Here I Go Again

 We are entering one of the hardest times of the year for me: the weeks leading up to Mother's Day. Again, I am not going to get into a bunch of medical details, but I learned when I was in my 20s that physically having children was not going to be a possibility for me. It's not something I think about all that much anymore, but it's always there, a phantom ache that can cast a shadow at the most unexpected of times - or times that are completely expected, like holidays that prompt people to talk about how nothing anyone can ever do compares to being a mother, or how you can't really know what love is until you're a parent, or any number of other (inadvertently?) hurtful things people say.  A few years ago, I wrote this poem as I was contemplating the arrival of this dreaded day of the year. While it was specifically inspired by this particular unfulfilled dream for me, I think it can apply to many other unwanted life circumstances. It was written from a small, opti...

 You know that feature on Facebook that shows you things you've posted in prior years on today's date? I have a love-hate relationship with that thing, because sometimes it pops up with things that just gut me. But other days it shows me things that definitely bring me a moment of joy. Then there are days, like today, where it does both. Many years ago, when I was a lawyer in private practice,* I was indirectly involved in a seriously awful criminal case. I won't go into the specifics, but a really young girl had to testify against her own father about things that many adults can't even bring themselves to mention. She got into my heart, and one night when I was thinking about her and everything she had been through, this poem just came to me. I wrote it in exactly the amount of time it took to get the words down on paper. It is obviously inspired by a similarly titled work by Dr. Seuss, but is not intended in any way to infringe on his copyright. (If you are from Dr. S...

 Today was a gorgeous day in the greater St. Louis area. As I generally do on Sundays, I had lunch with my family at my sister's house. I got takeout from one of my new favorite places, Crushed Red , and headed across the Mississippi, a Karin Slaughter audio book to keep me company. The windows were down and the sun was shining and it was just a wonderful day.  I also received this item, which I had ordered to commemorate 30 days of being on my program, and it just happened to arrive on the day I hit 50 pounds of weight loss. (Not that I'm focusing on that, but it was a fun coincidence.) That's really all I wanted to say, just that it was a particularly nice day. I'll leave you with one of my all-time favorite mood booster songs. And no - it's not "Happy" by Pharrell. 

 One of the things I've gotten the most feedback on since I started this blog has been my "Joy List." I have to give credit for that idea to Your Coach Meg , a life coach I worked with when I first realized my health was starting to decline (again). I told her how I knew what I needed to do to turn things around but just didn't seem to care enough to do any of it. She gave me a homework assignment to make a list of all the things that bring me joy, and thus the list was born. This was my first Joy List, created pre-Covid. I had done something similar to this once before, only that was a list of things I'd do before giving in to a different unhealthy coping mechanism I was trying to stop. (I may be a hot mess now, but I used to be so much worse .) But there's a subtle yet extremely important distinction. The Joy List is a proactive measure, which if used as directed creates a life that you feel less compulsion to escape. The other list, which didn't have a ...

Many years ago, I read an article which I am pretty sure was titled, "Et tu, Camryn?" My memory tells me it was in Bitch  magazine, although I can find no evidence of this online. But I have an almost-eidetic memory, and even though it's declining a bit with age (I'm 47), I still trust it on this point. The article was a condemnation of Ms. Mannheim for losing weight. Granted, she had written an early fat acceptance memoir ( Wake Up, I'm Fat! ). But the article was written as if she had betrayed all the other fat girls and women in the world, and perhaps even feminism itself, by losing weight. Isn't it funny how, apparently, a woman's reproductive choices should be kept private between her and her doctor*, but not her weight? The ad featuring this young woman dancing around in her underwear  while eating ice cream was all over my Hulu for a while.   During previous attempts to get my eating under control (and, OK, lose weight), I've had nightmares wher...

 OK, first, when I typed that title, it was "Fault v. Responsibility." I'm not sure I will ever fully stop thinking like a lawyer.  Today I want to talk about the distance between something being your fault  and it being your responsibility. Here's another song* from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that is obviously an exaggeration, but which I do think sums up current thinking about people's culpability for their mistakes. (Actually, this only applies to white people. For people of color, even other people's mistakes are deemed to be their fault.) An example from my own recent life: back in February, I had made a rare excursion away from my house to pick up a curbside grocery order. On my way home, someone ran a red light and turned left into my path. I slammed on my brakes but couldn't get stopped in time and we collided. The driver of the other car did not have insurance. So while the wreck was not my fault , if I wanted to be able to continue driving, I was going ...

 Hi, I'm Melanie, and I'm a compulsive overeater/sugar addict. ( Hi, Melanie! ) I don't mean that sarcastically at all. I have participated in Overeaters Anonymous at different times in my life, and its program was tremendously helpful. If we weren't in the midst of a pandemic that has kicked in-person meetings to the curb, I'd be going right now. But alas, we are in the mist of a pandemic, so I've been working on this on my own.  And today, I have achieved 6 weeks of sobriety. That's a tricky term when you're talking about food. How do you know if you've indulged your addiction on a given day? Some fellow addicts choose to set a meal plan for each day, report it to someone - preferably a sponsor (something I don't have right now), and as long as you adhere to the plan you have maintained sobriety. Others use a more amorphous standard of "Did I eat with dignity?" But what I choose to go with is not eating any sugar. At all. And also avo...