What do normal people eat?

How do normal people eat?

I'm an alcoholic too, and I can easily recognize a normal drinker -- someone with a perfectly healthy attitude toward alcohol. With alcohol, the normal drinker can take it or leave it.

Of course, with food we can't take it or leave it -- we have to eat.

And i have to say that after all these years, i'm not really sure how a normal eater eats and how she thinks about food and weight,etc. Maybe because it's still hard for me to believe that someone could be completely comfortable with her relationship to food and body.

I suppose the range for normal is pretty big...?

What do you guys think?

Creativity

My writing teacher from long ago sent me a note, hoping that i'm having a very creative year. I realized, i don't have a single creative moment in my life these days. no wonder i've felt kinda empty.

Fear and laziness have kept me doing the "easy" stuff. i begin to think i can take some risks.

Money, things and life choice

If you've ever looked at Enneagram personality types, I'm a type 4. Below are the careers that are supposed to be good for type 4s. I've considered most of them, but haven't really pursued any. How many times have i contemplated and even applied for MSW programs. (i think it's part of the Type 4 profile to be dreamy and wishy-washy and unstructured!)

Instead of pursuing and achieving, i've floated around in unfulfilling careers that don't fit me at all and i've wasted a lot of time and spent way too much money on needless THINGS.

My pursuit of materialistic comfort has kept me from taking a risk and doing something meaningful and BIG. My dear friend says fear keeps us doing what we shouldn't be doing and keeps us from doing what we should.

i want the courage to pursue the following: (!)

Psychotherapist
Holistic Health Practitioner
Yoga/Dance Instructor
Masseuse
Artist
Writer
Relationship/Couples Counselor
Life Coach
Crisis-line operator
Missionary
Web/Graphic Designer
Actor/Musician

Thin picture/Fat picture

I've only kept pictures of myself from thin years. If you saw my photo albums, you'd think i was always slim. Not true, as i fluctuated between 90 and 190 pounds throughout my life.

I didn't keep "fat" pictures, because they just reminded me how miserable and lonely i was and how much i hated myself for being so overweight. all i'd see was pain when i'd look at those photos. So, I never had any pictures of me in my teens or late 20s or even my early 40s, when my mother died, i quit smoking crack, ended 30 years of bulimia and gained a lot of weight.

Now, at 5'6 and 48, I'm a healthy 130 - 135, but when the scale starts to inch up, I think of those pictures i never kept and remind myself how very "ugly" i was during those years.

Recently, my sister found old photos of me in her basement and many of them were from the "big" years. it took me a while to want to look at them, but then i did look.

most of my life, i believed with all my heart that the most important piece of information about me was, simply, my weight. EVERYTHING relied on that number on the scale and when it was up, there simply could not be happiness.

So i looked at pictures of me at my sweet sixteen where was one of my heaviest weights AND i was having a really bad hair day.

My mother looked wonderful in all the pictures, she was slim and happily dating and feeling particularly good about herself.

I felt badly for my mother that she had such a fat, unpopular and depressed daughter. My sister was always pretty and popular, with lots of friends and boyfriends. i had neither.

I didn't smile much in my teens, but i did find one happy summer at an acting camp, where i made my first friends and enjoyed myself. yes, i was pretty heavy BUT on closer inspection through today's kinder eyes, i looked....fine. AND i was smiling. i looked happier and freer.

My mom was in those pictures too, on visiting day, and she looked thin (so important to me back then) and happy and beautiful. when i see those pictures now, i see how very much i looked like her.

there is a series of photos with my sister that stay with me. (since i was little, i was a round little thing and my sister was always naturally skinny. there are photos of us through the years, skinny sis and chunky me.)

in these particular photos i'm a baby , my petite little sister is holding me tight in her arms. i've always cringed at these photos, seeing myself as a fat and ugly baby and comparing myself to my tiny little sis. i always felt guilty that i must be so heavy for her to hold and wish she has a prettier baby girl to play with.

(i also used to get pretty mad at my mom for over-feeding me so, but that's passed. i know she did her best with raising all of us and, besides, and this was 48 years ago.)

what i always missed when i looked at these pictures was my sister's expression -- she's glowing with pride and joy at her little sister. she is clearly so in love with me and so delighted to show me off to the world.

i never noticed look on her face before, because i was so ashamed of being a fat baby and because i assumed i couldn't be loveable and i was too busy worrying about myself to see my sister.

but i do see that look now.

Doing Fine

i'm surprised to find that i am fine. things in my life are definitely not perfect, but somehow or other, i'm doing okay AND i know that things will be okay. that's not my style. usually, i worry and obsess and 100% assume the worst, but these days, i figure everything will work out. last week, i wrote about the issues i'm having with this guy i'm seeing. yes, it's NOT a healthy relationship, and that's something i must address and take care of, and that's what i'm doing. my car keeps breaking down, and i'm really having trouble paying for all the repairs. but somehow or other, i know i'll get by. my mechanic's letting me do a payment plan, a friend offered to lend me money if needed and worst case scenario, i'll get an advance on salary at work. money issues are really pressing right now, all around. i'm kind of stuck in my job, because i can't afford to do what i really want and that's frustrating. yet, that's life; it's reality. always in the past, i would have used these tough issues as reasons to binge or starve or drink or drug. now, i'm learning how to face what life throws me and manage. it feels good.

Wrong Man

I need support. Sometimes, we tuck away our secrets, because we don't want to hear the response. Yes, I have secrets... One i never talk about anymore is how the man i date treats me. In the beginning, i shared his behavior with friends and my sister, yet when they all told me to run, to move, to fly -- i stopped talking. Now i live in silence. He berates me, criticizes the way i walk, talk, think -- always sort of making fun. And when he's angry, anything goes -- verbally. I've never been spoken to like this. I begin, finally, to see how it creeps into the rest of my life. my self-esteem feels slim these days. I hear myself berating myself. When pondering why i stay, there are reasons. Perhaps i begin to want to move, to fly

Kelly Clarkson Defends her Curves

I just saw a headline with that title -- Kelly Clarkson defends her curves. Why does any person -- man, woman or child -- have to defend his or her body, particularly as it's hurting no one?

I look at recent photos of Clarkson, she of the terrific voice and very popular music, and I see a woman who looks pretty much like most of the women i work with -- womanly. I like some of her songs, not all, but i'd like them just the same if she looked like Twiggy or John Goodman.

From what I've read, Kelly Clarkson struggled with her weight and always got kudos when she'd slim down. I don't know what she went thru, but i know i was anorexic and bulimic and 100% obsessed in order to keep myself thin. i, too, got lots of compliments, although i was miserable and damaging my body irreparably. once i stopped purging and starving and binging, i gained a fair amount of weight and ended up a healthy size 12. but the compliments stopped.

Kelly Clarkson is a musician, not a skeleton. This is a real question -- why does anyone care what she weighs? Do any of you have any guesses?