Caution - Construction Zone

It never fails: I start taking better care of myself, you know, in the Stevie sense: eating moderately, doing my laundry, trying to move around a little more - and I start to get restless, impatient, frustrated with the rest of my life. What the HELL am I doing working as a secretary when there's so much more I could be doing? What the HELL am I doing living in Albuquerque when I could be running a fish taco stand in Belize? Where the HELL is my boyfriend? What the HELL am I doing wasting my life? My normal (read abnormal) food use obviously keeps a lid on these disturbing feelings. Then KABOOM they're released from the Pandora's box of my soul when I eat moderately. No wonder there's an unconscious drive to reach for the Jarlsberg.

The hard part is not to comfort my restless self, to placate and mollify with food, when I know that the frustration I'm feeling is with myself, the limitations I've created for myself by being fat and the huge job ahead of me. This is the time to be gentle and patient with myself, to forgive myself for creating the conditions I rail against, and to take a deep breath.

In a sense I don't have to get on a scale to know that the "diet" is working - the reappearance of these feelings is a litmus test. I'm acidic. No doubt.

I'm a grand old decrepit coastal resort, shuttered and sagging, battered and beaten by winter storms and driftwood, riddled with wood rot and mildew, and I long to be renovated, brick by brick and board by board, from the foundation to the rooftop, into a bright, whitewashed, breezy, sun-splashed wonder of summer fun and frivolity, but there's just me, one crusty caretaker, with a tool belt and a to-do list a mile long.

Look past the grit and grime of the caretaker's craggy face into his eyes and you'll see a spark of determination -- and hope. By God I'm gonna get this place in ship shape or I'm gonna die trying!