onceafatgirl

Peace is better than chocolate

Archive for the tag “mistakes”

15 Mar 2015

Can’t talk now. On vacation. (YAY!)

I am in the airport now waiting for a flight to Florida! I love Florida!

It’s these times, when I am out of my routine, that it becomes so obvious that I have food boundaries.

We are staying at a hotel with a kitchen, like we do when we travel, so I will probably be getting myself a temporary routine. I like routine, it makes me feel safe.

But today, my routine is off. Airports mean bringing all of my food for the day in my carry-on. At 6 AM, two hours before I usually eat in the morning, I ate a breakfast I would never eat at home. Because I had to get it through TSA. I never notice my food boundaries are “inconvenient” in my day to day. But when I am flying it’s always a day of cooking in advance.

And then yesterday I put off eating dinner to pack my clothes, and I got worried like I would forget to eat.


Not having things be predictable gives me fear. Especially around my eating noundaries.

The truth is, it has happened before. I can remember one time in the past 9 years. Probably seven years ago by now. When I remembered that I forgot to eat dinner, I panicked. I made a phone call. I asked what I should do. I followed directions. It all turned out fine in the end. My eating disorders stayed under control. And it was an honest mistake. 

I make hones mistakes. The honesty part is important. I can’t keep my food under control with lies.

When I was eating compulsively, I told a lot of lies about what I was eating. Especially when I was on a diet. (Which was not often. I was not a dieter.) In my experience, a little lie leads to big lies. Once I let dishonesty in, dishonesty was inescapable.

I don’t plan on missing a meal. I love my meals. And I don’t plan on sabotaging myself. And I don’t plan on making honest mistakes, but that’s what makes them honest mistakes. They’re not planned. 

I’m willing to spend a day cooking so I can make it through the airport. I have been willing to do what needs to be done, even when it’s inconvenient. 
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07 Mar 2015
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Not to succeed, win, have or accomplish

I was an impatient child. Especially when it came to learning. 


See, I’m smart. Really smart. And most things came easily to me. I didn’t have to work hard to learn. And things that I didn’t learn immediately…well, I hated them. I didn’t want to do them. I didn’t want to fail. It made me feel bad. And I always felt like whatever energy I put in to something that ended in failure was a waste of my time. It was all about what I had to show for it in the end.

Soon I am going to get back into the workforce, and I would like to get a job teaching crochet, and helping people fix their crochet projects. At least one place I am looking at requires that you know how to both knit and crochet. So recently I started trying to knit again.

I am a bad knitter.

That is an imprecise way of putting it. There are things that I am great at. Like the dexterity parts. I am excellent at making the different stitches. I can make beautiful patterns with them. I can make cables and laces. When it comes to the actual knitting, I am really talented.

But there is another part of knitting that I am really really bad at. I cannot fix mistakes. This is inconvenient for a girl with mild perfectionist tendencies. If I make a mistake anywhere in a project, I don’t know how to get myself back to the point before I made the mistake without unraveling the whole thing. It’s all or nothing. I either have to live with the imperfections, or start again from the beginning. And I can’t stand making mistakes. So, so far, it’s all nothing.

But there is something different about me since I got my eating under control. I am patient. I am now one of those people who believes it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. (Seriously, I never thought I would be one of those people. I promise I don’t have art with motivational sayings. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

So for the past few weeks, I have been knitting. And I have nothing to show for it. And I am a-okay with that. I must have started anew at least ten times. And yet none of the times I unraveled the whole thing and wound it back around the ball of yarn did I feel it was a waste of my time. I wasn’t doing it because I need a scarf or a blanket or a sweater. I have plenty of beautiful clothes. And my house is cozy warm. I was doing it to practice. To get better. To learn. I was knitting to knit. It’s that simple.

The events and circumstances of my life are so much less “significant” since I got my eating disorders under control. And it’s such a relief. I love being free from having to be great at everything. I love having the ability to be incapable without shame. I love being exactly who I am all the time. I can even be ok with being a bit of a perfectionist.

I’m going to put the knitting away for a while. I just finished a really amazing crochet project and I’m ready to do more of that. But it’s nice to do something for the sake of doing it. Not to succeed, win, have, or accomplish.
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