Of Chekhov and Cheese

Sonya and the doctor had a late night snack of cheese in the production of Uncle Vanya I saw tonight. I couldn't even really see the cheese but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I am the world's most suggestible human being.

The production was fantastic, but still my mind drifted during the show, as – embarrassingly – it often does at the theatre. Like poking a bruised area to see if it still hurts, I am constantly scanning to see if I'm hungry. (Tonight, I wasn't.) That's how it always was for me at the theater, as it was in most of my life: Feeling like I'm starving, so passing time until the next meal – or so stuffed and yet passing time until the next binge opportunity (or until I feel less full.)

I listened to Vanya bemoan that he was 47 and thought: Fuck, that's just 10 years away. And then I felt a crushing sadness for all the years and things and people I lost to bingeing. Was I able to concentrate in so much as a single class in college? My cousin is heading to my alma mater for law school, and as we talked about it last week I had memories of bingeing my way down to the Commons (in particular at one old bakery I don't think exists anymore) en route to the newspaper offices (where we'd order late-night pizza or calzones), gorging at the dining halls, and buying pints of Ben & Jerry's chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream at the Delhi deli, our nickname for the (wait for it) Indian-run deli on the corner.

I wrapped my arms around myself and experimentally squeezed my arm muscles with my hands – I took a class today that involved pushups, ok? Then it occurred to me that for what may be the very first time in my life, I am not waiting. Not waiting for the next opportunity to sneak off and binge, not waiting to be thinner, not (at least, not always) waiting for the next meal. It suddenly made life seem a lot simpler – no endless plotting required. It also made life seem wide open and full of possibility. Maybe someday I will have cheese in front of me and be able to linger in front of it without wondering how much more I can have – and maybe, just maybe, my life will be much bigger than all of that.

Day 19.