Weekend Wins

So, the trip over the weekend went very well. I actually had a ton of challenges come up, because it seemed like nothing went as we planned, as far as meals at least. Match always wanted to sit down and look up menus online before we chose a restaurant to make sure there was something I'd be comfortable with...but our lunch pick on Saturday turned out to be close on weekends, our dinner pick one night was closed by the time we got there, the food at one place sounded ok but was awful when it came out, we got behind schedule and ended up not eating until pretty late one night, our breakfast spot on Friday was closed for renovations, etc etc etc.

And I have to say, I think I earned some gold stars for adaptability. I didn't have one anxiety episode about any of it, and each time we adjusted and had a good time. When my food was bad at one restaurant (this wasn't an ED pickyness thing, it was an Ew That's Gross Fish issue, Match agreed with me), we went to Starbucks afterwards so I could get a snack to make up for it. When our lunch spot was closed, we wandered through Italian district downtown and found a fantastic little place by chance. When my portobello meal came out as a sandwich instead of just plain, I saw how awesome the home-made bread looked and ate the whole damn thing. And had gelato afterwards. And it was good.

I just remembered I did have one Anxiety Episode. We decided to go to a play at a community theater by his house one night, and it started at 7, the time I prefer to eat dinner. It was a long show, so we had to eat beforehand if we were going to. The thing is, we'd had a very late lunch, and neither of us were really hungry, but we knew we wouldn't be back until 11...I decided to just make a light something and have a snack when we got in. My light something did involve cooking. Match said he'd do the same, but then decided he'd just "have a little snack now and one again later," not cooking anything. This really stressed me (I know it doesn't sound rational) because I didn't want to be cooking "real food" if he wasn't, a major self-consciousness issue. I got very frustrated with myself for being upset, and even though I tried to escape to the bathroom to collect myself while ostensibly getting ready for the show, he definitely picked up on it and was unhappy about not knowing what to do, he looked distressed for a few minutes. He asked me if I wanted to talk about it and I said no, which is not the norm for me with him.

Anyway, in the end he handled it in the best possible manner: he didn't say anything, but just went into the kitchen and started cooking himself some dinner. I did too, we went to the show, and it was a good night. I don't want him to feel like he has to eat when he's not hungry just to make me happy, and told him so, but he just replied that he would need to eat eventually and would rather do it in a way that made me more comfortable with the situation, since it's not a big deal for him but it is for me. There are some cases where it's ok; the day I mentioned above when my food was bad and we went to Starbucks afterwards, he didn't get anything, but he had just eaten a meal and I hadn't.

So besides that blip, it was an AWESOME trip. We did a lot of active things, so I wasn't very stressed about a few days away from exercise routines.

Some of the things I felt were biggest victories:

-The number of liquid calories I consumed, which is something I didn't allow myself for many years. I'm still not quite comfortable eating the volume of food my mp demands when I'm around other people, so I'm learning that the liquid option is a good way to stay fueled if I don't get enough at a meal. At one point I mentioned I always take longer to eat than he does, and he responded that he's aware that our volumes of food don't usually have the same calories, since he eats like a stereotypical bachelor with cheeseburgers, fries, cokes, etc.

-The gelato I mentioned above, not only did I eat it but I'm the one that suggested it.

-We only went to one chain restaurant the entire weekend, and that was as a back-up for a local place we'd picked that was closed. This is a win because often I'm super uncomfortable eating at non-chain places because they don't have nutrition info available online.

-Cooking with Match. We ate in at his place for most breakfasts and a couple of dinners, and the little domestic scene of cooking and eating meals at home together is a new thing for us. We ate none of the same food, since our preferences are completely different, but it was nice just to be sharing the space and time.

Situations that would really stress me out at home are much easier to deal with around Match (I don't mean this post to be one long brag on him, but he is really good at understanding and handling every thing), I guess partly because I really just want to focus on having a good time and partly because I know he's aware of the issues without judging me for them.

So that's the weekend from the angle of how ED stuff went, but my favorite thing about the trip was how little I actually thought about ED stuff in the moment. We went a lot of places, did a lot of things, talked, saw shows, walked his dogs, etc, and ED stuff was an issue, as always, but not the focus. And that is such a nice change, can't believe it.