In the Food Room of HELL

Welcome, and allow me to set a place for you.

My boss is 30-some weeks pregnant. For the past 30 weeks I have watched her consume food on a level that would terrify third world nations. I knew she was pregnant three weeks before ANY pregnancy test would be accurate. For days I would come home from work and relate to Rich that “she must be pregnant.” Rich would point out that her baby was only three months old. I would respond, “either she's pregnant or she's a goddamned alien.”

Yep. She was pregnant. Michael is due to appear on the planet one week before his older sister's FIRST birthday.

I watch her savor food as one would enjoy watching Rembrandt paint. The higher the sugar content, the more artistic the form.

Meanwhile, I am trying to lose the thirty pounds I gained in the long weeks and months since Rich's diagnosis.

I wake to my alarm every weekday at 04:30, hit the snooze button WAY too many times and finally drag my sorry butt out of bed shortly after 05:00 believing I will fulfill my goals of working out before hitting the shower and prepping for work. Somewhere between the top of the stairs and the coffee maker I am sucked into the void of desperate to feel human versus not to feel at all. I sip my coffee and struggle with the treadmill and Pilates Power Gym in my peripheral vision while trying to battle the guilt to get with the program versus the hopelessness of “what's the point?!”

Gradually I am leaning towards the higher angels of my being. Every morning this week after MANY weeks and months of starts and stops, days of successful effort followed by days of “what's the point?” I have managed to move forward and do a full workout without thinking about the futility and lack of immediate results. Just now, just this moment, just do, just feel, just breathe....

And the irony is that I feel SO GOOD after I work out. So why is it so damn hard to create a routine that nourishes this effort and it's results?!

Because there are so many other things that I should be doing.

But I digress.

By day, I live with the amazing pregnant woman who metabolizes food in a manner that makes me quiver in anticipation of meeting the child she is incubating. Why? Because it is damn hard to watch that level of consumption and she has gained 18 pounds. THAT is goddamned insane.

By night, I live with a man who has begun grazing with a ferocity that wakes the dead—waking me IS waking the dead. He takes Lunesta for fuck sake and every four hours he wakes up. NOT to pee, not for pain meds, not from nightmares or any physical discomfort other than HUNGER. I wake up because I have become conditioned to being on alert for him even in my sleep. He tells me he's going to the bathroom but I can only doze fitfully until he returns. An hour later, after he has consumed as much food as possible without firing up the stove top, the oven or a bonfire in the back yard I ask again if he's okay and he explains something I cannot even remember in the fog of my exhaustion.

I wake up after nine hits of the snooze button, struggle through a cup of coffee and come awake to the awareness of empty granola bar wrappers, empty yogurt containers, dirty dishes in the sink that were not there when I went to bed.

Last week I learned that the “happy pills” I take cause weight gain. So I've stopped them and now I'm overweight AND depressed.

I eat little bits of the healthiest stuff I can manage without wanting to kill myself. I park as far from the office door as possible; during my worst struggles I work out three times a week. I drink more water than a working adult should consume without risking embarrassment. I struggle, work, meditate and struggle.

All day long I watch Lynn eat; all evening I watch Rich eat. I am awakened from sleep to be aware that Rich is eating some more.

I keep telling myself that Nothing tastes as good as thin feels, but the bottom line is …..I am in the Food Room of Hell.