Off Track

I am on the train coming back from a 3-day business trip to NYC. We just passed an area that must be a maintenance yard for the tracks. There were long sections of rails and ties and lots of piles of stuff I didn’t recognize. I was looking at it all and thinking about the people who put that all together to make the tracks for the train’s path and wondering if I could ever learn to do that because it seemed so foreign. I felt a sudden parallel to my Resolution Solution journey and thought I’d had a sudden revelation, but, strangely, I was not comfortable with it.

I was coming off of a tough 3 days trying to stay on track. The meetings started early and ended late and then we were ready to relax. The breakfast foods supplied for our early mornings weren’t the best selection– frosted muffins, and huge bagels with cream cheese…no fruit or yogurt to be found. For one lunch we went to a wonderful Mexican restaurant where they made guacamole at the tableside, had NYC pizza for another, and last night a bunch of us went to Chinatown and Little Italy where we dined at 2 restaurants in less than 2 hours. Add that all up, subtract the one 30 minute session on the treadmill in the hotel fitness room, which honestly was in a subbasement and very creepy, and you have a bad couple of days.

I had recorded all the food and drinks anyways, and for the first time in these 7 weeks I haven’t had a calorie deficit in 3 days. I am riding along the train here getting very discouraged and thinking why bother, I blew it…I am not going to lose any weight this week anyways so just keep on eating. I suddenly heard echoes and recognized what that is – the mentality that got me off track and on the upslide the last few times. It’s the same self-talk that I have said in my head so many times. It used to be towards the end of the WW week as I got close to meeting day, and had a few bad days that week. Then it turned into every single day around 3:00 when I had started the day with good intentions and lost control when things got tough. I am defeating myself. I am the one who is getting off at the station and abandoning the tracks. I need to get back on track.

I suddenly remembered another expression I have heard so often at WW and from doctors and from others who I suppose have meant well over the last few years. We used to talk about rough patches dealing with food and “falling off the wagon”, and someone would say “you better get back on before it runs you over”. All of a sudden I realized I hated that expression and I got so mad, because I felt so totally hopeless. I got a real visual on everything and I could see the analogy come to life and I found myself where I must think I belong in my own head…the train left the station and I could not stay on the track so was left behind; the wagon ran me over and took off and I am left hopeless and beaten, and I have no hope of ever getting permanently on the road or on track.

And now I have a twist…is it a revelation or am I skewing things? I do not have to take those rails and ties and understand how to build a track. I am getting off the track, because it is not real. Continuing with the analogy, I think I have always thought there is a straight path that I need to get on and stay on and I have just never been able to do it, but dammit I am going to someday uncover the way to become one of those healthy, skinny people who have opted for the track to Healthyland where there are fields of lettuce and strawberries, there are no pizzerias, no peanut butter cups, and the sidewalks are replaced with treadmill belts. Well, I see a different reality as the train rolls on today and I am dealing with the mess in my head. Healthyland does not exist. There is no straight track with an end, and I cannot ignore the stations along the way because they are portals to somewhere that is real. I cannot expect that I am going to get on track #6 to Healthyland and zip pass the stops for Guacamole Mountain, Chipville , and Chardonnay River. I have to abandon the fictional track and learn to live in and enjoy those places, but find a balance. Good Lord, how??? Can I walk away from the tracks, and go out into the real world and find a way to deal with it?

I thought I had finished this and was ready to post it, but when the train arrived in Albany at 5:45, I went straight to the gym to meet Karli because I haven’t seen her in a week and had about an hour to fit in a workout before heading to choir practice for Easter. I told her how pensive I was and asked her if I was off base by forgetting about the track. She suggested I take the analogy a little further and consider myself the bus driver navigating through Realityland. I liked that. I am going to go buy a bus and work on my driving and navigating skills. And if anyone falls off the wagon or misses the train, I will pick them up and they can ride with me. We may get lost, or take a stop or two at a less than optimal place, but I’d rather understand what they are like than just zip past.