completely different person will hopefully be enough to get me to a place where I can �just do it��eat right, stay organized�without making a big production out of it forever. If not, some brain-fixing meds may be the next thing to try.

Maybe this is all not as much like walking on water as it is like learning to ride a two-wheeler�I�m up, I�m doing it, riding, riding, wobbly as hell and jittery lest a bump in the road or a slight gust of breeze unsettle me and send me hurtling down to the pavement. My therapist and my routines are training wheels; meds are a giant red three-wheeled tricycle with baskets on the sides and a big ball-horn mounted on the handlebars. But if it comes to that, I guess I�ll just have to stick a tall orange safety flag down the butt-crack of my jeans to warn others of my impaired stability, and away I�ll go.

At this point, whatever works, I�m all for.

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Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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