Bingeing, Boredom and (More) Bruises

My sister's dog is anxious if anyone hangs around the kitchen just after his breakfast has been dished up – he won't eat until the coast is clear. It's been more than two years since the days my sister and her husband had to lure their then-newly adopted puppy into the kitchen with food before fencing him in there for the day, but the poor dog apparently just can't forget the experience.

I fear that's going to be me – seized with fear on a daily basis because of the events of the past couple of years.

Sunday morning, for example, my sister said she was ready to leave, and then walked into the kitchen and started hunting for her missing keys. "Why is it that men and women seem to have such different definitions of 'ready to leave?'" her husband remarked casually.

I froze, waiting for an explosion. BN2 used to be furious if I said I'd be ready in "two minutes," and it was four. Or if I said I were ready and then needed to dash back into the house to grab something – basically, if I ever kept him waiting. Even if I apologized for "wasting his time" (he had me well-trained by the end), it often wouldn't be enough to stave off his sour mood infecting whatever we were doing.
"BN2 used to have a fit if I said I was ready to leave when I didn't actually have a foot out the door," I said to no one in particular.

"Well, I wouldn't have a fit, but it is funny how women and men think it's two totally different things," said R., my sister's husband.

Something similar happened on Christmas Day, when my sister – whose solution to morning sickness is to always have something in her stomach – packed a bagel with peanut butter to take to the film we were seeing.

R made a joke about it I can't remember – but it was quite obviously (to anyone except my sister) meant to poke fun at her being a Jewish girl taking Jewish food to the movies on Christmas Day. My sister, however, interpreted it as either a dig at how much she was eating (she isn't, really – just a lot of small meals) or the fact that she was too cheap to buy food at the movies.

"Stop picking on me," she snapped at him.

I held my breath, waiting for him to explode, the way BN2 would. BN2 was very happy to point out my every infraction of whatever code I wasn't privy to but was still expected to adhere to, but almost any time I ventured the slightest comment that could be perceived as a criticism of him, I might as well set a huge flame to my evening, and possibly the next day, too. It would be consumed by him turning whatever I'd said on me – as evidence of some character defect of mine.

But R didn't do that. He looked puzzled. He told her it was a joke, and explained what he meant. He tried to understand why she felt the way she did, and even though he thought she was being irrational, he let it go for the so-not-a-big-deal it was.

Is that what normal people do? I guess so.

* * *

"So how did the corn pudding go over?" I asked my sister when she arrived back after an evening out Sunday night.

She made a face. "Jen is 8 months pregnant and has a texture thing with eggs, so she couldn't eat it."

That was all it took for me to know I'd made the right decision to stay home alone – which I'd made even before I knew it was going to be my pregnant sister and her husband and her husband's friend and his pregnant wife. I'd already done the math that two couples + two football games + tons of food (very little of which I'd have control over) + not-remotely-public-transport-accessible locale (meaning I couldn't leave until my sister and husband were ready, and her husband is never ready to leave) would equal one very bored and trapped Beth, which would mean danger on the food front. A repeat of Christmas, probably.

I know – because she's said so – that my sister thought I was over-regimented and obsessive about food for staying home, but she doesn't have the whole picture. I do hate to have my life ruled by food and fear, and I try to avoid allowing that to happen. But in this case I didn't feel like I was missing out on anything but a lot of counting down the minutes until we could leave. I didn't want to watch football and make polite conversation for more than six hours (my sister and her husband left at 5 and got back at nearly midnight). In some ways I feel like I've wasted at least a year to 18 months of my life having every evening ruined or otherwise ruled by BN2 (the first six months of our two-year relationship weren't that way) and, well, the pain stops here. (Plus I've got to spend New Year's Eve as the lone single with six couples who are friends of my sister and her husband, more than half of whom are pregnant and – if previous experience is any guide – more than half of whom I will have next to nothing to say to. So... there is plenty of time for obligation.)

I spent the evening reading, writing, blog reading and (virtual) window shopping – and was perfectly happy. Funny how the same sort of evening in London – particularly on a weekend evening – is no doubt going to depress me over the next couple of months.

* * *

I'm on a 4 1/4 hour bus ride (traffic willing) from DC to NYC and I'm looking around -- partly in amazement, partly in sadness -- at all of the food people have brought to sustain them through the 255 minutes. (The sadness is because I'm thinking about what I once would have brought, and how furtively I would have eaten it. Also, how trapped and desperate I no doubt would have felt if and when I ran out of snacks. Travel, as I know I have said about a million times, was always binge time for me.)

The bus left at 2:30 and is due to arrive at 6:45 pm. I ate lunch before boarding and I'll have dinner when I arrive, so that means I needed to pack exactly one snack: an iced Christmas cookie. (I have extra snacks only because I may want them over the next day and a half in NYC -- though if I know myself there will be all sorts of treats there I'd rather have!) It is still novel to me that that is all I need for the bus ride, and that -- 3 hours into the trip -- that is all I have had. As I said to my sister yesterday, I am not where I'd like to be with food and bingeing, but I have come a long way.