onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the category “Relationships”

11 Oct 2020

The Blessings of Benchmarks and Bare Minimums

I have been particularly fortunate over the past several months. I have been working less, but I have been working consistently. And while my husband and I are not making as much money as we were last year, we have never suffered financially through this difficult time.


I have enjoyed the lightened work load, frankly. I am not a workaholic. I like more free time, not less. I like to do nothing. I like to do nothing for whole days. I used to feel like this made me lazy. And I am sure that is how it occurred to people when I was in the food and getting nothing done.


But in having my eating under control, I have learned how to manage work and rest. I have learned how to be incredibly productive, and also make time to be a vegetable on the couch. I know how to feel accomplished by accomplishing things, and to accept that I not only like, but need, a ridiculous amount of down time.


When I got my sugar addiction under wraps, my experience of time changed much like my experience of food. When I was eating compulsively, I was obsessed with food, but I was miserable all of the time. Either I was eating something I wanted, but felt guilty for eating it, or I was eating something I felt I should be eating, but hating it the whole time. I was either lamenting chocolate cake while it was in my mouth, thinking I was a bad girl, or suffering through lettuce or celery, hating the experience of being a good girl. Either way, I had set myself up to be miserable around food.


But then I put boundaries around my eating, and suddenly I was eating guilt-free. And that was a revelation. That was the greatest part of getting my eating under control; following rules eliminated guilt by giving me bare minimums and benchmarks. As long as I hit my marks, I could eat with impunity.


Time is much the same for me now. Before I was trapped in my own narrative about not being good enough. I thought I was lazy. I thought I was incapable. I thought I was ill-equipped to do anything worthwhile. And in many ways, my addiction made that true. I was always second guessing myself. I was easily overwhelmed. I was constantly afraid of failing, and failed because that fear meant I was unwilling, or unable to try. But since I got my addiction on a leash, I can see the bare minimums and the benchmarks. As long as I hit them, do the work that needs to get done, send the email, make the call, follow up, get to the next right action, I don’t have to worry about a day spent watching mindless TV, or listening to a book, or crafting. I don’t have to feel guilty about a day in my pajamas.


I was never super woman. But somehow I always felt like I should have been. Now I don’t worry about how to be “great,” I worry about how to honor my word and keep my integrity intact. And I often end up being great anyway. And sometimes I’m just meh. And every time, whether I’m just so good, or just so-so, it’s enough.


I am in the beginning stages of a very big job right now. I am doing the slow dance of bureaucracy, getting big things done, one small step at a time. But it is stressful. And it is exciting. And while today I have to go grocery shopping, and prep lunches for the week, and be emotionally and practically ready to jump through hoops and wait in lines and navigate a maze of red tape, yesterday I did a whole bunch of nothing. And it made today possible, and bearable, and I don’t feel bad about it at all. And to not feel bad about myself is perhaps the second best thing about getting my eating under control. Because guilt-free eating is still, and will probably always be the first best thing ever.

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04 Oct 2020

More safe, less sorry

On Friday I was up at 5, went on my jog, took a shower and got ready to head into the office, and then my husband said he had a little sore throat. So we agreed that he should get a Covid test and neither of us should go into work until we get the results.


Before anyone gets worried, he is feeling fine right now. We have not officially gotten the results back, but he has not had a sore throat since. He does not have a fever. Chances are he is just fine.


In the past, he probably would have gone to work. And I absolutely would have gone to work. But these are strange times. And to go to work feeling a little under the weather is to potentially put people at risk. Our office also agreed that it was better that we stay home.


Here’s the takeaway for me about the positive aspects of having boundaries around my eating. I am not afraid of what my boss or coworkers think of me. Because I know that I am always doing what I think is right and for the best. For myself, for my coworkers, and for my company.


When I was face first in the food, I would have been terrified and overwhelmed by this monkey wrench. Any and every circumstance of life that was not me going along in my usual routine, threw me for a loop. I would have been worried about my personal standing, my personal money, my personal well-being, and would not have thought about how my actions affected anyone else. As a food addict, I am an addict. Just as selfish, reckless, and destructive as any addict.


But with a strong foundation of having my eating under control and a way of life that facilitates that, I can trust in my decisions. I can trust myself to deal with my life as best I can in the moment. I can trust myself to be calm and rational, even when I am afraid.


A friend of mine in New York City, who had a particularly scary bout of Covid in March asked me if I was worried for my husband. And my response was that I was terrified. (I am *much* less terrified now that he is feeling well again.) But not paralyzed. I was nervous but I was moving right along, doing the next right thing.

My eating being under control does not mean that my life is without terrible moments and circumstances. Having my addiction under wraps doesn’t keep my loved ones or myself safe from illness or accident. What it does save me from, at least mostly, is me making terrible rash decisions, and awful, selfish mistakes.

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27 Sep 2020

Excuse me while I go grow

I have recently been given a job at work that is bigger and more complicated than any job I have done before. I am going to have to learn new things. I am going to have to stretch and grow as a person. And I am scared.

I don’t mean I am terrified. I don’t mean I am paralyzed. But I am most definitely anxious and worried that I will not measure up.

I know that I am good at what I do. I am a good leader, willing to take responsibility for the things other people shy away from. I am smart and organized. I know how to think ahead and keep an eye on potential problems before they become actual problems.  And I have enough humility to admit when I have made a mistake or I am in over my head and I need to call for reinforcements. 

I also know what I am bad at. Diplomacy is not my strong suit. I’m a straight shooter who values honest, efficient (blunt) communication, and I have a hard time with the idea that we can’t just say what is right in front of us. But knowing what areas I am weaker in is also a strength. I am not leading a meeting to find out why we haven’t gotten paid or where our money is. And therefore, I am not messing that up with my bluntness. Besides, my husband is excellent at that. And I am happy to let him be reasonable and charming with clients while I be exacting behind the scenes.

But if I were still eating compulsively, things would be very different for me. First, I would not be good at my job. And I might not even have this job. Because when I was eating compulsively and high on sugar all the time, I was not the list of assets above. I became paralyzed easily, and as soon as I got a job or task, I could become overwhelmed to the point that I shut down. I could not think ahead. I was terrified of responsibility and would avoid it at all costs. And if I did end up in a position of power, I used whatever means necessary to pin any blame for failure on someone, anyone, anything, else. I was not organized or focused because the sugar fog I lived in made it hard, if not impossible, to stay focused or organized. What I was was very smart. Probably even smarter than I am now, but it was almost useless. Like I had a big bucket of paint, but no brushes or rollers or tools. I just threw it around, with no precision. And that worked as well as it worked. Which was better than I had any right to expect, frankly.

But even knowing all of this about myself, about my gifts and the tools I have at my disposal, and the honesty and integrity I live by now, and the willingness to admit mistakes and faults and problems, I am scared. My fear of failure, and its consequential humiliation, is still very much alive in me. And in many ways it is worse since I gave up the sugar that used to numb those particular feelings. But it is also better. Because I don’t have to work (eat drug foods) to avoid those feelings today. I can be scared. That fear can hang around in the back of my mind. And it doesn’t have to mean anything. It can just be fear, skulking around in my head, with no calculable effect on my actions. 

When I gave up sugar over 14 years ago, I did it to lose weight. And I did. But I also changed the way I thought and lived and worked and related to people and the world. And my life is better for it. Not just my body, though that too. But my whole life. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go grow into a new set of skills.

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20 Sep 2020

Even in a hard world, my life is easier

I feel rather out of sorts this week. My routine has been off. And some things have gone wrong. My hormones are slightly out of whack. Our very expensive kitchen faucet broke and I won’t get a new one for at least a week. Our refinished bath tub is peeling and the guy is coming early tomorrow morning to fix it, which means getting my run, shower and breakfast in before he gets here. And this is on top of what has been a hard year for me, like it has for everyone.


I am tired of feeling so stressed out. I am tired of worrying. I’m tired of the uncertainty of so many important things. I’m tired of all of it masquerading as normal in my head so I can deal with the day-to-day.

There is a thing that I have noticed. When I am faced with having to actually deal with something I don’t want to, as in take an action or even just look at the honest truth of it, I have a thought: “I’m exhausted.”

It does not mean what it used to mean to me. Exhausted used to be a body experience. It was what happened after a long day of physical exertion. It was the kind of thing that was satisfying. It meant a good, restful sleep. It meant a feeling of accomplishment, or at least it felt earned.


But when I say it now, it means something entirely different. It means emotional fatigue. It means spinning and spinning without ever feeling like I’m getting anywhere. It means a kind of spiritual and emotional impotence that is hard to put my finger on, except that it feels like I should be doing something, but everything I think I could do feels too small to make a difference. It feels like fight or flight with nothing to strike out at and nowhere to go.


But my eating is taken care of. And that means that other things, important things, are taken care of. My integrity, my self-esteem, my relationships. All of those things are in a place where I can look myself in the eye and feel like I’m honoring myself. I’m sad, and I’m frustrated, and I’m just so tired, but I still like me and love me. And I lived so many years hating myself, even when things were going right. Even when circumstances were easy, my life eating compulsively was hard.


I try to remember today, and every day, that life is not always easy or fair. And I am allowed to be having a hard time. And I am grateful to have tools and practices in place to help me take life a day/minute/step at a time. But most of all I remember to be grateful. Because even in the face of a scary world on the outside, treating myself with love and honor, first around food, but also around everything in my life, is a better life than the one of shame and self-loathing I had when I was eating compulsively.

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06 Sep 2020

Work Wonders

Having my eating under control has transformed my work life in ways I never expected but I am so grateful for it.


When I was in the food, I was a terrible student and employee. I was either high on sugar, or crashing from it, all of the time. I couldn’t concentrate or think straight. And I was so afraid of being reprimanded that I was willing to be dishonest or disingenuous to keep blame off of myself.


One of the things that I got from putting boundaries around my eating is the ability to be wrong, even very wrong, and be honest about it. Just let it be. And take the consequences as they come.


I did not know how to do that growing up. I didn’t know how to own up, apologize, or make amends. And I did not have any idea how transparent I was to everyone else.


I see it all the time now. The way people humor liars, cheaters, and thieves. The way they pretend to believe and accept. And the way the offenders, relieved, believe they have gotten away with it. And I suppose they have. Though not in any meaningful way. They have escaped outward consequences, if not the judgement of peers and superiors, but they have not escaped the internal consequences. Knowing you have lied does something to you inside.


I should know. I was one of those offenders for much of my life. Fear ruled me. And appearances, the appearance of innocence and rightness, seemed to be the most important part of getting through life.


In getting a handle on my sugar addiction, and fixing the wrongs I have done in my past and my present, I have changed the way I think about “trouble.”


Trouble used to be what I got in with other people. It used to be me against them. Now trouble is something I get in with myself. Now it’s me, my Ego and my fear, against me, the person I respect and like and love.

That shift has made me an excellent employee. It has made me an excellent coworker. It has made my work life one of pride in my work, and camaraderie with the people on the teams that I work with.


And not being high or strung out all the time has meant that I do quality work. I understand what I am taught. I learn quickly. I am willing to stretch my comfort zone and take on new and more complicated responsibilities. I am also up front about what I don’t know and what I have attempted but failed at.


My husband and I have just been given two new jobs to run for big clients. It’s a big deal. And there will certainly be a learning curve and probably more than a few hiccups along the way. But I don’t doubt my ability, or my worth. I know I can rise to this challenge, because I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to take it one step at a time, be honest about where I am, and willing to do things that are scary or uncomfortable.


And those are all skills I got from giving up sugar, putting boundaries around my eating, and cleaning up the messes I make in my relationships with people.


I did not expect my work life to change when I put boundaries around my food. I thought it would change my relationship to men, certainly, because when I was in the food I thought my love life troubles were about being fat. But now I can see that my troubles in all areas of my life were about my addiction. And with the sugar out of my system and out of my life, so much is different and better in ways I never expected but am eternally grateful for.

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30 Aug 2020

With respect to Sally Field, I like me! Right now! I like me!

This week I had to go into the office for a meeting. And there was a new woman who recently joined the company. And about half way through the meeting, it became clear to me that she doesn’t like me. Because I am a know-it-all.


There was a time in my life, before I had my eating under control, and for the first few years that I did, when this woman not liking me, or my perception of this woman not liking me, would have haunted me, and I would have done anything in my power to try to coerce this woman into liking me.

Don’t get me wrong. I *do* want people to like me. Certainly this woman. We are colleagues. We work for the same company. And I tried to be pleasant, friendly, and relatable.


But ultimately, I don’t actually care. If this woman finds me insufferable, may she never have to suffer me. Because the reason I come off as a know-it-all could be that I am excellent at my job and I do “know it all.”


All of my life that I spent in active food addiction was spent hating myself, second guessing if I was “doing it right” and thinking that being liked meant I was doing it right, and being disliked or sneered at meant I was bad and wrong.


Having my food addiction under control means that I like myself. A lot. I like being me. I am not embarrassed or ashamed. I love myself. I love my life. And if I don’t, I have the clarity to pinpoint the things that are making me uncomfortable or ashamed, and take some action to make a change. To change me, really, and not simply someone else’s perception of me.


In my addiction, I was paralyzed by the numbness and the muddled thinking that came from using sugar as a drug, as well as the pain that came from looking at myself with an eye towards my faults and my character defects. Because it felt like I was my faults and defects, and they were me.

One great gift of having my eating taken care it is that I can look at my bad actions and see that they don’t mean anything about me as a person. Except that I am exactly as failably human as anyone else, and that in some particular situation or another, I need to make some amends.


But it also gives me the clarity to know what is not my problem, or my business. And how this woman at work sees me is really none of my business. I am coming from a space of helpfulness and generosity. And I don’t get a say in how those intentions are received.


I am grateful to have this clarity of mind and spirit. I don’t want to use my time or energy trying to force someone to see me the way I see myself. And that is the best gift of having these boundaries; how much I like and love myself has everything to do with me, and my integrity, and nothing to do with anyone else.

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23 Aug 2020

Outsourcing the tough choices is a definite life hack

There is an aspect of my food boundaries that is very important to me that I don’t talk about a lot. Mostly because it doesn’t come up a lot. But there are times when I don’t make decisions about my food, when I have other people make those decisions for me.

The primary reason it doesn’t come up a lot is because I don’t make a lot of mistakes with my food. I am generally meticulous and focused when it comes to my food because i take my addiction seriously. But, if I do make a mistake or have a problem, I don’t decide what to do about it. I call someone and they make the decision for me. And this is a thing that has saved my life and my sanity more than once. And it happened this week.

So the short version is that I knew I was going into the office this week – they had work for me to do that had to be done on site – so I prepped my food over the weekend. And one thing I did was weigh out some raw peppers and wrap them in foil and put them with all of the other food I had weighed out. But my husband cut an onion, wrapped it in foil, and instead of putting it back in the produce drawer, he put it on the shelf with my pre-weighed lunches. So when I got home from work and packed up my lunch for the next day, I thought I was grabbing a pepper, and instead grabbed half of a raw onion.


When I opened my lunch the next day, I had a moment of panic! But then I made some phone calls. And I managed to reach a friend and she told me what to do about it. So I just did what she told me to do. And it was done. And I could eat my lunch in peace and calm and not have to worry about it.


Here is the deal. I am crazy when it comes to food. I am addicted. I am obsessive. I can go in crazy circles. And if I had made a decision about the onion-pepper problem myself, I could have second guessed myself right into a chocolate cake.


True, it may not have happened immediately, but the chatter in my head could (would) have led to other decisions that bent rules. After all, I would have already made a choice that was not strictly within my boundaries. And that could have led to lies to myself and others about my food or my eating. And that most certainly would have led me to eating foods I am addicted to.


I want to say that I chose these boundaries. They were not forced on me, nor was I coerced. I chose them because my food addiction was ruining my life and they were a solution because 1) they exclude foods I am addicted to, and 2) these boundaries come with a community for help, support, and camaraderie.


So when I say I don’t make decisions about my food, I don’t mean anyone tells me what to eat on a regular basis. I have a huge list of foods that are available to me for guilt-free eating and I choose the foods I love. I make those food choices every day. Lots of people who do what I do don’t eat pork rinds, or make their own sugar-free ice cream, which are favorite choices of mine. And unlike many of my comrades-in-eats, I am not going to eat a chicken breast, or lettuce, or celery.
But when it comes to a moment of upset, problem, or panic, it is a great relief to not have to make a decision, and instead to give it to somebody else.


The other part of that is that I am available to make those decisions for someone else. And I do regularly. And let me tell you, it is *much* easier to make a decision like that for someone else.


So I am grateful to the people who do what I do. To the ones who have picked up the phone to give me guidance when my heart is pounding and my head is spinning because there is a problem with my food and I don’t know what to do. I have a community in place that assures me that in a scary or difficult food situation, I don’t need to know what to do. I just need to make a phone call, and be willing to heed the advice on the other end. And that is a safety net I never knew I needed or wanted but feel very lucky to have.

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16 Aug 2020

Lots of love, but no pretending

When I first started this blog, I wanted to heal the parts of myself that had been squashed and damaged by all of the self-preservation I had put in place. I wanted to work through the default thoughts and actions of my life to that point that kept my life small. That kept me protected from any kind of hurt or embarrassment. From really any kind of emotions.

Also, I hated fatness. I hated being fat. I hated seeing fat people. Even the ones I loved and liked and admired and respected. And having given up sugar and lost over 100 pounds, I felt incredibly self-righteous. 

Since then, I have grown and changed a lot. Much of the change was because of this blog. And one thing that I have changed my mind about is fatness. I am so much less judgmental. I have love and compassion for my fat self, and that love for myself has overflowed into love and compassion for others.

But there is a place that I stand that is very much considered fat phobia by fat people and fat acceptance culture. And it is that I do not want to be fat. 

It doesn’t matter that it is about me and nobody else. It doesn’t matter that I have been fat and hated it. To not want to be fat is to value thinness. (Sigh. Again. I am not that thin. I wear the biggest of straight sizes and I have plenty of chub.) But I do value not being fat. For myself. For my life. For how I feel about my body. For how I feel about navigating the world in this body. 

I am writing this because I saw a social media post that said “If you don’t want to be fat, that is fat phobic.” And I immediately thought “No! Not me! I’m not fat phobic!” But maybe I am. Probably I am. 

My body stays relatively thin-ish, because I don’t eat most sugars, grains or starches. And I don’t eat those things because I am addicted to them and I have the same kinds of behaviors as an alcoholic or drug addict (btw, sugar is a drug for me, so I really am a drug addict.) I lie, cheat and steal. I manipulate. I am self-centered and emotionally volatile.

I don’t continue to abstain from sugar because of my weight. I do it because I don’t like the person I am when I eat it.

But I also don’t want to be fat! And I don’t want to have to feel bad or ashamed or uncomfortable or like a heartless asshole because of it. And I guess if that makes me fat phobic, then I am. And I don’t feel the need to do any work on myself over it. 

I remember what it was like to be treated like a disgrace for being fat. The way people would comment on my body with laughter and jeers and sneers. Strangers and acquaintances and people I considered friends. And how people would stand by and let it happen to me. And to this day I hate doctors, and the medical community in general. Because the way they treated me as a fat person always made me feel like I was a failure as a human being. I always felt ashamed and embarrassed. And I was scrutinized and reprimanded whenever I went for an appointment. And yet, I was never offered a solution that worked. (Willpower is not a solution, my friends.)

I see other people, fat people,getting the same hate and cruelty that I received for so long, and I am so sad and hurt by it. When I listen to the casual fat jokes and dehumanization of fat people in all forms of media, I still feel an echo of the excruciating pain I used to feel as a kid when I saw a fat joke or a fat shaming on TV shows or in movies. Some of those movie lines and jokes are burned into my psyche.

I want to be trusted and accepted by the fat acceptance community. Because even if I don’t look like it, I feel like fat people will always be my people. But maybe I can’t. And maybe I shouldn’t. And maybe I need to let that go. Because the actual, absolute truth for me is that if someone wants to do what I do – give up sugar, weigh their food and keep strict portion control, keep boundaries about when and how and how often they can eat – I want them to. Because it is without a doubt, the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and it is the foundation for the life that I have which is a life beyond my wildest dreams. And I didn’t get it because I wanted to have a spiritual awakening. I got it because I didn’t want to be fat anymore when I was in my 20s.

So I am going to keep following my fat brothers and sisters on social media, and loving them and their hot fashions, and their beauty. But perhaps I am going to have to give up wanting to be accepted, and a true part that movement and that moment and that group. Because I have a different set of experiences. And I don’t know how to be over here, grateful to not be fat, and still make fat people feel loved and honored as themselves.

Maybe I can’t. Maybe I can, and I just don’t know how yet. But I love having an easy body. And I am not willing to pretend I don’t.

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26 Jul 2020

Fat Bitch Running

On my jog the other day, a guy, a stranger, rolled down the window of his car, and took a turn way too fast and hard, to take the opportunity to yell at me that I was a “fat bitch.”


When I was 19, I weighed 300 pounds. So if you think this is the first time I have been called a fat bitch, you would be mistaken, and frankly, grotesquely naive.


I mention all the time in this blog that I am not particularly thin. I often call myself chubby. And I have had people tell me they do not think this is true.


But one of the biggest problems and questions I deal with when I think about fatness, is who is using the word fat, and how are they using it? Because I am not using it as an insult. Merely an adjective. But many people use it as an insult. And it doesn’t even have to be “true” for them to use it and for it to hit home.


So if I tell someone I’m chubby, and they say “you’re not!” I am not clear if they hear chubby and think I am insulting myself, or if, from their perspective, I am not even chubby. Because fat women who describe themselves as fat are *often* told by friends and family and acquaintances that it’s not true. When it objectively is. But their friends see it as a jab, and want to assure their fat friends that they would never insult them.
The problem there is that the underlying idea is “fat is evil, but I love and respect you, so you can’t be fat.”


Friends, get over the idea that fat is bad. And stop telling your fat friends that they are “special fats.” That you don’t see them that way. They are not special. They are not different than other fat people. It is the connotations that you add to fatness that are the problem.


Trolls know that to be called fat in our fatphobic culture is devastating to most women. To women who have bought into the idea that thinness equals “goodness” and “morality” and “true womanhood,” to be called fat is to be called “lazy,” “shameful,” and “pathetic.” When a woman is committed to the idea of thinness as a virtue, what she hears when someone calls her fat, is that the one dishing out the word thinks she is unworthy of love and respect.

And those women don’t even have to be objectively fat to feel this. To be fat in the United States in 2020 currently only means “to not be thin.”


Does she have a belly? Call it fat. Wide hips? A big butt? Fat and fat. Thighs that touch? Fat.


I am 5’ 6.5” and I wear a size Large or XL, depending on the cut, and I have all of the things I mentioned above. I have a belly, and wide hips, (though not much of a butt I guess) and round thighs that touch. But most people would probably not consider me fat. *I* certainly don’t consider myself fat.


But a stranger in his car was so invested in the idea of the fatness of my body that *while I was working out* he felt the need to call me a fat bitch. The bitch part was just for existing, I suppose.


Much like AOC, I was not deeply hurt by this. It was just another day and another moment dealing with another asshole. I also worked in bars and restaurants in New York City, and have walked city streets and taken public transportation. Lots of men are like that. Lots of women too. (But more men. In case you were wondering.)


I want to close with this thought. If you are going to describe me as being fat, use the word fat. I don’t think if it as an insult. I hate euphemisms. Fluffy? Makes me want to gag. I am not a dog. And there is no fluff. Only jiggle. Heavy set? I am a beautiful woman, not a lumberjack. Big Boned? It’s not my bones that are big.


And don’t expect that yelling out a window that I am a fat bitch will do anything more to me than inspire me to write a blog about you. Because fat doesn’t bother me. And neither does bitch. As a woman with integrity and boundaries, with whatever adjective they choose, I expect people will call me a bitch for the rest of my life.

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28 Jun 2020

Amends are the worst! And also the best!

I have had a very hard week emotionally. I have been crying a lot. I have been thinking a lot. I have been trying to reconcile a lot of things. I have been restless, irritable, and discontent, as they say. And then yesterday I was a real asshole to two different people. A stranger and my husband. And I had to make amends.


Ugh! Making amends is the worst. But it is also, of course, the best.


I won’t go into details, because they are boring and would be filled my in-the-moment justifications for why, exactly, I acted like a jerk. But just rest assured that I did, indeed, act like a jerk.


The stranger let me have my way, not because I was right, but because it was easier for him to deescalate the situation. So I got what I wanted by being obnoxious.


Then later my husband and I got into an argument about a misunderstanding and a miscommunication. Because he has been frustrating and annoying me all week. But not because of him, or what he has been doing. But because I have been unhappy and frustrated and stretched thin myself.
To both my husband and the stranger, I admitted that it was me, and not them, that was the problem.


But amends are something else. Not just an apology. A mending. It’s right there in the name.


So for the stranger, I wrote a sincere note of apology. I admitted that I was entirely in the wrong. But I also left $20 in the note. Because I had gotten everything in that interaction, and he had gotten nothing. An apology, even a sincere one, doesn’t give him back his time. An apology wasn’t going to dry his clothes. In order for it to be a sincere amends, I felt it should cost me something. And while money is not the only way to make up for such things, it was the easiest way with a stranger.


With my husband, on the other hand, the amends has to come with a change in behavior. In order for it to be sincere, I have to hold myself accountable to being the kind of wife I want to be, even when I am sad, or hurting, or depressed, or struggling.


This morning I feel better, cleaner, freer, having taken responsibility for my own bad behavior. I am still not particularly happy. I still have a lot of things to work through and deal with for myself, but I have had a wake up call to show me that whatever is going on inside, I am still responsible for what I do and say and create on the outside.

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