On Psychologically Warfaring (and stillness)

My friend does not believe that I am a victim of this. She is wrong. She is also a linguistic pioneer, verbing it with that noun as she has done above. When she used my own language against me, today at lunch, in a way that made all the fire in my belly-ness, resignation, and painful clarity I had forced myself to drum up so that all I could do was laugh far too loudly, she helped me remember that she is a genius. That is why we are such good friends. Two geniuses who can't get enough croissants and Coca Cola. And also meat. We will never understand the veggies. But back to this genius moment of hers. She succeeded in redirecting my fatalistic thoughts and put an absolute halt (however temporarily) to a potentially bridge-burning conversation I had completely worked out in my head last night and this morning. What I was going to say was very clever. Cut to the quick-ish stuff. Show some such-and-such that I am smarter than he is and I will decide for the both of us rather than continue living in the most horrific sort of limbo a girl could conceive of. Even a writer-girl. Even one who can formulate worst case scenarios like no other human being on the planet. Even one who always, always thinks the worst so she's always prepared for...whatever. But it is much more awful, I'm saying, to leave someone like me in the wind...unattended...without an anchor...without even an iota of certainty. Because I am the queen of inventing my own certainty. Even if all I needed to do was be patient. I am not the queen of patience. At. All. Waiting is like a brain disease with me. Waiting makes me feel like I'm being made a fool of. That my intelligence is being insulted. That my capacity for reason...all my smarts, as well...are corroding the more I do it. And I don't want tiny portions of my brain to be eaten away at. I value it. Ever so much. I can't bear the thought of labels like "foolish girl" and "stupid girl" and "ridiculous, waiting, idiot" to be attached to it. I can't hardly sit still for something like that. No sir.

So, here is what it is like. This is an extended metaphor. Prepare yourself.

It is as though everyone sitting around a table full up with edible possibilities all have their eyes so full that they want every thing on the table. And everyone knows that if there was a table a football field long with food piled up so high we couldn't see the top of it, no one would be able to eat all of it. It is impossible, even if you want to so badly, to get everything you think you want. All that food would make any one of those people quite sick if they did actually try to gobble up all of it. All right. I've set the scene and I hope you can see it clearly. Now, also imagine that I am one of the people at this nightmarishly filled table. And I'm not nearly as hungry as all the other people around it. I'm the type of eater who can't help but consider all the things that could be wrong with all this food; all the differently combined ways one could make a meal out of so much food it seems unreal. There is bacteria crawling all over. (We're outside on a football field with a bunch of sweaty people breathing all over everything, remember?) And the e-coli debacle which has gotten into everything. Not to forget that there's the Mexican tomato crop fiasco. And I'm lactose intolerant. And let's not even get into who in the hell prepared all this food and where they did it and how they transported it to this seriously nightmarish table. I am THAT kind of eater. I am leery of the whole process--all I can see is that what goes in might morph and become a WMD inside me and come out like so many stealth Iranian nuclear warheads ground up in an icky brown flood of pudding. Do you understand me? I am the kind of eater who knows that I must eat to live. I KNOW that I was born to eat food. That there are millions of people who eat food and it is good for them. But who cannot let go of the FACT that there are other millions who wish they'd never even heard of some such-and-such kind of sandwich or some fuck-bowl of ice cream.

And yet. I am hungry, too. I want to eat something. But I don't feel rushed about deciding what I really want. I am, with a few qualifications, open for lots of different things as long as it's quality. Quality. Superb. Beautiful. Intellectual. Tender. Funny. Kind. I mean...nutritious. Delicious. Well-balanced. (Metaphor, Tony, metaphor!) So someone comes along and says, "You...how are you? I know you don't know me and so have no reason to trust or believe in what I am going to tell you but I want to tell it to you anyway. The look on your face, as you sit at this table, looks like what I am feeling about this eating process, too. I think that we could do it this other way...what do you think? This is so antiquated...I'm a modern. Are you a modern? I think that, yes, you are a modern. We moderns should eat our meals together the way we want to eat them. See, look...I've come up with this nutrition plan that is perfect for me...and if you'll allow me to be so bold, I think, would be perfect for you, too. Especially if we sit down at our table together, away from this garish ridiculousness they are calling a feast. What do you think? I can't wait to hear what you will say when you respond to me, by the way. I love to hear you talk." And so of course I, reluctantly, sign up to be a part of this modern case study on this nutrition plan. And although the person who walked up to me asked for patience as he got everything in order, I have yet to be fed anything substantial. I have nibbled. I have thirsted and been satisfied...only for the same thirst to pop up again because there are some thirsts which require an ongoing sort of quenching.

And now we have time passing.

More and more.

When just a little nibble or two to keep me quiet is all it takes to keep me signed up for this plan. And this is known...so just when I think the plan has been recalled, there is a seeming miraculous affirmation that I must learn to HOLD. To sit still. Even as I am not built for this kind of thing. Miracles like there were at Christmas. And Father's Day. And was that MLK Day?

You see, I am easily distracted by other things that look almost as good (to eat), when they really aren't, but are more than pleasant tummy-fillers for the time being. The trouble is that eventually...someone will stand up and say "Eat this way or the highway!" And I will be powerless to stop myself from going for the security of the cookie in the hand over the uncertainty of the whole box of cookies on the shelf.

It comes down to this FACT. I am being psychologically warfared by one or two or both of the following things. One: you know. Two: my biology. Or far worse: the intersection of these two...you know...because of my age. 26. That time...I hate to type the rest...in a woman's life.

If I could just make it over this hump without doing anything too drastic and stupid or too close to either end on the long spectrum of possibilities, I just might could win.

Don't you think?