Thursday, June 28, 2012
Flash Update from Trip
I was looking forward to this trip quite a bit, but it's really not going well. Eating etc. is okay, all things considered I guess. But I am really, really feeling shaky on the relationship part right now. We'll see how things play out I guess.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
What I Learned on My Summer Vacation
So, the much-procrastinated "what I learned on my summer vacation" post.
I'm not really a newbie to the tropics--I've done research in 4 equatorial countries at this point. But I still unfailingly learn new things and gain new cultural insights on every trip, even repeat trips to the same country. The trip I took last month was especially interesting, because it was a new continent for me, and thus home to much different cultures, language, people, foods, social norms, etc.
One thing that is unendingly novel about working in Third World countries is that people aren't so image-focused, and being ultra-thin is not necessarily chic. People talk about other things at meals besides how guilty they feel for the food they're taking in, it's amazing. There are few (if any) fat-free or light versions of foods, and calorie labels are a lot less prevalent (or convenient, ever try to figure out the calories in a granola bar when the package lists it in joules per 100g instead of calories per serving? I have, unfortunately...). You want a latte as a treat in the city? You get a latte, not a skinny latte or a light latte or sugar-free soy latte, but a mf original latte. Of course, you don't get them in 24 oz cups, but that's a whole 'nother discussion for another time and place.
In the country where I did my Master's thesis work, the ideal for a woman's body is to be very curvy, and most people are indeed curvy or "pleasantly plump" and that's great. Being too thin is seen as a being a sign that you are sort of low status and struggling, mostly because there even people with fairly low incomes can afford enough rice and potato chips to give their family roughly enough calories to stay on at least the average- to high-side of what we'd consider "normal" weight range (the processed food issue is another 'nother issue for another time and place).
Random anecdotes:
-- I will never forget our camp cook looking at me one night at dinner and saying wistfully: "Mija, you would be so pretty if only you could be fat." LOL how often have you heard someone say that in the States?
-- Another day, my local field assistants (all male) worked up the courage to ask me if men in the U.S. really prefer their women to be so thin (yes, collective cringe at the "their" women), and I don't know if they ever really believed me when I told them that yes, in general that was the preference, but they seemed to get a kick out of it anyway, like I'd told them American guys like their women with pointy elf ears or something.
-- I was showing some of my family photos to the same camp cook mentioned above (she was sort of like a mother figure to our field crew), and she spotted a treadmill in the background of one of the photos. She asked me about it, and I tried my best to explain it, and she literally sat down because she was laughing so hard. This is a 50ish year old woman who easily looks 15 years older and walks about 8-10 km on mountain trails each way to work every day. She told me, to paraphrase, that maybe that's why Americans have poor pale skinny daughters like me, must be why I got to my age (I was 23) without having a husband and kids yet, such a shame. Burn...
The difference between my old research country and my PhD research country is that in PhD Country, curves are still appreciated and higher weight is a sign of status...but there, most people are still very thin, unlike in MS Country where people tend to be pretty stocky. In the cities most people were fairly healthy, but the countryside was a different story.
I'm talking about crowds full of sunken faces, bony street children literally asking if they could have the half-drunk cup of coffee I was carrying. I'm talking about dozens and dozens of people lined up to shell out a few coins for the local stimulant leaf to chew so they won't be hungry for the dinner that never comes, I'm talking about 6+ foot tall grown men with biceps smaller than mine. I'm talking about grocery stores that have to have guards with machine guns and metal detectors manning the doors.
It wasn't uncommon to see men (always men, for whatever reason), either alone or in groups, just sprawled on the ground in public places, just laying there on their backs. So overwhelmed with disease, exhaustion, overexertion, malnutrition, and god knows what else that their bodies just could not do anything. We would sometimes see someone miles, miles, even hours away from any town, just laying there next to the road, flat out with his arm flung across his eyes to protect them from the broiling sun. The first time we saw someone like that, I asked the driver if he thought we should stop, maybe the man was sick, and he glanced over as we whooshed past and said "no, he is just hungry." And that was it, just how things are, hunger is part of existence and that's that.
After seeing that portrait of utter "spent-ness" over and over again, it really hit home with me how lucky I am that I have the choice to never put my body through that. I feel awful for how much I take for granted, especially since I've put so incredibly much time, pain, and mental energy over the years into keeping my body in a state of deprivation. It really made me want to resolve to do better, to not take a single day, or meal, or doctor's visit, or well-fueled run through my safe neighborhood for granted, because if the cards of the universe had been dealt differently, it could have been me lying there on the side of the road, skin and bones sun-cooked in the dirt. Not even able to imagine the riches of comfort that the real me has a history of arbitrarily denying herself. Just makes you think, you know?
So I felt all that while I was there, and then came right back and started struggling with the ED stuff again....hypocrisy acknowledged and guilt burning, I assure you. But I do think it gave me the perspective and even what I will tentatively call a "healthy degree of disgust" with myself, if that's possible, to want to pull out of it and make the most of the advantages I have in life. I know that I got them by luck rather than by virtue, and deluding myself I deserve those privileges enough to waste them is just...not something I want to carry.
Okay, so that's that. I've probably been to Starbucks about 8 times in the 2+ weeks I've been back, and there has not been a single time that I reached for my cup of coffee from the barista without thinking about that grubby child on the street holding his stick-arms up for my last half-cup of caffeine water. It's haunting, but at the same time part of me hopes I never let myself let it go.
Disclaimer: NONE of that is a moral judgment on ED sufferers, because I 100% believe that an ED is a valid disease with bio/physiological underpinnings, and no one person would choose to be that sick or does it to consciously thumb their nose at privileges. I think that sometimes certain experiences can just sort of jolt your motivation to fight off what is indeed a legit disease, and that's all I meant by this post.
I'm not really a newbie to the tropics--I've done research in 4 equatorial countries at this point. But I still unfailingly learn new things and gain new cultural insights on every trip, even repeat trips to the same country. The trip I took last month was especially interesting, because it was a new continent for me, and thus home to much different cultures, language, people, foods, social norms, etc.
One thing that is unendingly novel about working in Third World countries is that people aren't so image-focused, and being ultra-thin is not necessarily chic. People talk about other things at meals besides how guilty they feel for the food they're taking in, it's amazing. There are few (if any) fat-free or light versions of foods, and calorie labels are a lot less prevalent (or convenient, ever try to figure out the calories in a granola bar when the package lists it in joules per 100g instead of calories per serving? I have, unfortunately...). You want a latte as a treat in the city? You get a latte, not a skinny latte or a light latte or sugar-free soy latte, but a mf original latte. Of course, you don't get them in 24 oz cups, but that's a whole 'nother discussion for another time and place.
In the country where I did my Master's thesis work, the ideal for a woman's body is to be very curvy, and most people are indeed curvy or "pleasantly plump" and that's great. Being too thin is seen as a being a sign that you are sort of low status and struggling, mostly because there even people with fairly low incomes can afford enough rice and potato chips to give their family roughly enough calories to stay on at least the average- to high-side of what we'd consider "normal" weight range (the processed food issue is another 'nother issue for another time and place).
Random anecdotes:
-- I will never forget our camp cook looking at me one night at dinner and saying wistfully: "Mija, you would be so pretty if only you could be fat." LOL how often have you heard someone say that in the States?
-- Another day, my local field assistants (all male) worked up the courage to ask me if men in the U.S. really prefer their women to be so thin (yes, collective cringe at the "their" women), and I don't know if they ever really believed me when I told them that yes, in general that was the preference, but they seemed to get a kick out of it anyway, like I'd told them American guys like their women with pointy elf ears or something.
-- I was showing some of my family photos to the same camp cook mentioned above (she was sort of like a mother figure to our field crew), and she spotted a treadmill in the background of one of the photos. She asked me about it, and I tried my best to explain it, and she literally sat down because she was laughing so hard. This is a 50ish year old woman who easily looks 15 years older and walks about 8-10 km on mountain trails each way to work every day. She told me, to paraphrase, that maybe that's why Americans have poor pale skinny daughters like me, must be why I got to my age (I was 23) without having a husband and kids yet, such a shame. Burn...
The difference between my old research country and my PhD research country is that in PhD Country, curves are still appreciated and higher weight is a sign of status...but there, most people are still very thin, unlike in MS Country where people tend to be pretty stocky. In the cities most people were fairly healthy, but the countryside was a different story.
I'm talking about crowds full of sunken faces, bony street children literally asking if they could have the half-drunk cup of coffee I was carrying. I'm talking about dozens and dozens of people lined up to shell out a few coins for the local stimulant leaf to chew so they won't be hungry for the dinner that never comes, I'm talking about 6+ foot tall grown men with biceps smaller than mine. I'm talking about grocery stores that have to have guards with machine guns and metal detectors manning the doors.
It wasn't uncommon to see men (always men, for whatever reason), either alone or in groups, just sprawled on the ground in public places, just laying there on their backs. So overwhelmed with disease, exhaustion, overexertion, malnutrition, and god knows what else that their bodies just could not do anything. We would sometimes see someone miles, miles, even hours away from any town, just laying there next to the road, flat out with his arm flung across his eyes to protect them from the broiling sun. The first time we saw someone like that, I asked the driver if he thought we should stop, maybe the man was sick, and he glanced over as we whooshed past and said "no, he is just hungry." And that was it, just how things are, hunger is part of existence and that's that.
After seeing that portrait of utter "spent-ness" over and over again, it really hit home with me how lucky I am that I have the choice to never put my body through that. I feel awful for how much I take for granted, especially since I've put so incredibly much time, pain, and mental energy over the years into keeping my body in a state of deprivation. It really made me want to resolve to do better, to not take a single day, or meal, or doctor's visit, or well-fueled run through my safe neighborhood for granted, because if the cards of the universe had been dealt differently, it could have been me lying there on the side of the road, skin and bones sun-cooked in the dirt. Not even able to imagine the riches of comfort that the real me has a history of arbitrarily denying herself. Just makes you think, you know?
So I felt all that while I was there, and then came right back and started struggling with the ED stuff again....hypocrisy acknowledged and guilt burning, I assure you. But I do think it gave me the perspective and even what I will tentatively call a "healthy degree of disgust" with myself, if that's possible, to want to pull out of it and make the most of the advantages I have in life. I know that I got them by luck rather than by virtue, and deluding myself I deserve those privileges enough to waste them is just...not something I want to carry.
Okay, so that's that. I've probably been to Starbucks about 8 times in the 2+ weeks I've been back, and there has not been a single time that I reached for my cup of coffee from the barista without thinking about that grubby child on the street holding his stick-arms up for my last half-cup of caffeine water. It's haunting, but at the same time part of me hopes I never let myself let it go.
Disclaimer: NONE of that is a moral judgment on ED sufferers, because I 100% believe that an ED is a valid disease with bio/physiological underpinnings, and no one person would choose to be that sick or does it to consciously thumb their nose at privileges. I think that sometimes certain experiences can just sort of jolt your motivation to fight off what is indeed a legit disease, and that's all I meant by this post.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Moving Past Dark Cycles
I've started to notice a sort of dark cycle when I start to have slippage. No, not that dark cycle. (Yes, I'm a nerd. You know you love it).
I'm noticing that even accidental backsliding (ie I was not depressed or body-image challenged or intentionally trying to cut drop weight or escalate behaviors) puts me in a pretty dark place in a lot of aspects of life besides eating. I get pretty apathetic about pain and self-care, I get ridiculously small amounts of sleep, etc.
When I've slipped, I drive more recklessly. I brush my teeth too hard. My mood swings are steeper and deeper. I make way more trips up the stairs, out to the car, etc than necessary, not to burn calories but just to inconvenience myself. I don't really put any effort into my appearance when I go out. I have a harder time making decisions. It's sort of a weird place. It just becomes a very odd, "Idontgiveafuckaboutmyself" cycle, and I've been through it enough times to know that it absolutely correlates to a drop in weight, intentional or otherwise, and creates a negative feedback cycle as the less healthy one becomes, the less one gives a shit. It's interesting to me that I don't even have to get to a critical weight for it to happen, I just have to have some degree of reversion and it's like my body just jumps into an old familiar mode. I'm totally a believer in the mind-body feedback that goes on when it comes to your health (given that your mind is basically an emergent property of your body, but that's a discussion for another time and place), so it makes sense I suppose.
So I swear this is not going to be another post lamenting weight loss (which I swear I am working on reversing). I just find the body-mind feedback loop endlessly fascinating, I feel like I've done the whole thing so many times now that I can sort of watch it with a clinical eye, because I know that I will in fact pull out of it and don't have to feel scared/despairing/hopeless anymore. And now I'm tired of talking about that stuff and want to talk about positives.
Good things this week:
--I was asked to review a manuscript for a pretty prestigious science journal, which makes me feel both incredibly validated and incredibly intimidated. But it's good to have a project.
--I bought a new sketch book. I used to be very into art, actually, before I went to college and traded all of my hobbies for study time. I've shown Match some of my old work and I guess he thought I was legit enough that he has been bugging me to pick it up again as a non-exercise stress outlet, and I finally listened. I think I might work on making some sketches/composite scenes from the photos I took during my trip last month.
--Just FOUR DAYS til my Match visit!
--Season 5 is the best.season.ever. of Mad Men. The saddest ever also, but just beautifully done. Just FYI.
--I have all of the formatting/editing/etc DONE on my thesis and just need one more signature from my adviser (on vacation this week) before I can officially submit it to the grad school. woot woot!
--Ordered graduation announcements this week! I'm not actually going to my graduation, as I hated that school and hope to never set foot in that city again for the rest of my life, but I figured I should do something to make the degree seem like a milestone.
--This borders on confounding with the overexercise explosion since I've been home, but I am making such marked progress with my running, it makes me so happy. I've kept the distance consistent and have just increased the proportion of it that I run vs walk (I started off really easing into it), and am to the point of running nearly all of it still with NO knee pain whatsoever. And this is despite going cold turkey from it for 3 weeks while I was out of the country. I will never be a daily runner again, and I never was or will be into very long distances, but just knowing I didn't actually screw my body up too much to do something I love is a huge relief. And a motivation to keep it healthy and not go out of control (who, me? never! okay, often).
--A picture is worth a thousand words:
--After I get back from the Match trip I'll be staying with my family at their new house, in a city near where I went to high school, so I'm hoping it will be a good chance to catch up with old friends. My maternal grandparents will also be nearby--I am extremely close to them; they helped to raise me for a while after my mom and I left my biological father when I was a young kid. So I think that the gap between the Match visit and me moving to PhD city in August will be way less lonely and isolated than the past couple of weeks have been.
Okay, those are my positives. Yet another sort of self-update focused post, though, I actually have one planned sharing some of the health-mind-body related insights I felt like I took away from my recent trip.
Participatory prompt: going back to the art item above, tell me about a hobby/talent/avocation that you use to de-stress?
Love y'all.
I'm noticing that even accidental backsliding (ie I was not depressed or body-image challenged or intentionally trying to cut drop weight or escalate behaviors) puts me in a pretty dark place in a lot of aspects of life besides eating. I get pretty apathetic about pain and self-care, I get ridiculously small amounts of sleep, etc.
When I've slipped, I drive more recklessly. I brush my teeth too hard. My mood swings are steeper and deeper. I make way more trips up the stairs, out to the car, etc than necessary, not to burn calories but just to inconvenience myself. I don't really put any effort into my appearance when I go out. I have a harder time making decisions. It's sort of a weird place. It just becomes a very odd, "Idontgiveafuckaboutmyself" cycle, and I've been through it enough times to know that it absolutely correlates to a drop in weight, intentional or otherwise, and creates a negative feedback cycle as the less healthy one becomes, the less one gives a shit. It's interesting to me that I don't even have to get to a critical weight for it to happen, I just have to have some degree of reversion and it's like my body just jumps into an old familiar mode. I'm totally a believer in the mind-body feedback that goes on when it comes to your health (given that your mind is basically an emergent property of your body, but that's a discussion for another time and place), so it makes sense I suppose.
So I swear this is not going to be another post lamenting weight loss (which I swear I am working on reversing). I just find the body-mind feedback loop endlessly fascinating, I feel like I've done the whole thing so many times now that I can sort of watch it with a clinical eye, because I know that I will in fact pull out of it and don't have to feel scared/despairing/hopeless anymore. And now I'm tired of talking about that stuff and want to talk about positives.
Good things this week:
--I was asked to review a manuscript for a pretty prestigious science journal, which makes me feel both incredibly validated and incredibly intimidated. But it's good to have a project.
--I bought a new sketch book. I used to be very into art, actually, before I went to college and traded all of my hobbies for study time. I've shown Match some of my old work and I guess he thought I was legit enough that he has been bugging me to pick it up again as a non-exercise stress outlet, and I finally listened. I think I might work on making some sketches/composite scenes from the photos I took during my trip last month.
--Just FOUR DAYS til my Match visit!
--Season 5 is the best.season.ever. of Mad Men. The saddest ever also, but just beautifully done. Just FYI.
--I have all of the formatting/editing/etc DONE on my thesis and just need one more signature from my adviser (on vacation this week) before I can officially submit it to the grad school. woot woot!
--Ordered graduation announcements this week! I'm not actually going to my graduation, as I hated that school and hope to never set foot in that city again for the rest of my life, but I figured I should do something to make the degree seem like a milestone.
--This borders on confounding with the overexercise explosion since I've been home, but I am making such marked progress with my running, it makes me so happy. I've kept the distance consistent and have just increased the proportion of it that I run vs walk (I started off really easing into it), and am to the point of running nearly all of it still with NO knee pain whatsoever. And this is despite going cold turkey from it for 3 weeks while I was out of the country. I will never be a daily runner again, and I never was or will be into very long distances, but just knowing I didn't actually screw my body up too much to do something I love is a huge relief. And a motivation to keep it healthy and not go out of control (who, me? never! okay, often).
--A picture is worth a thousand words:
--After I get back from the Match trip I'll be staying with my family at their new house, in a city near where I went to high school, so I'm hoping it will be a good chance to catch up with old friends. My maternal grandparents will also be nearby--I am extremely close to them; they helped to raise me for a while after my mom and I left my biological father when I was a young kid. So I think that the gap between the Match visit and me moving to PhD city in August will be way less lonely and isolated than the past couple of weeks have been.
Okay, those are my positives. Yet another sort of self-update focused post, though, I actually have one planned sharing some of the health-mind-body related insights I felt like I took away from my recent trip.
Participatory prompt: going back to the art item above, tell me about a hobby/talent/avocation that you use to de-stress?
Love y'all.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
PSA D'jour
We will return to our regular programming shortly, but in the mean time please consider signing this petition, to be presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Labor, Education and Pensions.
The petition essentially requests increased awareness and funding to the "intensify and coordinate eating disorder research."As anyone who has suffered from an ED or been in treatment for one knows, it is still difficult to get the issue taken seriously be many medical insurers and other administrative entities, and many doctors and other medical professionals remain woefully ignorant about many of the nuances of EDs. This needs to change.
I don't mean to imply that I have ANY confidence that our current Congress is going to actually implement something that will result in major changes, but you can't win if you don't play the game.
Monday, June 11, 2012
First World Problems
Bit of a rough week hereabouts. I thought I was putting my disappeared weight back on at a pretty quick pace, chalking it up to dehydration and such, but failed to take into account that my weight always jumps a few pounds overnight at the beginning of a Pill placebo week (last week, aren't you glad I keep you updated on the status of my ovaries), and it comes off just as quickly at the end of the week. So I'm sort of back to when I first stepped off the plane in the States. And that combined with a lot of loneliness/existential frustration now that I'm back from the field has made things a bit sticky. The situation is possibly best encapsulated in this exchange:
Me: [Don't recall my exact words, but basically expressing to Match that I haven't actually regained any weight and was worried he wouldn't be as attracted to me as usual on our upcoming visit].
Match: Well you know I'm always attracted to you, but low weights do make me worry about you a lot.
Me: I know, it wasn't on purpose this time.
Match: Can I ask something?
Me: Always.
Match: If you seem to realize you're less attractive at the lower weight, why aren't you doing more work to gain the weight back? What's the wrench in the motivation? [jokey voice]: I mean, there's a McDonald's at the end of your street...
Me: I really wish I knew the answer to that.
Match: [Don't remember his exact words, basically reassurance that he knows it's complicated and hard and wasn't trying to blame me].
So that's sort of where things are. I'm eating my baseline cals, despite the fact that for some reason I've had absolutely no appetite since I've been back. I had a stomach bug the first few days back, and then thought it was because I was re-caffienating my lifestyle, but I think it's beyond that. I've been really lonely and apathetic, and I definitely fall into the "stress non-eater" category (lifelong, pre-ED habit), so that's probably a lot of it. The other day I prepared my lunch, sat down to eat it while catching up on some articles on the computer (I know you're not supposed to multitask while eating but I HAVE to have something else to do with my mind in order to have the patience to get that much food down my throat), and I literally just forgot about the meal in front of me for an entire hour while I was absorbed in reading. Motivation = 0. Like I said, though, I've basically just been doing eating as rote routine and still getting my cals in. The only explanation for the non-weight gain is probably just a product of the fact that my exercise time has exploded here despite my lack of formal gym access.
Maybe I have some awesome tropical parasite that will get me into an article somewhere, that would be cool. Maybe it's a new species. One can only dream.
Seriously, though, this is a slip but not a relapse. My weight is definitely below where it should be but didn't drop by a catastrophic, life-threatening amount, and I haven't lost more since I've been back, at least. And I have no desire to lose more. I would be fine with gaining more. I just don't seem to want to make myself do it. Makes a ton of sense, right?
This is where D. would totally kick my ass as motivation, but I am D-less now. Sink or swim, Cammy. And swimming burns more calories, so don't fucking sink. Bad joke. The trend of exercise accumulation is an issue but one that will be involuntarily disrupted soon.
In one week I'll be sitting on a plane to Match City, so that's good.
It kind of scares me that I can swing so wildly from feeling great about things to just not caring within the space of a couple of weeks. I wonder what it says about me that I'm always at my peak mental health when I'm in Third World countries. First World Problems indeed. [admit it, I know you've been irked by some of the things in that video yourself, I'll admit I have].
I really hope everyone had a good weekend. And special thanks to everyone who reached out to me when I mentioned how lonely I was in the past post. You ladies are fantastic, I mean it.
Me: [Don't recall my exact words, but basically expressing to Match that I haven't actually regained any weight and was worried he wouldn't be as attracted to me as usual on our upcoming visit].
Match: Well you know I'm always attracted to you, but low weights do make me worry about you a lot.
Me: I know, it wasn't on purpose this time.
Match: Can I ask something?
Me: Always.
Match: If you seem to realize you're less attractive at the lower weight, why aren't you doing more work to gain the weight back? What's the wrench in the motivation? [jokey voice]: I mean, there's a McDonald's at the end of your street...
Me: I really wish I knew the answer to that.
Match: [Don't remember his exact words, basically reassurance that he knows it's complicated and hard and wasn't trying to blame me].
So that's sort of where things are. I'm eating my baseline cals, despite the fact that for some reason I've had absolutely no appetite since I've been back. I had a stomach bug the first few days back, and then thought it was because I was re-caffienating my lifestyle, but I think it's beyond that. I've been really lonely and apathetic, and I definitely fall into the "stress non-eater" category (lifelong, pre-ED habit), so that's probably a lot of it. The other day I prepared my lunch, sat down to eat it while catching up on some articles on the computer (I know you're not supposed to multitask while eating but I HAVE to have something else to do with my mind in order to have the patience to get that much food down my throat), and I literally just forgot about the meal in front of me for an entire hour while I was absorbed in reading. Motivation = 0. Like I said, though, I've basically just been doing eating as rote routine and still getting my cals in. The only explanation for the non-weight gain is probably just a product of the fact that my exercise time has exploded here despite my lack of formal gym access.
Maybe I have some awesome tropical parasite that will get me into an article somewhere, that would be cool. Maybe it's a new species. One can only dream.
Seriously, though, this is a slip but not a relapse. My weight is definitely below where it should be but didn't drop by a catastrophic, life-threatening amount, and I haven't lost more since I've been back, at least. And I have no desire to lose more. I would be fine with gaining more. I just don't seem to want to make myself do it. Makes a ton of sense, right?
This is where D. would totally kick my ass as motivation, but I am D-less now. Sink or swim, Cammy. And swimming burns more calories, so don't fucking sink. Bad joke. The trend of exercise accumulation is an issue but one that will be involuntarily disrupted soon.
In one week I'll be sitting on a plane to Match City, so that's good.
It kind of scares me that I can swing so wildly from feeling great about things to just not caring within the space of a couple of weeks. I wonder what it says about me that I'm always at my peak mental health when I'm in Third World countries. First World Problems indeed. [admit it, I know you've been irked by some of the things in that video yourself, I'll admit I have].
I really hope everyone had a good weekend. And special thanks to everyone who reached out to me when I mentioned how lonely I was in the past post. You ladies are fantastic, I mean it.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Dispatch from Nowhere
So, updatage.
Life in General:
I'm staying with my dad and youngest brother for a couple of weeks before I go visit Match. (My family is in the middle of a move, and my mom and other brother have already gone to New Family City because she was starting a new job and that brother can't get along with my dad without her here to referee). Anyway, my guys here are in school/work full time, so I essentially have a huge house to myself all day (well myself, G, and their two evil cats). I'm lonely. I have never lived in this city (they've only lived here a year), so I don't know anyone that lives within 5 hours of me, and I'm just sort of existing here, only buying groceries one day at a time so I have an excuse to go out into the world at least once every 24 hours. :( It seriously feels like I'm just in a nowhere right now.
I think that transition is especially hard when I've just come out of the field, because you are around so many people pretty much 24/7. It's hard to explain, but when you're in a new, strange setting facing serious dangers every day, you form very strong bonds very quickly. The time it takes to go from just learning people's names to picking ticks off each other's backs is extremely short, I assure you. Anyhow, I met a ton of new people and spent 3 straight weeks with them in Research Country last month, and now I'm back and my only social interaction at all is texting/talking to Match on the phone. Can I reiterate the :(? It's funny because I am such a private person that needs my own space so much, and get in that mode where I want to be around people but don't want to quit being by myself, makes a ton of sense, right?
Food:
Jumped back into eating like a champ. I'm counting calories again, because I am fixing my own food again and don't really know how else to do that. I really missed ice cream and Raisin Bran Crunch. The weight is coming back on, and that's fine, because I know I'm not overeating and that I didn't need to lose the weight in the first place. I hated how frail and drained I felt the first few days I was back, and seeing the numbers back up is definitely worth feeling like I have some energy and vitality back.
Exercise:
Not so good of news on this one. I have way too much free time right now, and no demands on my schedule whatsoever. My total exercise time has crept higher than it was before I left for my trip. Back to baseline from when I started tackling the problem, actually....I don't have gym access here, so I'm so anxious about getting unfit (honestly, losing fitness I've gained with running/strength training is actually more on my mind than gaining weight) that I've probably been overdoing it at home. Bad trend, but I'll be spending two weeks with Match soon, and that will probably curb that quite a bit, since he is nothing if not a huge demand on my time, albeit a very enjoyable one, lol.
Etc.
I do have some work to do: final formatting on my thesis, doing some planning for my PhD work, zipping through Season 5 of Mad Men....by the way I think Megan is quickly becoming my favorite character on the show, even though I will always have a girlcrush on Joan. Okay sorry if you don't watch the show and have no idea what I'm talking about. I only rarely let myself get really sucked into TV shows (haven't had cable in almost 3 years), but that one is a winner.
So that's all the newsishness on me. I'm pretty much just in a holding pattern til the end of next week when I can run away to visit Match in his new PhD city. There is some other relationship stuff going on that really isn't discussable, but I guess if anything actually happens from that you'll hear about it eventually.
I feel like this was a really self-absorbed post, promise to have something attempting at actual insights and such soon.
Life in General:
I'm staying with my dad and youngest brother for a couple of weeks before I go visit Match. (My family is in the middle of a move, and my mom and other brother have already gone to New Family City because she was starting a new job and that brother can't get along with my dad without her here to referee). Anyway, my guys here are in school/work full time, so I essentially have a huge house to myself all day (well myself, G, and their two evil cats). I'm lonely. I have never lived in this city (they've only lived here a year), so I don't know anyone that lives within 5 hours of me, and I'm just sort of existing here, only buying groceries one day at a time so I have an excuse to go out into the world at least once every 24 hours. :( It seriously feels like I'm just in a nowhere right now.
I think that transition is especially hard when I've just come out of the field, because you are around so many people pretty much 24/7. It's hard to explain, but when you're in a new, strange setting facing serious dangers every day, you form very strong bonds very quickly. The time it takes to go from just learning people's names to picking ticks off each other's backs is extremely short, I assure you. Anyhow, I met a ton of new people and spent 3 straight weeks with them in Research Country last month, and now I'm back and my only social interaction at all is texting/talking to Match on the phone. Can I reiterate the :(? It's funny because I am such a private person that needs my own space so much, and get in that mode where I want to be around people but don't want to quit being by myself, makes a ton of sense, right?
Food:
Jumped back into eating like a champ. I'm counting calories again, because I am fixing my own food again and don't really know how else to do that. I really missed ice cream and Raisin Bran Crunch. The weight is coming back on, and that's fine, because I know I'm not overeating and that I didn't need to lose the weight in the first place. I hated how frail and drained I felt the first few days I was back, and seeing the numbers back up is definitely worth feeling like I have some energy and vitality back.
Exercise:
Not so good of news on this one. I have way too much free time right now, and no demands on my schedule whatsoever. My total exercise time has crept higher than it was before I left for my trip. Back to baseline from when I started tackling the problem, actually....I don't have gym access here, so I'm so anxious about getting unfit (honestly, losing fitness I've gained with running/strength training is actually more on my mind than gaining weight) that I've probably been overdoing it at home. Bad trend, but I'll be spending two weeks with Match soon, and that will probably curb that quite a bit, since he is nothing if not a huge demand on my time, albeit a very enjoyable one, lol.
Etc.
I do have some work to do: final formatting on my thesis, doing some planning for my PhD work, zipping through Season 5 of Mad Men....by the way I think Megan is quickly becoming my favorite character on the show, even though I will always have a girlcrush on Joan. Okay sorry if you don't watch the show and have no idea what I'm talking about. I only rarely let myself get really sucked into TV shows (haven't had cable in almost 3 years), but that one is a winner.
So that's all the newsishness on me. I'm pretty much just in a holding pattern til the end of next week when I can run away to visit Match in his new PhD city. There is some other relationship stuff going on that really isn't discussable, but I guess if anything actually happens from that you'll hear about it eventually.
I feel like this was a really self-absorbed post, promise to have something attempting at actual insights and such soon.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
All Things in Moderation
*tap tap*, is this thing on? And more importantly, is anyone still checking? Haha...I haven't done a good update in the past week or so, and actually am not doing a good update now. Kind of a busy time, but I DO have some thing to write about and will try to good post or two in this week.
In the mean time, I thought a recent post in the New York Times Well Blog is of possible interest to habitual 4B readers:
Moderation as the Sweet Spot for Exercise
Apparently I am now writing in moderation also, but don't give up on me. Hope everyone is having a great week, love y'all.
In the mean time, I thought a recent post in the New York Times Well Blog is of possible interest to habitual 4B readers:
Moderation as the Sweet Spot for Exercise
Apparently I am now writing in moderation also, but don't give up on me. Hope everyone is having a great week, love y'all.
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