I Dream of Corn Chips

I woke up this morning almost able to taste the crunch of corn chips. Did I eat them at the dinner last night? Were there even any on the table? We drank a lot, so I can’t remember, and it’s not a question I really want to ask.

I have this image of myself eating handfuls of them – they were blue -- but maybe it was the edamame.

I know I didn’t binge last night, so I should just put it behind me, but whatever I did wasn’t pretty. Did I eat more sushi than everyone else? I can’t tell. I think so. Note to self: Next time put the sushi on your plate instead of just taking bit by bit from the platter. You know grazing is dangerous.

It’s been a messy weekend, frankly. Friday night I was down at my sister’s, frosting cakes for my nephews’ birthday. I had to stop and wash my hands at times – I was frankly afraid to so much as smell the frosting, let alone lick a tiny bit off my hands. I hadn’t had quite enough for dinner (some grilled fish and a few broccoli stalks and carrots) and I was hungry, and that meant late at night I ate a couple of handfuls of almonds and some (crappy) cookies. Not great, but not a binge by most standards (including mine). What I consider to be the victory is that I didn’t keep eating. The almonds and cookies could easily have been a binge, but they weren’t.

The next morning I woke up and faced the kiddos’ birthday party – 30 kids and tons of food everywhere. I didn’t eat any of it, despite the fact that my sister and her husband are good cooks (and their friends, who could have dropped off their kids, tend to stay at their parties because of it). I don’t eat between meals (well, unless I’m bingeing), and though 11.30 may have been lunchtime for 5-year-olds, it wasn’t time for me to eat. I was helped by the fact that I knew I was going out last night, and I didn’t want to arrive post-binge, or mid-binge.

I was tired from having gotten little sleep, woken up early, and then the party followed by the three-hour train trip back to New York. I was hungry, didn’t know what would be served (usually it’s snacky food) and so ate a small dinner at 5.30, before leaving my apartment for the hour trip to deepest, darkest Brooklyn. I even stopped to buy a package of almonds for what I expected to be a late night, because I knew I’d eaten early and I’ve sometimes binged on the way home from this friend’s. I didn’t plan to eat at the friend’s, but out came the sushi and I picked up my chopsticks, hating myself for it. (I did at least avoid the ones with cream cheese and fried something.) But I didn’t sneak food and I didn’t eat after this, so again, not a binge, though maybe I am over-justifying myself? Who knows? I think the most important thing is to break the habit that eating unplanned things has to spiral into an all-out binge and then I can work on widening my definition of binge to get rid of some of these other behaviors that fill me with so much shame.

As I’d promised myself, I took an Uber home sometime north of 1 am, justifying it as cheaper than a binge.

Day 24.