SLIDER

My Own Chemical Warfare:





This Post Was Hard.

This Post Was Hard.

I don't know how to write this.
I've been struggling to write this post for some time now, and it just doesn't seem to come out right. So I'm just going to put it out there and (try) not to overthink the presentation. So apologies ahead of time if it's quite random.

.......................

Food comforts me.
You know how you hear smokers say "I need a cigarette!" or you sit with a smoker and their hands visibly shake as they puff while you have that conversation about whatever frustrations and anxieties they are having at that moment? Maybe you are that smoker.
And so am I.
Except...for me, it's food, and it's less immediate. I guess.
Whenever I have a stressful day at work - which is A LOT, and especially lately - I don't come home and have a beer or a glass of wine to take the edge off like most normal people. I eat food. When I'm stressed or anxious, I want to eat. No, I don't want to get home at nine o'clock at night and prepare a meal of steamed freaking veggies and baked chicken. I want to get home and have a nice plate of Chinese take-out. Or spaghetti with more garlic breadsticks than is anywhere near necessary. When I am frustrated I want to have a good cry and go out and order a bacon cheeseburger with sauteed onions and barbecue sauce.
When I wake in the morning, the first thought in my head is:
f o o d.
When I first awaken, my stomach is growling and ravenous and even before coffee, I need to eat to take the hunger pain away. I feel like I can't function without food first and foremost.
When I am in the midst of the stressful-est of days, two thoughts dominate my mind:
1.) Aaaagggghhhhh!
and
2.) I want ________.
Of course I have some patterns in my eating, but not for the sake of this post. Those patterns are for another time. This is mostly just stress and emotional eating, to which I have no real pattern. It's not like "I'm anxious, therefore I need crunch and want tortilla chips."
If only.
Sometimes I want cheesy popcorn.
Sometimes I want ice cream.
Sometimes I want homemade texas cheese fries.
Sometimes I want pizza.
Sometimes I want gooey brownies.
Sometimes I want McDonald's french fries.
Sometimes I want Chinese.
Sometimes I want a chicken sandwich.
There is no real pattern except that it's whatever happens to sound like the thing I most want in the world (food-wise) right then.
But even when I get it, I tend to not feel satisfied. I mean, I do.
But I feel like there is something wrong with me because when other people have a brownie they seem to feel sated and happy they had chocolate and like "Oh, too much of that would make me feel awful!" and I'm over here like I had a brownie and now I want another brownie.

Now - don't get me wrong: sometimes I eat healthy. When I have a healthy, nutritious breakfast, I always feel better physically. My body feels stronger and more energized, even if I do get hungrier quicker. (Dude, seriously? I try eating healthy lunches at work and my stomach is growling less than an hour later. If I eat Pop-Tarts for lunch, I'm tired and sluggish, but at least I'm not hungry.)  Anyway...yeah...I go for a few days eating healthy and my body feels better, but emotionally, I feel...lacking and out of control.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I have a problem with food. I mean, I know I do.
But I'm admitting to you guys that for me, comfort eating isn't "I had two Kit-Kats this week - gasp!" For me, comfort eating is a daily - if not every meal - thing. Food is one of the ways I cope.

There are times when I wish I was a drinker instead of an eater. It is so much more socially acceptable to be someone who goes through a bottle of wine or two a night starting with a glass after work. It is 1000 times more socially acceptable to be someone who gets drunk in order to stuff away nervousness and insecurity and frustration than it is to be someone who eats to calm down those feelings of inferiority and pressure and anxiousness.*
I would be an awesome alcoholic if that was my drug of choice. I would be the best! But alas. My love/hate/comfort/merry-go-round of self-loathing and despair and trying to start each day new and be better and failing every day and all that is involved in the whole thing...well...that began when I was a child when I learned to use food to cope and I guess I just grew up with it and it stuck so I never got too interested in drugs or heavy recreational drinking.

..........................

I think that's all I've got for now.

*I'm not saying I think alcoholism is easier or cooler or anything, I'm just saying that socially, drinking to excess is more acceptable than eating to excess.

Some of My Instagram Pics

You may or may not follow me on instagram. Here are some random pictures I've shared there.  I'm sharing these because I'm starting to get a little bit better, especially compared to when I first signed up for IG.

At the library.

A work lunch. Evol Tandoori Chicken Bowl, water.

Isabelle enjoys a morning sun and gentle breeze.

Secret Target purchase? 


Hope close up while she rests on my tummy.

Walking home from the store.

Tired while waiting for an appointment. RBF for the win.


Things Shawn Says:

Things Shawn Says:



"Do you really need another chapstick?" (Um...yes.)

"Wait. Tweezers cost HOW MUCH?"

"I thought there was something weird about the pockets." (I asked Shawn if he knew he was wearing his cotton pajama shorts backward.)

I had two slices of Pizza Hut stuffed crust the other night (never again) and I woke up in the middle of the night and spontaneously puked....all over the bed. Like, the puking is what woke me up. (Ugh...it was so nasty.) So I stripped myself down and stripped the bed and double mouth-washed and all the stuff you do after you puke and I also had to wash the stuffed monkeys Shawn and I have in our bed. Because we are grown-ups. Those of you who follow me on instagram will have seen the occasional pic of our sleeping buddies. Anyway, I was sleeping on the couch, all broken up sleep between loads of laundry to make sure everything got cleaned. When Shawn came home in the morning, he saw me on the couch with the biggest monkey, Mr. Bongos, his special monkey, and was like
"What are you doing sleeping on the couch?"
"I got sick and threw up, so I had to wash the bedding."
Suddenly very alarmed. "Is Mr. Bongos okay?"
^True story, yo.

Tonight as Shawn and I were eating dinner, we had this conversation:
"What's with all these weird blocks of cheese that didn't melt?"
.......?
He points to one. "They're everywhere. It's like one of the main parts of the dish."
(At this point you guys, I could not stop laughing because he was so serious and concerned about the amount of cheese in this dinner.)
"Honey, those are sweet potatoes."
"Oh! Well that makes sense. I thought it was funny tasting cheese."
For real, you guys. I can't make this up.


And bonus:
My brother was digging in the bathroom cupboard. I was all
"What are you looking for?"
"I need to get one of those ear sticks you buy."


(Yes, Q-tip.)



Life Currently



So, yeah. I have no good reason for not blogging more regularly and not being more up-to-date with my reading & commenting. It boils down to the fact that while my hours aren't overly long, the days are just really draining and stressful.
A little background - there are two sides to any retail operation: 
Sales and Production. 
In the case of this being a "Thrift" store, we handle production on-site, via donations, and we sort and tag and price and put things out. Obviously a place like Target or Walmart would have a much more involved production situation. 
The point is: in a nutshell, we have two major teams: 
Production and Sales. 
I'm on the sales side, but both sides are currently understaffed. People move on and get different jobs - more hours or better pay or closer to home or something more in their field. Of course, we are hiring. Summer is tourist season and super busy here in TC.
We have been doing interviews like crazy people.  
And you know what? 
Fail. 
Fail.
Fail.  
So the people we do have are running ragged. They are tired. We are tired. 
Back in the day, when I worked at "SuperMegaMart," I basically hated my job and it was a poison infecting my system every day, spreading more and more like a cancer. 
This isn't like that. 
This is just more like, several times a day I find myself thinking
Oh For Fuck's Sake! (Jimmy Carr)
Mostly this happens when people call in.
So that's it. Work has been busy and everyone who works there is tired and stressed and we're all like walking batteries running low and we get partially recharged at night and on days off, but the days are so slammed that it takes more out than we're getting back, so each day we lose two bars and each night we only gain one back. 
Am I making any freaking sense right now? 
Anyway, at the end of the day, I come home and I see Shawn and I watch TV and zone out or I read and I'm happy, just kinda burned out. If I turn on the computer, I get sucked into pinterest or cat videos or whatever time-waster and before I know it, three hours have passed and I haven't done any blogging and I'm too tired in my brain to stay awake any more and then I go to bed and then get up again for a new day. Also note: today was end of my 8-day stretch, so now I have 2 days off. Hell, yeah! :)
So anyway, that's what's happening. I don't have any grand reason for being semi-absent. Just tired and lazy at the end of the day and I'm pretty much passable for a zombie in the morning. 
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