Day 3

Half measures availed us nothing. It's the one phrase from the AA Big Book that was seared into my memory from all the times back in 2007 I accompanied my recovering alcoholic ex-boyfriend to AA meetings. It has bothered me, troubled me, nagged at me, eaten away at me for as long as I can remember. And I was never sure why. It goes on to say: We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.

Huh. That's the last line of Wasted, too -- "in the end, there is the letting go."

I remember sitting in rehab (during my first stint in January 2008) in group therapy one day, and having one girl clearly articulate what all of the rest of us felt.

"I'm perfectly willing to quit this eating disorder if... I can stay at this weight or get a little skinnier. I sure as fuck am not gaining it."  She was already about 20-25 pounds
underweight. If, if, if, if.

IF.

Addicts have more "ifs" than a Kipling poem. If I can still eat whatever the hell I want when I want it, if I can still binge/starve when I'm stressed, if I can keep all my unhealthy habits still, if I can still weigh myself 400 times a day (this is a big one for me), if I can zOMG NOT GAIN A SINGLE FUCKING POUND (also a big one for me), then I will recover. "Nothing will ever be attempted," Samuel Johnson wrote in 1759, "if all possible objections must be first overcome." And the human condition has not changed much in the last 250 years. 

I have a lot of "ifs" myself. And that's because I personally love half measures. I am half measures's number-one fan. If half measures were the Dallas Cowboys, I'd be decked out in a #8 jersey with my face painted blue-and-white clutching a star-spangled foam finger. The trouble is that half measures, if you were paying attention above, avail us nothing. After all these years, maybe I should have that tattooed across my face in mirror-writing so I will see it every morning when I wake up. Hey, it worked for Leonardo da Vinci (the mirror-writing, that is, not the facial tattoos; he didn't have any of those. That I know of.)

This.  My tattoo will look like this.

This is all my extremely circuitous way of confessing I purged last night.

Actually, in the interest of candor, I purged five times between three a.m. and eight a.m., and I wish I could say it was for some deep-seated, profound psychological reason, some interior tumult caused by my fucked-up Russian novel of a life. (It may not be Anna Karenina yet in the blow-your-brains-out-depressing department, but it's at least Crime and Punishment.)

But that wasn't the case. It was only because (I wish this were not true) around three o'clock in the morning I happened to move my bathroom scale about two inches to the left -- one corner had been caught in the divets between the bathroom tiles -- and stepped on it. And discovered that on a perfectly flat surface, I weigh about a pound and a half more than I thought I did.

Panic ensued. I am not exaggerating. Five hours of hysterical tears and sleepless tossing and turning. Five. I counted. I lived them. I weathered through them. And also through several Nutella-and-peanut-butter burritos. Don't even ask. And then threw up my guts in rage at a universe that would allow such a digusting failure of an obese cow to even exist. Whatever eating disorders are or are not, they become your private fuck-you to the cosmos, a radical way to physicalize your own emotional pain. But the old bone-ache returned almost immediately, the muscle spasms, the certain comfort that precedes certain death -- all the tangible and physical reminders of WHY I DON'T WANT TO LIVE THIS WAY ANYMORE. As Steve Buscemi's therapist character in 28 Days puts it, this is not a way to live; this is a way to die.

But I'm back on the wagon this morning -- I am. I hunkered down at eleven a.m. and had Polly-O-String-Cheese and Powerade and digested it with all the enthusiasm of a dysthymic crustacean on sedatives.

But I'm realizing this bloody half-measures issue is still a major sticking point. I have to accept that I can gain weight -- or I can die. For me, for my body, for my situation, there is no middle ground. And the fact that I would actually, at this critical juncture, rather die than weigh 120-130 pounds and buy size-four jeans is a concrete reminder of how far down the scale (no pun intended) I have fallen. It would be laughable if it weren't so fucking sad. I have to throw out the scale and gain the weight. I have to. And embracing that decision and just fucking doing it (a la Nike), is my own personal hell and Custer's Last Stand and Battle of Waterloo all rolled into one.

Why does this have to be so hard? Yet even as I ask myself that question, all I can hear is Tom Hanks's voice in my head from A League of Their Own: "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great."

Also, there's no crying in baseball.

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CAN'T

by Edgar Guest

Can't is the worst word that's written or spoken;

Doing more harm here than slander and lies;

On it is many a strong spirit broken, 

And with it many a good purpose dies.

It springs from the lips of the thoughtless each morning

And robs us of courage we need through the day:

It rings in our ears like a timely sent warning

And laughs when we falter and fall by the way.

Can't is the father of feeble endeavor,

The parent of terror and halfhearted work;

It weakens the efforts of artisans clever, 

And makes of the toiler an indolent shirk. 

It poisons the soul of the man with a vision, 

It stifles in infancy many a plan; 

It greets honest toiling with open derision 

And mocks at the hopes and the dreams of a man. 

Can't is a word none should speak without blushing;

To utter it should be a symbol of shame; 

Ambition and courage it daily is crushing; 

It blights a man's purpose and shortens his aim. 

Despise it with all of your hatred of error; 

Refuse it the lodgment it seeks in your brain; 

Arm against it as a creature of terror, 

And all that you dream of you someday shall gain. 

Can't is the word that is foe to ambition, 

An enemy ambushed to shatter your will; 

Its prey is forever the man with a mission 

And bows but to courage and patience and skill. 

Hate it, with hatred that's deep and undying, 

For once it is welcomed 'twill break any man; 

Whatever the goal you are seeking, keep trying 

And answer this demon by saying: "I can."