A Really Long-Ass Pathetic Post

I'm not sure if it was consumption of far too much food, actual exhaustion, a bit of depression, or a combination of all three, but I slept until 10 today, and then slept, on and off, until nearly 5:30 pm.

Yes, really.

This was after sleeping until noon yesterday.

This is not like me at all. I'm usually up at 6:30 or 7, and even on a weekend I struggle to sleep past 9. Once I'm up, it's nearly impossible for me to go back to sleep.

But I feel under water at the moment. Or like a stray molecule. Or something like that. I spend an absurd amount of hours (lawyer hours, really) doing a job I loathe. One of my favourite people in the world is gone. And I just feel... disconnected and out of place. I know I'm unhappy, but I'm not even sure at this point what would make me happy – and whatever it is, I probably lack the energy to get it.

And so here I am on Sunday night, having spent the weekend reverting to behaviours I haven't resorted to for years. Yesterday I binged on food in my apartment, something I haven't done in at least four years.

It all started on Friday. I could feel myself being edgy, irritated, exhausted. I wasn't even particularly hungry, and yet I ate my snack an hour early, at 3 pm. I just wanted to eat.

At 4:30 pm we had margaritas and chips in the conference room – a holiday party of sorts, because our editor loves Mexican food. I didn't have any, not particularly a struggle. I dragged myself out of the office, wanting nothing more than to go home yet fearing that being home alone would depress me. For all the usual reasons, but also because Friday was the seventh anniversary of my mother's death, and I had a Yahrzeit candle in her memory flickering in the kitchen. When I'd bought it earlier in the week, I couldn't help remembering the struggle to find the candles in England, and how I'd always take them from my grandmother when I visited her. I thought to call her – my mother was her daughter – and realized I couldn't; in fact, that I never will again. It's still like a ninja kick to the stomach.

On that oh-so-cheerful note, I carried on with the evening's plans – to Brooklyn to meet a friend for dinner, and then on to a party. I perked up slightly en route to Brooklyn – my friend who I was seeing is one I consider myself lucky to have. I could feel myself flagging en route to the party, and almost from the minute I arrived I wanted to leave. Not actually so much for the food – macaroni and cheese and all kinds of Southern things that made me super-grateful I'd eaten first and didn't have to navigate – but just for how totally out of place I felt. Besides one other guy, my friend and I were the only white people at the party – a small party where everyone knew each other well, and where it was difficult to mingle. Normally I'd almost enjoy the challenge, but in this case it just made me feel hopeless.

I made a few attempts at conversation, and then gave up. I just wanted to go home, and I took off, feeling lame.

When I got off the subway I had a text from another friend saying she was having a party with her (American) football team and that friends of ours from college were there and wanted to see me, and I should come by if I were around. It was only a few blocks away, and against my better judgement, I went.

There was brie in puff pastry. And s'mores. And marshmallows. And pound cake. And chocolates. And nuts. And bourbon pecan pie. And multiple kinds of fondue (chocolate and cheesecake). And I just dove in. Quickly, I felt so full and so tired all I wanted to do was lie on the sofa. I watched people put their coats on to leave and kept thinking: I should go now. But I sat on the sofa, ate more, and retreated further.

Someone asked me about the job transition and all I could hear was our editorial director earlier this week. "You were running around Afghanistan and now you're editing Love Your Month," she said, sounding bemused.

I nearly burst into tears.

I shared a cab home with a couple – wife so drunk she could barely form a sentence (I say this by way of description, not judgement) and husband quizzing me about my job in a way that remind me so exactly of the evening I met my friend O.

I got home, still so full and exhausted I didn't even have the energy to set the alarm for a noon exercise class I'd committed to take (one of those you-miss-you-pay type – and one of a handful I've tried in a futile attempt to replace my beloved heartcore Pilates).

I woke up at 11:25 am, wondering why I always have to turn everything into a drama (couldn't I have just set the alarm?), and dove into a taxi.

I made the class (just OK – not sure it's worth the trek to the Upper East Side), then decided to walk across Central Park to the Upper West Side, partly because for weeks I've been craving these iced sugar cookies they sell around the corner from my aunt's (and because I know they're within my calorie limits for a snack) and partly just because. I bought a couple of cookies and some fat free blueberry pound cake (another Upper West Side treat) and headed home, managing to lose one of my favourite (and warmest) gloves along the way.

I got home about 3 pm, and that's when the trouble started. I wasn't sure if I had plans for the evening – one friend L. had mentioned possibly meeting for a drink – and I felt restless, edgy. I had my sugar cookie and settled down to finish a biography of Katherine Parr. I soon realized I'd reread the same page at least four times – my thoughts were on (you guessed it) food.

I justified eating the other sugar cookie I'd bought because I'd missed my morning snack (never mind that I'd eaten thousands of calories the night before). The next thing I knew, I was eating all the blueberry pound cake (fat free or no, it was still 1,000 calories), a macaroni and cheese frozen entree, huge forkfuls (yes, forkfuls – don't ask) of peanut butter from a jar I'd never opened, ginger cookies, and bunch of other things I looted from my cupboards and refrigerator.

Ugh.

It was barely 5 pm and an empty evening and Sunday stretched out before me. I knew being too full would keep me from being able to focus on my book, I didn't want to do any work (although I had tons to do), and I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up weeks or months from now, when everything is OK again.

I lay down and saw I'd gotten an email from another friend saying she and her friend were going to see Harry Potter in about an hour in Brooklyn, but the logistics of getting there were enough to make my head explode. Actually, that's a lie – I just didn't want to have to try to put any jeans on, and I knew my head was still too full of food to focus on a film.

I fell into a food-induced coma and woke up somewhere north of 7:30 pm to a text from L., saying she'd be at a bar in the East Village for a friend's birthday about 8:30 pm.

I finally dragged myself out of bed at 8:30 pm, wondering if there was any way I could just wear my stretchy gym leggings. Instead I threw on a huge purple sweater (ironically, last week's treat for having made it through a record two weeks without bingeing) that I hoped hid how tight my jeans were. It's possible I brushed my hair. I put on one of the foundations I was given to test for work, and it looked orange. I wiped it off and couldn't be bothered to put any more on.

En route, I got a text from L.: "Notice – small and mainly ladies."

"Noted," I wrote back. "I don't need to get married tonight."

The bar was tiny – the size of an alley – and packed with perfectly groomed New York girls of the sort I probably never will be. "Every guy here is married," L. shrieked when I arrived. She'd already had several glasses of wine. "You should meet M's husband – he's English."

I couldn't think of anything I less wanted to do.

There was tons of food but I didn't touch it. I got myself some water and proceeded to focus on attempting to be polite and friendly – easier said than done when one is not particularly in the mood to be quizzed about London or her current job, and when I quickly realized I had little in common with most of them.

At one point, edging my way around the island in the middle, I complimented a woman on her necklace and ended up falling into conversation with her and a guy I assumed was her husband. Turned out he wasn't – he's a longtime friend of hers who's a reporter for a suburban newspaper with an extremely sarcastic sense of humor. (Too sarcastic, probably – at one point he made a joke that involved suicide and mothers and even I was stunned speechless.)

He asked for my number and sent me a text telling me it was "very tolerable" to meet me (this was a joking reference to a part of our conversation.) I responded that I could say the same about him, only in a British accent (another part of the conversation involved everyone's disappointment that I don't have an accent – something I can't understand and that frustrates me no end. Do people in this country really want me to sound like Madonna?)

This morning I woke up at 10:30 am, ate breakfast, and got back in bed, thinking about what else I could eat. I fell back asleep, waking up only to eat (appropriate calories) at various (vaguely appropriate) times. Finally at 5:30 pm, even I'd had enough of myself and my lethargy. I dragged myself out to the gym, promising myself I could leave after 20 minutes. I left after a sweaty hour, the longest workout I've logged in a while.

I felt better. Sort of.