almost

I hate almost getting to a certain state of being, like almost being thin, almost having clear skin, or almost being attractive and confident.  Having almost reached a certain goal gives me a taste of the possibilities and only serves to remind me that I'm not there yet.  That taste could be motivation for some but it's detrimental for me.

It highlights my inability to be consistent and underscores my inclination for self-sabotage.

It's kind of amazing how we try to train ourselves to be better.  We use mantras and daily affirmations and we think we're finally on the right path but it takes nothing to pull away from the progress.  The days and months and even years of hard work toward betterment sometimes feels like a waste when we can so easily be swayed back into bad behaviors.

Years ago, when I was at my thinnest, I remember walking into a grocery store and finding myself in the candy aisle.  I walked past the Snickers and Reese's and Milky Way bars and realized that I didn't even want that junk anymore.  The chewy candies, the sour sugar, the tangy taffy all felt unclean to me.

I will never touch that stuff again, I said to myself.  And I wasn't trying to convince myself, either.  I honestly believed I had no desire to devour that garbage.

Years later, I'm inhaling that garbage every day and gaining all the weight I lost, plus some.

How did I go from so healthy to so hefty?

What is it about the brain that some parts cannot be overridden?  Why are addicts life-long sufferers?  Why does the mind lean in the direction of decay?  If I learned these bad food behaviors, why can't I unlearn them?  Have they been lodged so deeply into my very being that I cannot excavate the venom flowing so deep within me?

At one time, I thought I had.  I realize now that I had only scratched the surface.  I was only almost there.

Even today, all these years and diets and pounds later, all I want to do is bite into a gooey lasagna.  I used to think these pasta pangs were residual cravings from my former sloth-like lifestyle.  They say wait fifteen minutes.  They say drink a glass of water.  They say the cravings are fleeting and they will go away.  And so I wait and drink and they do go away but they always come back. 

I'm starting to wonder if the cravings aren't fleeting but my resolve not to cave in to the cravings is what's really fleeting.  But the desire to eat, the desire to destroy myself, is always swimming under the surface of sweaty skin and fatigued muscle.