[content warning: disordered eating, OCD]
The cool thing about OCD is a high standard for attention to detail. The uncool thing is everything else.
I once spent an entire Chicago winter not wearing gloves because I couldn't find any that met every single one of my requirements. It made more sense to walk around like that in below-freezing weather for months (I didn’t have a car and used public transit exclusively) than accept an imperfect solution.
I was talking to someone recently about why I have such flawed self-preservation instincts sometimes. I asked her, “What’s the point of eating if it’s not gonna be good?” She just looked at me and I knew that what I had said was not normal. She asked why I eat, and I said that I do it so that I'm not too tired to do stuff. She asked if I could get that energy any other way. I thought for a second and concluded that the answer was no. It was kind of a moment of reckoning for me.
There’s a familiar kind of syrupy sleepiness that tells me that I haven’t had any food for a while. I’ve been feeling it a lot less as I’ve been cooking a lot more. I would like to take this moment to not-even-humble brag that some people in my life have been surprised that I’m actually pretty good at cooking. I’m like, Excuse me, bitch. I don’t avoid cooking because I can’t do it, I avoid it because I don’t care.
But I do care, now. Even if not eating is still often the path of least resistance, being tired is a goddamn pain in the ass. Plus, the most unexpected thing has happened... I've turned into a person who actually likes cooking. I did not think this was possible. Turns out, there can be miracles even when you don't believe.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and put together breakfast while thinking to myself, Didn’t I just do this?? Then I remember that it is, in fact, typical to follow up dinner at night with breakfast the next morning. Three times a day, Jesus. It’s a lot of maintenance.
I still have a little bit of a fantasy that my body will evolve photosynthesizing capabilities to free me from the responsibility of a digestive system. But in the meantime... I guess this is it.