I was talking to a friend today who offered to commiserate over the caloric, resolution-bending hit of Girl Scout cookie season. “How do you manage with all of those cookies in your house?” she asked, since I had tried to peddle her some of those very wares. This is where I sometimes feel guilty, like I’ve turned in my membership card to a club I was once an officer for. “Well, this is my second cookie season off gluten, so it’s not so bad,” I said, feeling like a judgmental drug dealer whispering crack is whack under my breath while peddling powder. My friend literally gasped. “Not even Samoas?!” she said. “Nope,” I confirmed, “Not even Samoas.”
Honestly, I miss the easy comradery of gluten more than the gluten. It’s harder, or at least more isolating, to give up the sharing chocolate lava cake a la mode than it is to give up the actual cake. I’ve now been 14 months without gluten and about 10 without dairy or corn. Luckily at this point most people in my usual daily orbit already know, so there’s less awkward explaining. But people are often still surprised that I don’t have exceptions and loopholes. Part of this may be because people knew me before the idiopathic urticaria (hives) showed up for the first time a couple years ago, finally making me miserable enough to embrace some changes. And, for people who know me, it still seems out-of-character for me to be turning down cookies. To be fair, it still is out of character. If I didn’t feel so much better eating differently, I would definitely eat the Samoa(s)(s)(s).
I’m not sure it’s particularly healthy, but I work better on an all or nothing philosophy. If I gave myself exceptions and loopholes, I would live in the loophole. I know this about me. The holidays! (meaning October 20 – January 3, of course), loophole! Birthdays of close friends, family and that new guy at the office whose name definitely starts with a J. Barbeques! Tuesdays that ought to be Fridays! It would really never end, because I have no will power. That might seem like a weird thing coming from someone who has successfully avoided large, delicious food groups associated with happiness for more than a year. Isn’t that will power? I think no. This is where all or nothing comes in. Do you know someone who can eat one cookie? Because that seems like the set-up to a punchline to me. Or a personality trait of someone one miracle away from canonization. I may not be eating Girl Scout cookies but I had 6 dark chocolates the other day, because once the bag is open, literally and metaphorically, I can tell myself, Just one. Two, actually, is a serving. Now stop. Seriously, not one more. Well, if I have one more now, I won’t have another tonight. Or all day tomorrow. It evens out. Or… well, oops that’s six. That’s unfortunate. For the record, I feel a lot better when limiting sugar, too, but because I don’t have a zero tolerance policy, I’m almost always in exception mode. (When I was in zero tolerance for sugar, I treated grape tomatoes like sweet, delicious dessert. Now, I think of them as tomatoes. It’s perhaps ultimately less healthy, but allows me to respect myself again.)
Knowing yourself well enough to play to a crazed, high-maintenance alter-ego (or perhaps that’s just the id) can have advantages, though. When you know something in life is toxic, it seems like the most logical thing in the world to step away from that toxicity. And yet, that’s often the very hardest thing. One of the most important relationships of my young adulthood was completely toxic, and yet seemingly as necessary as air. That kind of relationship stunts growth in any other direction – personally, professionally – you’re so worn out to begin with that the only risk you’re up for taking is the one keeping you in this quagmire. It makes it hard to see clearly, decide rationally. It takes a no exceptions, no loopholes approach – if you’re me, anyway – to reclaim some of that wayward personal growth. No loopholes doesn’t mean no baggage, but it does create a pretty clear path.
I live with low grade anxiety that sometimes jumps into high anxiety, and I fight a tendency toward obsessive behavior. Everyone – I assume – wonders sometimes if they left the stove on, but at certain times in my life, I’ve been so controlled by a recurring thought pattern that I’m pretty much incapacitated inside, while going about my day within the complete façade of an extroverted wittiness-lite routine. Keep them laughing and no one will realize you’re dancing on the edge. I think this tendency to obsess rolls into the all or nothing. I read books a dozen times. I’m a sporadic (weather permitting) runner, and when I’m in running mode, it’s like I’m terrified to stop, to go to yoga one day, or try out that spin class. I just know that if I don’t run today, and then don’t go tomorrow, I may never run again. Spin class may ironically be the beginning of my slide into complete sloth. I missed that memo about doing what you can, where and when you can, and starting again tomorrow. I’m a perfectionist trapped inside a frenetic, disorganized mind.
Somehow, when I’ve chosen nothing of all or nothing, I’ve removed the struggle. Choosing a no loopholes approach means that I’ve moved from “I can’t” to “I just don’t.” There’s far less internal conflict in the latter, far less obsessing. Part of me, maybe a big part of me, wishes I could be a one cookie kind of girl. Moderation sounds perfectly logical. But perfectly logical is one thing I am not. And so I will continue eschewing gluten while devouring chocolate, and talking about yoga while I lace up my running shoes (snowmelt permitting, so let’s say about April). It seems to be working more than it’s not, which is my general litmus test these days.
And in the meantime, I’m going to assume that Samoas aren’t nearly as good as I remember, anyway.