If No One Will Listen

I’ve been reacquanting myself with my favorite music lately.  A good friend helped me get sound on my computer again (ahhh, sound!  Thank you, Good Friend!) and I’ve been organizing my music files and treating myself to some new downloads of old favorites from Amazon.  That prompted me to get out some favorite CD’s and listen to them again.  The CD player in my car has been broken for months and I haven’t played my turn-it-up-loud-and-sing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs favorites in so long.  I’ve been in withdrawal.

Well, last night, one of the CD’s I played on the computer while I was working on stuff was Keri Noble’s Fearless.  It is very high on my list of my favorite CD’s ever made.

This is one of my favorite songs on that CD.  I always kind of thought of it as an anthem to friendship, but listening to it last night, after not having heard it in a long time, it feels even more personal now, as an anthem to friendship between friends who have done or are doing therapy.

The verse that has always moved me the most is “No one can take you where you alone must go / There’s no telling what you will find there / And, God, I know the fear that eats away at your bones / It’s screaming every step, ‘Just stay here’”.  To me, it’s about the fact that therapy (and what it takes to achieve real change) isn’t something anyone else can do for you, no matter how supportive they may be, and it’s about that fear of pushing through the hard changes and the fear-induced desire to just stay stuck (it seems easier, less threatening), or to go back to that place before therapy, where we used to be able to turn it off and not feel so much.

And the whole song is about someone who has been there and knows those feelings, being there for support for a friend / loved one.

I will be here, still.

It’s an amazing song.

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Old Entry Reruns: The Nostalgia Room, Part Three

I have some favorite old entries from my old online diary that I had before coming to WordPress, and I thought it might be fun to share some of them here, as “reruns”. . .

This one was originally posted on October 15, 2008.  Be sure to see Part One and Part Two first.

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The Nostalgia Room
10/15/08
Part Three

So, as I mentioned earlier, Sister was cleaning out some things she had in storage (the weekend before I originally published this entry last September) and she gave me her Barbies.  Hers are circa 1960’s, and because of that, they would actually be better used in a little arrangement on a shelf in my Nostalgia Room than mine would have, if I still had them.

Sometimes when I was a kid, Sister would let me play with her Barbies, which was such a treat.  She had a house for them that was so incredibly amazing.  It wasn’t the Barbie house, it was a different brand, but again, the other brand was way cool.  It was made of cardboard and folded up into a neat box with a handle on top that made it easy to carry.  Sadly, a few years ago, she had to get rid of it because it was falling apart too badly to keep anymore, but before that, her daughter (who is now 22) played with it as well.  Fun times.  Man, wouldn’t I love to be able to buy one in such perfect condition like this on eBay.

Sister’s Ken doll always made us laugh.  Partly because of his blank facial expression and partly because when you shake him, his head rattles.  We used to call him Ken-with-the-beans-in-his-head.  (Hmm.  Something about that plastic look on his face makes me think that if he smiled, he might look a lot like Bob from the Enzyte commercial.  Who knew.)

Her Barbie had the cutest little potholder, which perfectly matched her snazzy housedress!  What housewife of the ’50’s wouldn’t love that?

I also loved her cookware and casserole/coffee pot set that looks like Corningware!  They looked just like our mother’s stuff.  She had drinking cups, too, but the orange juice didn’t come out of the orange ones.  And the toaster.  Oh my gosh, the toaster!  The little piece of toast actually pops up!  It comes out of the toaster, too, if you want to put it on a plate.  It may have originally come with two pieces of toast.

I always loved her Barbie suitcases.  They looked so “real”, I thought.  They always reminded me of the Bewitched Caldwell’s Soup episode where Sam is invisible as she packs her stuff and leaves after an argument with Darrin.  (Or maybe watching that scene always reminded me of Sister’s Barbie’s luggage?  I’m not sure which.)

The episode is on YouTube.  (The suitcase scene begins right around 13:46)

Yeah.  So.  After all that, my point, I guess, is that I do plan to have a Barbie display on a shelf in the office room whenever I do my retro-makeover.  Too bad I won’t have enough room to set up an entire Barbie house, if I could collect and/or make enough stuff.  That would be a fun project in itself.

Hmmm.  Maybe I can make room.

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Old Entry Reruns: The Nostalgia Room, Part Two

I have some favorite old entries from my old online diary that I had before coming to WordPress, and I thought it might be fun to share some of them here, as “reruns”. . .

This one was originally posted on October 15, 2008.  Be sure to see Part One first.

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The Nostalgia Room
10/15/08
Part Two

And now, here are some of my most cherished childhood memories.  (At this point, I should thank [and apologize to] the eBay sellers whose pictures I copied.)

This is Barbie’s Sweet 16.  She came with a little makeup case that had real blush in it that you could rub on her cheeks, and she smelled really pretty.  (I bought a candle once, about ten years ago, just because it smelled like her.)  Mattel made some outfits just for her.  I had this shorts and tank-shirt outfit as well as the ugly jumper and poncho set.  (The more pictures you look at in these entries, the more you will catch on that orange and yellow were big colors in girls’ toys in the 1970’s.)

If you can see the picture of the shorts-and-tank-top outfit clearly, you might be able to see the little “dimples” in the plastic packaging.  They are about the right size for a child’s index finger to fit almost up to the first knuckle.  They are also, interestingly, the perfect size for a Barbie drinking cup!  I am extremely blessed to have parents who are both thoughtful and creative.  They sat and cut out a bunch of those dimples from Barbie clothes packaging one year, either at Christmas time or my birthday – I’m not sure – and made me a set of glasses for Barbie.  But they didn’t stop there.  They (and possibly Sister too – she doesn’t remember for sure) melted some orange crayons and some white crayons and filled the cups with orange juice and milk!  Once the wax hardened, it would pop out of the glasses if I wanted to pretend that Barbie was drinking water.  While they were melting the wax, they melted some yellow, and made some tiny fried eggs with the white and yellow.  I wish I still had them so I could take a picture.  They were so cute, and some of my friends were jealous.

Mod Hair Ken.  *Sigh*.  He was awesome.  He had glue-on sideburns and facial hair.  How cool is that?  Once I saw the commercial for him, I made sure to request him for whatever the next gift-giving holiday was, and then to remind Mom periodically, just in case she may have forgotten (I was considerate, that way).  I thought I just would not survive without him.  I think I even added on to my prayers a couple nights, “. . . and please send me a Mod Hair Ken.  Thank you.  I’ll be good.  Amen.”  (I kind of combined God and Santa Claus in my mind.  And maybe that’s something for another entry as well.)

One day, I was sick, and Mom took me to the doctor and I think I had to get a shot – I don’t quite remember the details, other than that I was really sick.  When we got home, she put me back to bed and then came back into my room and surprised me with . . . drumroll . . .  a Mod Hair Ken!  I think he was supposed to be my Christmas or birthday present that year (again, I don’t remember what time of year it was), but she gave him to me early so I’d have something fun to keep me occupied while I was sick.  I was one happy kid, in spite of how sick I was.  I remember sitting up in bed and playing with his sideburns and “petting” his hair.  It felt (almost) sooo real!

This was the commercial:

This is the Miss America Walk Lively doll.  Mom ordered her through the mail, and it seems like it was an offer through some brand of cereal. She was one of my favorite “everyday” Barbies to play with.  I loved her face.  She was made so that if you lifted one arm, one of her legs would move, and if you lifted the other arm, the other leg would move, so you could make her walk by holding your hand behind her back and pushing her arms up, alternately, with your fingers.  I think she turned her head while she walked, too, if I remember right.

When I was about four or five, Mom and Dad bought Sister and me Dawn dolls for Christmas (if you follow that link and watch the slide show, check out the Sucrets box!  They were metal back then and made great containers for fashion doll shoes, purses, and other accessories.  I think there is still a Sucrets box in with my sister’s old Barbies, in fact).

At some point (I don’t remember if it was that same Christmas or not), they got both of us Dawn’s Apartments.  This consisted of a bedroom and a kitchen, for an efficiency apartment.  The kitchen came with a cute little orange drain rack and some yellow and orange plates, as well as light orange coffee cups.  Even though Dawn dolls are much smaller than Barbie dolls, I used my Dawn furniture for my Barbie dolls anyway.  Her and Ken’s legs hung over the bottom of the bed, and she had to bend way forward to reach into the sink, but hey, what’s imagination for if not to ignore things like this?

Sister just gave me her Barbie dolls and Dawn dolls this past weekend (the weekend before I originally posted the content of these entries).  I’ll write more about that later, but I was thrilled that she still had her Dawn dishes and drain rack, so I took pictures of them.

I used to keep my Barbie stuff set up all the time, in the corner of my bedroom.  I made them a “house” using album covers as walls (a little secret Sister taught me).  Besides the kitchen and bedroom, they also had a living room, complete with a couch Dad made out of wood and Mom stuffed and covered in a cute gingham-check pattern.  I made a TV out of a little box with a hole cut in it and a picture from a magazine taped to the inside so it showed through the hole.  I made a stereo, too, to look sort of like the one my parents had in the living room (the big piece of furniture stereo – remember them?) and drew in a turntable and knobs.  I made them magazines and a newspaper (complete with headlines) and they even had knick-knacks.

Sometimes I made a nursery and child’s bedroom too.  Well, yes, of course!  I had a baby and a whole little nursery set with a crib and a playpen (the little plastic open-weave containers that cherry tomatoes came in back then were perfect for a Barbie baby playpen) and high chair.  I had a small doll named Angie who had a baby doll, Tangie, and Angie was the older child.  (If you follow the link, Angie and Tangie are at the bottom of the page.  My sister had Tutti, pictured near the top of the page.  And gee, is it me or does Todd look a little like Chucky from Child’s Play?  Maybe from the beginning of the movie, when he was just a doll?  *Shudder*)

Barbie and Ken went to bed in their “house” every night when I went to bed and their vehicles were parked neatly outside their front door.

My Barbies had the dune buggy and pop-up camper, which was lots of fun (somewhere, Mom has a picture of me sitting in our front yard on Christmas day, playing “camping” with Barbie and Ken.  I’ll have to ask her where that is and scan a copy of it.)  The dune buggy doubled as their everyday car.

One of my friends had the Barbie RV camper, and after playing with it at her house, I decided I’d sure like one of those, too.  But, after checking out and comparing with the Big Jim camper (remember Big Jim, the macho-manly-man action figure?), we came to the conclusion that the Big Jim camper came with way better stuff, and it was brown, which was much more realistic, to me, than yellow and orange, and I liked things to be realistic whenever possible.

And so, bless Mom and Dad’s hearts, that was what they gave me for Christmas.  It came with a boat (mine was yellow – the one in the photo is orange), a fishing pole that snapped perfectly onto Ken’s hand, the fire and grate that covered it and the bucket and cookware (the pop-up camper came with the same fire and cookware items, but the cookware was orange), a lantern, sleeping bags and folding chairs.  The yellow sleeping bags and orange-and-yellow chairs in the photo of all the accessories look like the ones that came with the pop-up camper too.  The tan sleeping bag in the second picture looks more like what came with the Big Jim camper.  Maybe the kid who originally owned the set in that third picture had both sets, too.  One of my favorite accessories, however, was the rappeller.  Ken’s wrists snapped into it and it slid along a string.  I used to make him rappel all over my room.  The girly Barbie camper sure didn’t come with one of those!

Coming Soon . . . Part Three with Sister’s Barbies!

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Old Entry Reruns: The Nostalgia Room, Part One

I have some favorite old entries from my old online diary that I had before coming to WordPress, and I thought it might be fun to share some of them here, as “reruns”. . .

This one was originally posted on October 15, 2008.  I’ve made just a few minor changes for clarification.  It was published as one entry, but at over 2800 words, I thought it might be nicer to split it into a few entries.  This might also qualify as a Bliss List entry as well, since looking at some of these pictures and thinking of my old childhood toys does bring a smile to my face.

Part of me kinda hopes I’ll spur a little trend in blogland, of looking up photos of our favorite childhood toys and writing about them.  :-)

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The Nostalgia Room
10/15/08
Part One

It all started with a Bewitched lunchbox.

A few years ago, a friend gave me a Bewitched lunchbox for my birthday (I’m a huge Bewitched fan).  I got the idea, since my office room was never decorated in a “theme” (I’m big on themes for each room), to decorate it in a “Classic TV” theme.  I envisioned TV posters and memorabilia from my favorite classic TV shows, and decided to go with the 1950’s and 1960’s (minus most of the “groovy psychedelic” stuff) as my time frame, while still debating about including just a little bit of the 1970’s so that I could include other favorite shows like Three’s Company.

I started thinking it would be cool if I could find some curtains with one of the patterns that was popular in the 60’s (if you follow that link, I like the blue “galaxy” design best), and maybe one of those star wall clocks, and some knick-knacks from the time frame, maybe frame some magazine ads or old TV Guide covers.  (I used to collect TV Guides as a kid, and really regret getting rid of them when I was a teenager and thought they took up too much space – people are selling them on eBay and some of them go for not-bad money.  I’ve even been watching a couple of them from the time-frame of my novel series (late 1980’s to mid 1990’s), to use for reference to TV programming in some scenes.)  I envisioned finding an old TV cabinet and asking my dad if he could put a regular TV inside it to make it look like the old type.  I’d like to find an old metal desk, like you see on the TV shows from the ’60’s (that taupe color, or did they call it putty?), or maybe one of those retro-looking rolltop computer desks to hide the computer when I’m not using it.  Depending on what items I finally decide on and how much space I have to work with based on that, maybe I could find a nice side/easy chair with one of those kidney-shaped end tables and a lamp that looks like it’s from the right time period.

This could take years to do, of course, because money is the biggest issue, but it could be a fun hobby-project-in-progress over those years.

Sister gave me a photo frame she found at a thrift shop.  It’s decorated like a 50’s diner, and I got to thinking how cool it would be if I could find an ice-cream table and chairs to put in the corner, and decorate the corner like a diner.  Sort of “Route 66″.  Maybe a Coca-Cola sign, one of the old-fashioned napkin holders, and maybe one of those AM/FM radios that are made to look like the old restaurant-booth juke boxes.  Or instead of an ice-cream table, maybe I could find a small table with one of those Formica tops with that boomerang design.  That would go better with the restaurant-booth look.

I don’t feel a big need for things in the room to be authentic antiques from the actual time period; I can’t afford that anyway, and the whole point is just to create that feeling that I get when I watch my favorite old shows.  As much as I love technology and many other aspects of living in this time (equality, access to information, etc.), I also feel such a tug in my heart for those simpler times.  Maybe it’s because I was a kid in the ’60’s and ’70’s (and a sheltered kid at that), but it just seems that life was so much more innocent then.  (Strangers were nicer to each other and didn’t have the overblown sense of entitlement at the expense of everyone else that I see so often now.  Customer Service meant talking to real people.  Children weren’t bombarded with TV shows and ads with overtly sexual messages.  Things like that.)  I guess for every step forward, there has to be a letting-go of something else.  But that is maybe a topic for another entry, some other day.

So here and there, I’ve been collecting some knick-knack items I’ve found inexpensively on eBay over the last year or so.  Once I decided for sure that I wanted to go ahead and include a touch of the ’70’s too, I thought about what a shame it is that I don’t have my old Barbie dolls anymore.  (Long story short: in a moment of frustration and caving in to outside pressure back in 1991, I got rid of a lot of things that I wish I hadn’t.)  I thought that if I still had my old dolls, I could make a little arrangement of them on a shelf, dressed in their 1970’s clothes.  I began to search eBay for some of the Barbie dolls I had as a kid, and that was when it finally dawned on me that in creating this “theme room”, I was really attempting to recreate my childhood.  That’s a big realization.

Now, over the years, since I got rid of my stuff, I had several dreams about these dolls.  In the dreams, I always found myself back in the house where we lived during the years I played with my Barbie dolls, and I would always go and look in my bedroom closet, and there they would be!  I’d be so happy to have them back, like old friends, only to wake up and realize I was dreaming.  I know this sounds kind of nuts for a woman in her 40’s to be reminiscing to this degree about childhood toys – even dreaming about them – but I think now that it has to do with something from those years that I’m trying to recreate and process.  That’s another entry for another time (or not), but since I found all these pictures on eBay and decided to write this diary entry (a year or so ago – it’s taken me awhile to be ready to actually write it), I haven’t had one of those dreams.  It seems that doing all that searching and poring over the pictures and having all those “Oh, yeah, I remember this-and-that . . .” moments was good for me.

Coming Soon . . . Part Two with Barbie Pictures!

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Firsts Meme

Ok, I’m stealing this meme from David.  It looks fun (and I loved several of his answers, but especially #17).

1. Who was your first prom date? My first brother-in-law.  Nah, it wasn’t as weird as it may sound.  It was my 8th grade prom and my good friend G had asked me to go, but then he was forced into a family commitment (which I found out years later involved abuse) and couldn’t go.  I was devistated.  My bro-in-law, who was a very cool and good-looking guy and was drooled over by more than one of my friends at various times, said, “Why don’t I take you to the prom?”  It was very sweet and he took me out for a brownie sundae afterwards.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? No, but I have been doing a lot of talking about my first love lately, doing a lot of processing about unresolved stuff.

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? Wine.  Or if this question refers to a mixed drink, it was probably an Amaretto Sour.

4. What was your first job? Fast food restaurant employee

5. What was your first car? It was a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere that my sister bought from a coworker for $50.  It needed a lot of work, which I paid for in stages with my babysitting money until it was road-ready.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? I haven’t received a text in a long time.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? Either my cat, my first love (see #2), my therapist, or one of two friends I have been talking to a lot lately – I don’t remember my first thought.  It may have been about all of them at once, kind of a flooding of “I’m awake and thinking now”.

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Miss . . . um . . . You know, I knew this for a long time.  For some reason, Miss Hall seems right.

9. Where did you go on your first flight in a plane? I think it was from PA to FL.  No, wait, I think my family flew from TX to PA when I was around 3.

10. Who was your first best friend and do you still talk? I think my first best friend was Heidi, and I haven’t seen her since we were kids.  Wait!  My first best friend was my sister, and yes, we are still best friends and talk daily.

11. Where was your first sleepover? It was probably at my cousin’s house when I was about 6 and we lived in PA.

12. Who was the first person you talked to today? My mom

13. Whose wedding were you in for the first time? A girl named Janet who I went to high school with.  No, actually, I was the Maid of Honor when my parents renewed their vows for their 25 anniversary when I was 17.

14. What was the first thing you did this morning? Woke up.  Then got up, showered, dressed, called Mom, and went to work.

15. What was the first concert you went to? LOL – Bobby Sherman, in around 1969.  My sister was in love with him.  He was so dreamy.  Or so I heard.  I don’t remember anything but standing on my chair like the “big kids” did.

16. First tattoo? I don’t have one, but haven’t ruled out getting one some day.

17. First piercing? My ears, when I was about 15.  I believe I passed out.

18. First foreign country you went to? Mexico

19. First movie you remember seeing? True Grit.  I was 5.  I cried because it was so loud.  Or, wait, it might have been The Sound of Music.  My dad took my sister and me to see it.

20. What state did you first live in? Montana

21. Who was your first room-mate? My sister,when we shared a bedroom when I was 6 and she was 13.  Or, as a grownup, I rented a room from a friend I worked with when I was 32.

22. When was your first detention? I wasn’t ever sent to detention.

23. If you had one wish, what would it be? To win the lotto and be able to help several people and causes I care about (and retire young)

24. What is one thing you would learn, given the chance? How to build and maintain a database-driven web site

25. Who will be the next person to post this? I don’t know. . . maybe Kerro?

Bliss List Item 8: Music

While I appreciate choral music and chants (as Kerro, Kate1975, and David have all blogged about recently), and even some classical music, for me, bliss usually comes from other types of music.

The songs that give me bliss aren’t all one type of music.  Sometimes it’s the music that gets me and other times it’s the lyrics, if there are lyrics, but they don’t have to apply directly to me or my life to affect me.  The songs don’t have to be new or current.  They just all have that something that makes me feel intense emotion, even when I can’t explain it, and makes me unable to resist turning the volume up so loud in the car that when I look in the rear-view mirror, I can watch the back window shake.

And here’s one of those:

Here is another:

And another, from the same album:

And a different one:
(I just noticed that embedding is disabled on this, but if you click on it, it will take you to the video on YouTube.)

There are more, but I’ll stop here.

Ooh.  I lied.  Here’s another one:

Ok.  Done for now.

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Bliss List – Items 5, 6, and 7

Continuing on with the Bliss List, here are some more items . . .

5. Store-bought bagged ice.  It always makes me feel pampered.

6. Being smiled at by a baby or child.  Gets me every time.

A year or so ago, I was at work, having a bad day and in a really bad mood.  A customer came in with her little boy, who was about a year old, I think.  They were sitting in my boss’ office, which is right next to my little alcove, separated by a large window.  The little boy was looking through the window at me, and I knew if I looked up at him I would smile, and I was too mad (dammit) about whatever was wrong, and I didn’t want to smile, so I pretended not to know he was looking at me and I kept working.  He evidently just knew I needed to look at him, and he smacked the window.  Before I had time to think, I glanced up, and his face bloomed into a huge grin.  Of course, mine did the same, and then came the rush of feel-good brain chemicals, and I was toast.

7. The pure-love look in a dog’s eyes.

More later.

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Bliss List – Item 4

I am aware that I’m going to be giving away what a strange child I was with this entry, but oh well.

I used to love to watch the bug truck out my bedroom window.  It always went by after I was in bed.  My bed was up against the wall by the window, and I would get on my knees and peek out as the truck went by, watching.  Sometimes I’d open the window just a little and put my nose up to the screen and smell the combination mosquito repellant and window screen.  I really don’t know why, but it’s such a pleasant memory for me.  (Maybe the mosquito spray messed with my brain?)

I do remember the time when some of the neighborhood girls who picked on me were walking past when the bug truck was going by, and one of them saw me, looking out.  She pointed me out to the others, my little face and messy sleepy-hair framed by the window, and they all laughed.  I’m not sure if they were laughing because I was in bed at that hour (I got picked on for being raised with somewhat rigid structure) or if they were laughing because I was watching the bug truck.  Who knows, maybe they thought I was looking out at them, longing to be outside as well.

The other night, when I was beginning to do some thinking about what sorts of activities might be fun to my inner child, I heard the bug truck go by outside.  Of course, I peered through the blinds and watched it the whole way, feeling that old familiar excitement and watching the foggy spray in the air.  I didn’t open the window, though.  I remember what it smells like.

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Bliss List – Items 1, 2, and 3

I got this idea from Kate1975’s Blog, and I think it’s a great self-care idea, albeit not always easy.  I decided to create my own Bliss List that I can refer back to when I need to feel that rush of “happy” brain chemicals that comes from thinking of those things that bring bliss.

So, other than chocolate (which I am not denying causes bliss as I purposely leave it off my list anyway because a big part of my reason for creating this list right now is to use it as an alternative to using food for comfort) and my family and friends, with whom I always find comfort and healthy laughter, here are the first three items on my Bliss List, which is not in a specific order:

1.  My Emily

2.  That shade-family of blue that is a variation of turquoise, aqua, neon blue, and electric blue

3. Tulips

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If It Acts Like A Child And Feels Like A Child . . .

The dreams came in like needy children, tugging at my sleeve
I said, “I have no way of feeding you, so leave”.

Prince of Darkness – Indigo Girls

Hmmm.  Well.

Ater I wrote and then re-read yesterday’s entry about food-addiction-related cravings, I was struck with how obvious it seemed.

All the pondering I’ve done about what it is that I need or want that I’ve been trying to satisfy with food came to a halt when I read my own words, describing the craving as feeling like a child desperate for attention and my overeating as a way to push that child into submission and silence.  I thought, Duh.  Could it be the child-part of me, needing my attention?

I talked with Sister when I saw her last night, and wondered aloud what sort of attention the child-part of me could need.  What could I do that would make that child-part feel appreciated, acknowledged, paid-attention-to?

“Have fun?” I asked, feeling like the kid who got the pop-quiz answer right, expecting Sister to tap her nose like they do in Charades.

Ok.  So.

It was actually synchronistic that I saw Sister last night.  She’d emailed in the morning to say her cell phone wasn’t working.  She and Mom and I are on one plan together.  On my lunch hour, I went to the local store near where I work, described the message she was getting, and asked what we needed to do.  She had a bad sim card, they said, and because there isn’t a store local to where she lives and works in another county, they gave me a new sim card for her.  We met after work at the Outback Restaurant that is about halfway between, and we had dinner.

I did really well on my IF Ratings during dinner.  I had a small steak, sweet potato, and seasonal veggies (broccoli, summer squash, carrots, and snap peas), and then we shared a brownie sundae (not so good on the IF ratings, but worth it), mainly because I just get so tickled at being able to have a brownie sundae in public (it’s gluten free!).

As I was thinking about how to go about having fun and amusing my inner child, I commented that said child was enjoying that sundae.  Then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t always be a good idea to have a sundae as a way of amusing my inner child if the purpose of amusing my inner child were to not use food to make her be quiet.

I told Sister about my therapist asking me what other ways I could comfort myself, other than using comfort food.  I had a hard time with that one, but I brought up that I often comfort myself by watching TV (the mindlessness of my viewing habits varying in direct relation to how stressed or depressed I am).  But, I realized, I often eat while I watch TV and I associate the two pretty strongly.

But I figured it out last night.

I’m going to buy a coloring book and crayons, and when I’m watching TV and the child starts to tug at my sleeve, we’re going to color.

*Smile*