Phil is in Vegas whooping it up with his grandkids. Such a good thing for both sides! He is the funnest grampa imaginable, and it must be so good for him to be held in a space of such simple adoration; to be able to have straightforward fun, lots of laughter.
I'm staying home doing my best. Enjoying the quiet time, clear, deep-cold days, the sunrises and sets, visits with friends who are accepting, gracious, topplingly kind. Working on critical papers, writing, being ok with residual messiness and my fatigue-induced apathy toward it.
After my last appointment, I'm acknowledging that even after I get out of the chasm, there'll be climbing to do.
Which brings me back to integrity.
I was well short of the 'ultimatum' goal even after chugging a gallon of liquid, and since doing that makes a person pretty sick, if it doesn't get you there anyway, seems to be less point (or, point-less). Integrity is wholeness, right? So adding a gallon, or eight pounds, to myself is adding something not truly part of my integral whole, which is just as much out of integrity as if I were to take something away from my wholeness, like if I claimed not to know Latin or Greek.
Water-loading has always seemed such an easy fix, but it's only ever "worked" "partly," and there are times it's made me sick, or simply been implausible because I've miscalculated.
Now that I've (been forced to) come clean with my doctor and therapist; now that it's clear I won't be able to make the 'ultimatum' even if I drink enough to make myself sick; even if I gain for real the safe amount of weight in the time remaining, I'm in a space of surrender. I don't mean the Twelve-Step, spiritual, beatific, state-of-grace surrender, with all chakras lit up and rainbows puffing incense. Wouldn't it be nice if I did mean that; if I had finally reached the point I've been told to aim at all these years?
No, guys. I've been besieged from the outside and ambushed from within. I'm waving the white flag. There are certain limits beyond which I'm not willing to go, certain things I'm not willing to give up, but I'm hardly in a position to bargain for terms, am I? At this point, 100% adherence is mandatory until my psych appointment next Friday, at which time we will discuss my fate. Additionally, I am to go in for a weight today, augmented only by being an afternoon weight rather than first thing morning, with no extra liquid to strain (to stain) my integrity.
Ridiculous, eh, all this focus on my weight. It's all a matter of perspective. See my little pet parsley, a tree in the sunset?
You are going to compile and publish this some day, I'm sure; it ranks with the very best of experiential writing and I love reading it even though it hurts, and it hurts because a friend feels helpless. It sounds like such a pitched battle, very Thirty Years War, and yet you describe the struggle with such poetry.
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DeleteKay, that's amazing that you suggested I'd end up compiling all these thoughts someday: right around when I read your comment, I was pondering on the fact that a few years ago, my dad handed me a huge sheaf--almost a brick--of paper, a printout of a year or so of email correspondence between my mom and me during another very bad time with this issue; probably my worst time.
He urged me to use it to write a book. At that time, and until this year, I had something against the idea of using my health issues as fuel for creative writing. I was afraid it would be banal and 'obvious.' I was afraid it would be trite. Chiefly, I was afraid it would be giving validity and credence to something that (a) caused me shame and (b) I had been told I should not identify myself with, because if I didn't, it wouldn't really be part of me (or something like that). It never did quit being a part of me, or go away, so interesting that now finally I'm coming to see maybe it's not a cop-out or an obvious move to write about this.
I still have that brick of paper from my dad, too. I know right where it is...
love
Ela