Visions of Sugarplums and Cheshire Cats

    The Christmas lights were ablaze, the whole room was full of merriment. I turned to someone and laughed at a joke, and as I did something fell out of my mouth.  I was horrified at first by the embarrassment of letting food fall out of my mouth, but when I looked down I realized it was a tooth. A tooth. I quickly put my hand to my mouth and covered it. I felt with my tongue and found the empty space where my tooth had been. As I felt around I noticed some of my other teeth felt loose. My horror was slowly spreading, flowing through my body and making my toes tingle. I quickly stood up and ran to find my mother. Laughter tinkled everywhere, and everyone's smiles seemed to loom huge in my face. Like the Cheshire Cat, mocking me with all of their teeth. As I ran down what seemed to be a never ending hallway, two more teeth popped out. I found a bathroom and looked in the mirror. Where the teeth had been there were only gummy, toothless holes. As I looked closer I realized that the places where the holes had been were rotten. My mouth was rotting. I shrieked loudly and sprinted down the now darkened hallway. I finally found my mother, and as I opened my mouth to tell her about my teeth another one fell out. As I tried to continue talking I found that I could not talk without all of my teeth. My words came out like a series of sounds with no definition. No matter how hard I tried I could not form words in my half toothless mouth. As my mother watched me, a Cheshire Cat grin spread across her face, mocking me without words.

And hallelujah this is the point where I finally woke up.


Talk about a stressful dream, right? As the fog of this nightmare cleared I started to assess the dream (after I checked to make sure I had all my teeth, of course.) Here are the things I gathered:


1. I never knew a dream about teeth could be so terrifying.
2. Second (and possibly most important), I never want to watch Alice in Wonderland ever again.
3. I wish I could take screen shots of my dreams with my brain, just like I can do with my iPhone and then post them on Facebook (because let's face it, it would be funny to see how I would look with half my teeth missing).
4. Lastly, I will never ever take mushrooms. 


Apparently, dreams can teach some very valuable lessons.

The Abominable Snowman Inside my Head

After an unseemly writing hiatus, here I am! So many blog worthy things have happened, and my fingers are itching at the thought of jotting them all down. I can hardly decide which one to write. I still have a fabulous idea in my head titled "Hate at First Sight" that I have been dying to put on paper. However, I also have something along the lines of  "The Art of Lying" that really tickles my pickle. Yet I think the one that totally gets my engine revved though is "The Abominable Snowman Inside my Head." Yes, I think that's the one.


Food is something I struggle with. My day revolves around what I eat, or more accurately, what I don't eat. I think about calories and fat content about a thousand times a day. Nothing goes into my mouth without a slightly guilty feeling. Anything that makes the calorie count go higher causes anxiety. So, in a nutshell, food causes anxiety. 


How on earth did I get to this point? How did I become a food lunatic? Well, I look back on the past few years of my life and I can see where a healthy life style change became an unholy, extreme obsession, yet I'm not exactly sure what pushed it over the edge. In my minds eye I can see the tiny little snowball that started at the top of the mountain and just grew and grew and grew until it was the worlds biggest snowball, and then that gigantic snowball turned into the Abominable Snow Man. That's right, my struggle with food is personified as The Abominable Snow Man. He's all out of control and hairy and smelly. He makes crazy, loud noises and runs around with his arms up.  Imagine having that inside your brain. 


So, here I am weighing in at 108 lbs. My ultimate dream weight, my goal. Yet now it isn't enough. The urge to continue losing weight is there. The damn snow man is still screaming and smelly. On my 5 foot 3 inch frame, I know that 108 lbs is the lowest I should go. I KNOW this. But the Snow Man won't get out of my head.


I know I'm not alone in this struggle. As women we pretend that being this skinny is a natural state and we never admit to others that we don't eat as much as we should, or that food is a struggle. For most women under 110 lbs is not a natural state, so why can't we tell each other that? Why can't we band together and recognize the beauty of curves? The beauty of the natural state of our bodies? 


One day soon I would love to stop being a food lunatic and actually enjoy food I put into my body. I would love to be able to easily eat food I didn't prepare myself. I would love to actually attend a dinner party and feel comfortable instead of dreading it. So, here I am admitting my struggle to myself and to everyone. Let's change our way of thinking. Let's find the beauty in how our bodies are made, and stop forcing them into an impossible mold that Hollywood sells us. 


LET'S KILL THAT DAMN ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN!!!
                                                                                                          

The Giant Metaphorical Hand

There are those moments in life that can change us forever. Moments we never saw coming, those moments we never expect. 


It's almost as if some giant hand descended from the sky and totally bitch slapped me in the face. In fact, it was such a hard slap I fell flat on the ground and had to (metaphorically) lay there for a good while. As I lay there, my head ringing from that damn giant slap, I considered what life had thrown at me. Let's look at a list of things I finally had to face, shall we?


1. Life is hard.
2. Responsibility for messes I did not create really sucks.
3.I may have thought I was young and wild and free, but I'm not. 
4. I am not always right (but I really wanna be!)
5. Did I mention life is hard?


As I considered all these things (picture a big gigantic thought bubble and a pensive look on my face) I had the horrible realization that *gasp* I am not perfect. I'm young, and sometimes I forget it. It's hard to be responsible for things that are outside of my plan, so I might make a few mistakes but at least I'm trying. I get a big head and think I know everything about life and that nothing can trip me up. Then, next thing I know I'm getting the world's biggest reality check by a giant (metaphorical) hand. 


That reality check still has me on the ground. I know at some point I will get things a little more figured out, and maybe I will be able to get up off the ground. My plan may be altered by forces out of my control, but I can handle it. I'm strong, I'm smart, and I have what it takes inside of me to do this even if it's hard.  I think the most important part of coming to terms with everything is realizing that I CAN and I WILL survive this. I will kick this situation in the ass and I will come out better and stronger.  


But please metaphorical, giant, bitch slapping hand, just give me a little warning next time, will ya?