Waiting

Waiting for spring (it's supposed to snow tonight), waiting for the vaccine, waiting for the end of lockdown, waiting for more clothes to fit, waiting for this period of difficulty between J and me to pass, waiting, waiting waiting.

And yet as much as I want lockdown -- and winter -- to end, I will miss the safety of it and my enormous winter coat. For nearly six weeks now, I've known exactly what's in everything I've eaten. I can hide out sweatpants and the red fleece I bought my junior year of college. (Yes, there have been many more weeks of lockdown than six, but I've eaten my way through a lot of it.)

I'm in that stage of a diet where nothing has changed enough. Forty days and the jeans I hate aren't big enough to throw out (though at least I no longer have to fear holes wearing in the inner thighs and my not being able to replace them in this land of size zeroes.) The ones a size down (which I hate marginally less, in part because they're black) fit but don't look that great. Both were desperation purchases. My old ones didn't fit and I couldn't face spending a ton of time and money on ones I hoped would be temporary. (Will I ever learn? I guess not.)

Sometimes my iPhone coughs up a picture of me from a couple of years ago and I am shocked by it -- by how slim I was. Did I ever really look like that? Will I ever look like that again? Do I even want to do the things it takes to look like that again? What is it going to cost me, not in money but in time and emotional energy? That endless planning and plotting and motivating...

I wonder sometimes if this will end J and me. Not that it will be a direct cause, but some of our problems could no longer be ignored (at least by me) once I stopped overeating and drinking. There was nothing to take the edge off what was going on, no shared conspiracy of a drink too many. Plus taking charge of my food has always made me more proactive in other areas of my life; less willing to settle. Little wonder, then, that J and I do not agree about whether this recent eating experiment makes me happier. (Not that he has been unsupportive. He is unfailingly upbeat about being served salmon, roasted broccoli and brown rice for dinner for the umpteenth time, and says it's inspired him to eat healthier lunches. Though what a 49-year-old man's idea of healthy is is... a subject for another blog post.)

Once or twice over the past year -- as I have hidden out in his sweatpants and his dad's old beige toggle coat and my own bought-out-of-urgency-not-love clothes -- it has come up how much he liked it when I used to get dressed up. He doesn't say it like a criticism, and I try not to hear it that way. I know he doesn't understand how much is wrapped up in whether and how my clothes fit, and honestly, I don't want him to. "I like it when I used to get dressed up," I reply, and then I change the subject before I say too much.

Caviar Dreams

A couple of years ago, when I was looking for a therapist when I got back to New York, one of the tings that made me dread the process the most was the idea of having to spend hours explaining myself. I worried that for weeks therapy would be a wash because it would just be me constantly having to fill in backstory. 

I went to a few appointments so dismal they made me feel beyond help, and then -- just when I was about to give up -- I went to a therapist who said: "Start where you are and you can give me context when you need to."

That's a long way of saying: After -- checks notes -- nearly three years' absence, the thought of trying to catch anyone up all at once is daunting. (That's making the gigantic assumption there is anyone after all this time. I also can't help thinking I should be switching to a newsletter or yelling into the void on Clubhouse, except neither of those is semi-anonymous.)

Anyway.

Tere from Tallinn, Estonia, where I downloaded a healthy recipes app and speak just enough Estonian to understand that one of the acceptable meat substitutes is 65g of caviar (red or black.) 

Why, you may wonder, can't I just use British or Australian or US recipes? 

Because they call for all manner of ingredients I can't get here, never mind that these days the grocery stores here feel almost Soviet. Tomatoes galore one day; nothing the next. Ditto Brussels sprouts, which appeared once and I haven't seen them since. And zucchini (which, somewhat adorably, the Estonians call "summer pumpkin.") Forget about ground turkey or chicken sausage or any kind of "lighter" staple -- though there are moose sausages galore... And despite knowing all the Estonian words for chicken, beef, pork, etc, I still cannot decipher the cuts of meat either by label or by sight.

In the past when I was unhappy with my weight I could eat ready meals for days, not because they're so wonderful but because I have always found great safety in numbers printed on the back of a package. I could find whatever was the most filling (at least relatively speaking) and eat it again and again. Not anymore. I've got someone else to think about, and I can't imagine telling him we're going to eat, say, porridge for dinner because it's easy.

It's been incredibly tough to let someone in on what I'm doing -- and to have to call attention to my weight (not, I'm sure, that he hasn't noticed I'm not the same size I was when we met.) Tonight I portioned out some leftovers for lunch tomorrow and there were about five new potatoes left in the pot.

"Can't you just put these in your Tupperware?" he said.

"No, because mine's a portion," I said.

He looked at the potatoes, looked at me, looked back at the potatoes and started to say something. Then apparently he thought the better of it. 

Day 13.