Home Alone

I'm feeling grateful for the cold weather, if only because being I think being bundled up (four layers on top; two pairs of trousers – maybe I will finally get round to trying that dress-over-jeans-look!) was why BN2's best friend didn't notice me in the post office yesterday. (He's way too polite to ignore someone.) I wouldn't have minded chatting with S, but I don't want BN2 to know I'm back yet. After repeated texts and emails, I told him I was very busy with my family and that I'd contact him when I got back to London (being suitably vague about when I was getting back, and thinking "when I get back to London" does not mean the minute I get back). He agreed to leave me alone until I did, and so far he has. But I'm pretty sure there will come a point that I'll have to deal with him again, even if it's just to ignore him.

In the meantime, London seems... strange. I feel like something out of Home Alone – I've suddenly discovered I've got the freedom to do whatever I want, yet I'm a wee bit frightened of these acres of time and only myself to think of when filling it. I can take calls from friends in the middle of the day! (No more crappy mobile reception at BN2's house.) I can go to the gym in the evening! (Don't really like doing that, though.) I can contemplate spending a month in the US in the late spring (two weddings of two of my best friends, a month apart, plus presumably the arrival of my nieces/nephews)! I can buy Uggs! (BN2 absolutely hated them – not sure why I didn't just buy them anyway. Actually, I know why: Because they're ugly.) Even grocery shopping seems almost a grand adventure/treasure hunt. What's with this quarter-aisle of Jamaican goods in my Tesco Express (not even a Tesco Metro)?! I can't wait for it to warm up slightly so I can go exploring around my neighbourhood – I haven't spent much time here in more than a year.

It's not all fun and games – I do think of him often. At least half of my clothes have some memory attached to them, as do things I eat and drink. I bought a huge package of decaf tea yesterday (I'm running low – never drank it before I met him) along with my organic crunchy peanut butter (something I introduced him to that he loves. I can picture him wheeling the cart through the Waitrose buying it, though I guess these days he's bypassing the grapefruits and the diet Coke...). I debated buying some biscuits on sale yesterday and realized if I bought them they'd still be there until I ate them – he would eat his way through any kind of snack food in less than 24 hours, to the point where I'd resorted to hiding at least a serving's worth for myself. I hated telling him to save me some -- seemed to smack of my mother nagging me about food – so I hid food. A slightly dangerous behaviour for a binger, I know, and yet I'd do it anyway. (For the record, I didn't buy the biscuits. I've outlawed purchases of any snacks – no matter how great a bargain -- until I finish my American stash.)

I've got tentative plans for a blind date on Friday, and the nice Cambridge Jew I cannot fancy any less (remember him?) is saying we should meet up to spend our hard-earned cash on food and booze. (I accompanied him to an event he had to cover and got, if I do say so myself, better quotes from celebrities than he'd have gotten on his own. So he has offered to share the take, meagre though it is.) And I'm excited and terrified at the same time – and not just because of the company. BN2 was a binge trigger in so many ways, but for the most part, my routine with him was very safe. I ate regular meals and snacks, very often the same ones repeatedly, and he knew all about my diet and my eating disorder, much as I hate to use that word. In the last year, thanks partially to lack of money, we didn't go out very often, so I could control, control, control for the most part. Now I can't. There's places to go and things to do and, um, wine bingo to be played. (Maybe. Haven't decided whether to go or not.) I guess it's time to learn to live a little.

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Housekeeping:

1. Yesterday did 5 Sun Salutations (per New Year's Challenge), 35 pushups, and 35 crunches. (Also did 35 and 35 on Monday.) Did not make the bed. Ooops. Failed that part of the challenge already. This isn't necessarily part of the challenge, but also have so far gone nearly 48 hours with no diet Coke.

2. Three things I'm grateful for: 1. Downstairs neighbours who usually steal my mail instead accepted a package for me and left it in the hall – yay for not having to spend hours on the phone tracking it down at whatever warehouse it would have been sent back to. 2. Random giggly midday phone call from friend in Paris who always manages to make me feel like her most absurdly talented, clever, and fabulous friend. 3. Pipes in flat not frozen or burst while away; flat not burgled.