A WORK IN PROGRESS (STILL)

There’s a stereotype of a cantankerous, old man who no longer gives a shit. Ebenezer Scrooge. Statler and Waldorf, the two crankpot Muppets who criticize everything from the audience. Donald Trump? Not only does the seventy-eight-year-old not care but he is totally settled on who he is. He isn’t going to change.

 

I’m sixty and happy to say I’m not there yet. No shrugging. No humbugging. No all-caps Tweets at 3 a.m.

 

I’m neither cranky—even before my first coffee of the day—nor settled with who I am. I still have work to do. Or attempt, at least. 

 

I remain a work in progress. I am relieved I still care. Some of my greatest still-pending self-improvement pertains to my body and my mindset regarding it.

 

My dang eating disorder is an unwanted guest that arrived forty-three years ago and has never left. Sure, there’ve been times when it’s hung out in the attic or basement or even the condo storage locker, out of sight, mostly out of mind, but my messed up thinking and body dysmorphia have always been with me…even when my weight appeared healthy…occasionally several pounds “beyond” healthy. 

 

More often than being an attic dweller, the eating disorder has been in the same room with me, wherever I go, right by my side. It hangs around, defiant. 

Just try to ignore me. You can’t take two steps without bumping into me. 

 

The eating disorder harps. 

You sure you want to eat that? Seriously…ALL that? 

 

It’s bound to put a pound on you. How you gonna

work that off?

 

Why haven’t you exercised yet? It’s not your day off, 

you know. You only get one a week…even if you’ve

got a fractured rib. 

 

You think  you’ve only gained half a pound? It’s a 

slippery slope, you know. You can’t take chances.

 

Many of the eating disorder programs in which I’ve taken part refer to the eating disorder as one’s guilty conscience, an inner voice or, often, a separate character: ED. He befriends and acts like he’s got your best interests in mind. Ed’s a supporter. Rah rah, be your best self.

 

And, clearly, that self has half a pound to lose. So unacceptable!

 

It would be easier—maybe even better—if I continued to keep my eating disorder a secret. But I’m very open about the fact ED hangs around. I lived alone with my eating disorder for thirty-six years. It was undiagnosed. When I’d finally summoned the courage to consult my family doctor thirteen years into the disorder, he shook off the possibility. “You’re just very fit,” he said. A good thing in general. A bad thing though for someone feeling messed up, for a person constantly exhausted from working so hard to eat so little and to exercise so much.

 

The diagnosis came twenty-three years after that consultation. At first, it was only known to me and the person who had done the assessment. Then, it was public info for anyone else in my first eating disorder group. It was confirmed again by a psychiatrist who did another assessment. I’ve been assessed and reassessed several times, formalities to continue receiving services. The result is never in question. 

 

My family knows I have an eating disorder. My close friends know. My partner knows. Strangers know as well. I’ve been contacted by a few people after CBC published an essay I wrote about my eating disorder and after I participated in a CBC podcast. A researcher from a major Canadian university reached out to me via Instagram to invite me to be a patient-contributor in creating a new eating disorder assessment tool. I’ve also been the living-and-breathing patient participant alongside a professor and a social worker on a panel to enlighten nursing majors at another Canadian university. 

 

Being public has a few benefits. It’s a load off me. I’m still a work in progress but the burden feels lighter knowing I’m not fully in hiding. My food restriction still happens in private, but I have the sense I’m no longer fooling anyone. I also hope that my openness may help others—friends and family of someone who may have and eating disorder or, even better, a person who is going through the struggle, diagnosed or not. I continue to believe that the earlier people get support, the better the chances they will see some progress in their own recovery. 

 

Practically speaking, being public about my eating disorder helps me continue to qualify for services and supports. I was re-diagnosed and referred for programming last April as my eating disorder habits spiked. (Another assessment came in August.) My behaviors have evened out on their own since last April—still well within the zone of a diagnosable condition but less alarming. I’m currently accessing outpatient support though I went through a lengthy intake session last week for the possibility of being re-hospitalized and/or being readmitted to a group home for persons with eating disorders. I’m on the fence about these more intensive programs. They didn’t change me at all when I went through both in 2019. I wonder if I might be more receptive this time. What has changed for that to be a possibility?

 

Yes, I am a work in progress. Sometimes, however, progress is especially hard to quantify.

LOOKING FORWARD

Flash forward from last week’s post about kissing my ex to the present…

 

I’m writing this from his kitchen table in Denver. Clearly, we’ve lasted longer than my two-week stint in the area, dog-sitting for my sister. 

 

I flew home two days before Christmas and spent the holidays alone though Evan and I continued communicating daily via FaceTime. Usually, they were long chats, Evan still wondering what was going on with us, me waiting for him to realize we deserved a second chance—full on, not as hiking bros but as a couple in the present, looking ahead, hoping to be in each other’s future. 

 

I think we’re there. There are moments Evan walks things back a bit. 

 

What are we? 

 

How are we supposed to make our international relationship work? 

 

Why hadn’t I said “no veggies, no vegans” on my OkCupid profile back in 2021? 

 

But here I am. In the kitchen with a Bodum of decaf coffee. Day 5 of a one-week visit. All is well. It feels like our ten-month break never happened. We mesh like we always have. Two peas in a pod…or maybe one pea and one meatball. I’m vegetarian, verging on vegan; he is, well, not. He gets at least two kinds of meat on his pizza and I, needing a cheeseless version, wound up with a gluten-free crust as well when dining out Friday night. (Not my thing but we “picky” eaters get lumped together.) 

 

Half his clothing seems to have a leather component while my home is completely leather-free, including three dozen pairs of canvas Converse

 

Peas and meatballs, it turns out pair well together. 

 

We know our differences. For the most part, we accept—and respect—them in one another. It’s the common values that I have always felt were the foundation of a strong relationship and our values are wholly aligned. 

 

Soon I’ll be flying home, our next time together uncertain in terms of calendaring but assured in terms of it being a reality. 

 

We go forward.

 

 

 

 

  

COFFEE & KISSING WITH MY EX

Okay, so my ex said yes to coffee in Denver. (See last week’s post if you want the background.) I emailed Sunday night and he wanted to meet Monday. Um. Sure. I could get it over with.

 

What did I really want in meeting Evan?

 

The last time I’d met an ex who’d dumped me was thirty years ago. By then, a year had passed and I was in another relationship. Coffee was closure and it was an easy process. Within five minutes, I was bored with the conversation, I realized we didn’t have much in common and I felt no more need to look back on what could’ve been. It was never going to work out.

 

Truth? I kinda love the band.

With Evan though, I’d had decades of dating behind me. I’d fallen in and out of love with others. I’d learned a few things about what made relationships work or fall apart. I’d really felt we had a good shot of going the distance. Still, I couldn’t shake the look on his face when we’d FaceTimed a week after he ended things. It said, “I would rather be anywhere but in this moment.” Prison in Siberia. In line for the guillotine in an unfortunate time travel episode. Nickelback concert. Would coffee be punishment for both of us?

 

And yet…

 

He’d started texting me twenty minutes after I emailed. It was textbook texting for Evan, a rapid-fire series of short statements.

                  Thanks for reaching out

                  I’ve missed you so much

                  Think about you every day

 

The eagerness was disarming. How was this the same man who had so quickly dropped me like I was a handkerchief infested with COVID, avian flu and cooties? 

 

When he suggested his place instead of a café, it felt too intimate for a closure conversation. Having some couple sitting beside us, rehashing the plot of Wicked seemed like the protection I needed so I wouldn’t cry into my hoodie and he wouldn’t suddenly snap back to February 2024, remembering all the reasons I’d seemed unworthy. Clutching a warm oat latte in a hipster café seemed safer, saner.

 

But, no, I drove to his place which was itself a strange experience. Technically, I saw it back in February. I was there ten minutes, walking around stunned as he gave me a tour that seemed utterly pointless since he’d ended things in the car ride from Union Station. I could process nothing other than things were OVER and I needed to find a hotel for the night. 

 

Adding to the strangeness this time was the fact I had my sister’s very hyper dog with me and my first actions involved following her own thorough inspection of the place, sniffing everything, seeking socks, shoes or basically anything to put in her mouth, a wet, slobbery way of staking claim. 

 

Somewhere in the midst of me playing Follow the Dog, Evan and I hugged. Long, tight…that kind of don’t-let-go gesture ruined by the fact the dog had discovered the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom.  

 

Evan and I talked, we teared up, we kissed.

 

Wait. What? Kissing was not in my mental flow chart of possibilities for how our conversation would go. 

 

He was clear about wanting me in his life. It sounded like he was proposing something on the friendship path. And I knew I didn’t want that. I don’t kiss friends on the lips. Certainly not the way we were kissing. I couldn’t redefine us, going from my partner for life to a buddy I hiked with when I occasionally ended up in Colorado. 

 

We continued talking…and kissing until I had to leave. Being mid-December, darkness loomed and I had to get back to my sister’s mini ranch with the three horses that needed attending to. I wanted to make the drive in daylight because the “highway” to her place was basically a curvy roller coaster track without the loop-de-loop. (Plus, as it turned out, there was considerable snow coming down within thirty minutes of her place.)

 

I was in the area for two weeks. We’d have time to see each other again. Maybe we’d even figure out what, if anything, we might be to one another again.

 

 

DODGING WHITE CARS

Back in the fall, my sister reached out and asked if I would come to Colorado to dog-sit for a couple of weeks. I was hesitant. Yes, I’d dog-sat for friend in California in July. Yes, I’d dog-sat for my aunt and uncle in September. This is not some new professional gig. I fell into these experiences, there being a mutual benefit in that a dog avoided kennel time and I got to spend an extended break in areas I really liked. Plus, I love dogs and I’ve gone the past decade without one of my own, telling myself I wanted to enjoy travel without the guilt, expense and logistics of dog care. The two dog-sitting gigs were win-win situations.

 

It was different in the case of my sister. Nothing against her or her dog, a four-year-old, partially deaf English cocker spaniel. Even by my sister’s reports, the dog had some challenges, but I knew the dog and I would figure things out in some sort of comical alpha battle.

 

The problem was where my sister lived—Colorado. I realize the state is generally a draw from a tourist’s perspective. Her home is in a rural community, an hour outside of Denver. Urban accessibility, a general plus but a distinct negative for me. 

 

The last time I was in Colorado, I’d flown to Denver on Valentine’s Day. My partner of nearly two years had just moved there to start a new job. After a Seattle-Vancouver long-distance relationship, we were committed to making Denver-Vancouver work, too. I’m a writer; I can write anywhere. Denver would simply be a new setting. 

 

But we hadn’t even made it to his new place before we broke up. Ten minutes in the car and I was suddenly single. They say there’s something about the Colorado air that induces altitude sickness. Apparently it also implodes relationships. 

 

I stayed at a hotel that night and rescheduled my flight. A two-week visit got whittled down to a day. I insisted on that day, figuring it would feel too pathetic taking the first flight home on February 15^th, my sole memory centered on getting dumped. Instead, I walked around downtown, forcing myself to be a tourist, cramming in more than usual to try to temporarily distract from what had brought me to Denver and what had happened. I needed the city to be more than That Place. I salvaged the city’s reputation but barely.

 

The idea of flying back to Denver ten months later had zero appeal. It felt like I should wait a few years or, really, a lifetime. There were other places to see. Omaha, for instance. Iowa City. Duluth.

 

I went back and forth with my sister, first via text, then a phone call. “Are you sure about this?” (She’d be paying for my flight.) “Isn’t a kennel cheaper?”

 

But she did seem sure. 

 

And I, having not always been the best member of the family, set aside my Colorado-avoidance urge to say, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

 

To most people, an ex would not factor into the decision at all. The trip was not about him. He and my sister did not live on the same street or in the same neighborhood. I was certain they did not shop the same Safeway and, if I had to avoid Trader Joe’s, well, I could do without the banana chips.

 

Still, with months until my trip, I found I was dreading it. What if I run into him? The chances were so remote, I kept telling myself. Six million people live in Colorado. 700,000 in Denver. Nope, there was no way our paths would cross. He was yoga; I was gym. He was Mexican food; I was Indian. He was flashy New York City-styled cowboy; I could duck into a closet if I saw him approaching from two hundred yards away. If coincidence actually came to be—and it wouldn’t—I could deke and dodge. 

 

But I couldn’t convince myself with 100% certainty that we wouldn’t stumble into one another. His family cabin was off the same highway, halfway between my sister’s place and Denver. It was an added possibility. What if he ventured there due to a burst water pipe or a sudden calling to lay a few mousetraps for winter? 

 

I became surer of the fact we wouldn’t walk into each other on the street or in a café. My worst-case scenario became a chance encounter at a traffic light, me glancing down from my sister’s SUV into his white BMW. No matter how much I tried to lean into logistics and statistics, I couldn’t shake this idea. Sure it would be winter, our windows rolled up, any “hello” or “Oh, shit” fully muted. 

 

But seeing him would be enough to undo me. All the frantic travel I’d been doing for ten months to numb the pain of rejection and to delay processing the loss of the person I’d thought was finally The One would be for naught. One glance. So much potential harm.

 

I developed an anticipatory new phobia: fear of white cars. I am terrible at identifying makes and models of vehicles. I can distinguish between a semi and a Fiat, but everything in between has a sameness to it. Any approaching white car could, for at least a fraction of a second, register in my brain as a BMW. His BMW. Driving would produce tiny shocks every time I’d spy something that is white. 

 

There are so many white cars.

 

Shock agony.

 

And so a month before my scheduled Colorado dog-sitting I decided to be proactive. After I arrived, I would reach out to him. “Hey, I’m here for two weeks. Let me know if you want to grab a coffee.” It would be done. I’d have reached out and gotten it over with. 

 

He could ignore the message.

 

He could say he’s out of town, a work trip in Omaha. (Lucky bastard.)

 

He could reply, “Why the hell would I want to do that?”

 

A message hanging in the virtual world would, of course, put him back on my mind but the fact was he was already on my mind and I was failing to bat away all notions of a coincidental encounter. If he ignored it or said no thanks, I’d have at least done my part. If then we did cross paths, I’d be justified passing with blinders on. I wouldn’t be slighting him because he’d already done the slighting.

 

There was one other response I hadn’t fully considered:

 

He could say yes.

 

And that’s just what he did.