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December 18, 2007
Actually, You Aren't What You Eat. No Really, You're Not
I had the most bizarre experience the other day. Two of my online friends, people I've met through the blog and the CR Society list, said something to me (totally separate from each other) to the effect of, "You'd be so disappointed in me, I haven't been eating well." "I've fallen off CR, I hope you're not mad."
Yikes.
I quickly rushed to clarify. But it made me sad: why would anyone think that how I felt about them as a person was determined in any measure by what they eat?
I discussed this with Danny while we were waiting on two co-workers to show up for a meeting.
"I think you should write about this on your blog. Tell them about me," he said.
He must not be reading the blog, I thought, since I've actually talked about him quite a bit recently.
He clarified that he meant tell them about his less than life-extension optimal lifestyle. Let's see: smoking, drinking whiskey, eating whatever the vegetarian option on the menu is (usually something that involves cooked mushrooms, bread, and fries) and riding a motorcycle.
If I were the kind of person who doesn't like people who don't build their lives around eating healthy, I would definitely not be friends with this kid.
"CR is just an interest I have in common with these people," I said to him, still puzzled and concerned and worried about both of my internet friends. "It's how we met, but it's not what defines our relationship."
Online, people tend to become two-dimensional. I write about CR so people think I am just about CR. Those of you who've been with me awhile know that I think about a lot of other things: organizing, politics, Halloween decorations, cats, love, cooking, the quest to eventually clean out my closet. The search for the perfect shower cleaner that both gets the shower white while not toasting the environment. I've written extensively against weight bias, and I take a lot of intellectual pride in my ability to make the arguments in both directions a whole lot better than most of the websites dedicated to such, if I do say so myself. Food and CR and life-extension are definitely important to me, but they're not all I do, and they're far from the only things I care about.
I never, ever, want anyone to think that whether or not I care about him or her, as a person, has anything to do with what he or she eats. Sure, it's a ton of fun to compare notes with other CR geeks. MR and I love to do it, Allswell and I love to do it, Robin and I love to do it, but it's no different than two Red Sox fans bonding over the latest whatever the hell baseball people talk about. It's fun, it's an activity, it's a part of what we do for sure, but it's not who we are.
I don't think of the people I love as a collection of things they do or say or think. I don't love MR because he's a genius and a brilliant writer and a sexy redheaded human giraffe lookalike and a great lover and someone who's been with me through hell and keeps showing up every day anyway. I love him because of him... I can't and wouldn't want to describe it in terms of what he does. Somebody said on some NPR show I was listening to half asleep, "We are human beings, not human doings." Yeah. When I think about the other people in my life who are so very important to me, they're not in my life because of what they do. They might have turned up in my life as a result of some particular action: Lisa and I met on a plane, for example. But I don't love her because she was on that plane, or because she's a dedicated and talented organizer, or because she has beautiful long hair that she lets me pet. I love her for the ineffable essence of who she is. That can't be compartmentalized into little lego blocks of "organizer" "long hair" "likes cats," etc.
I did some thinking today about all the things that I love about my network of super-close friends and family. In no particular order, with no names mentioned to protect the innocent until proven guilty, and there are many, many included though a few are repeats:
the way she always emails me right before I'm about to fall apart and she talks me down from the ledge; his habit of using the word "literally" when he means "really, really, but metaphorically;" the fact that she won't let me stop writing, ever, she'll beat me to death with her own hands and a wet carrot first; the way she shakes hands with the ficus tree in my office; her eyes lighting up and her voice getting just a bit sing-songy when she talks about a nurse she's just met with; the fact that I can tell him anything because he already knows the worst things about me and loves me anyway, and more so for it; her impassioned and witty defense of me and CR in many an online forum; when he tells us to open the wine at 3:30 pm and we sit around drinking it out of Dixie cups; walking in and seeing his scarf draped across my chair and him turning around from the bar holding my drink; when he tells me that I have the most exciting life of anyone he knows, and he writes a novel where the lead character is half me; how we can sit around for hours exchanging stories of people that the other will never meet, half of whom are dead; the case of empty beer bottles that are left all over the living room after one of his visits; that time when we measured white powder on an accurate to the gram scale in a bar in New York, and it really was just inositol; making up after a year long fight; the feeling of his arm around me in the middle of the night; when we run into each other for the first time in awhile, exchange a look, and immediately know what kind of trouble we've been getting ourselves into; when he's leaning up against a wall waiting for me, looking really cool but he's actually just too tired to stand up; the way she rebuilt her life from the ashes of a terrible tragedy and came back to be even tougher than before, in ways that I suspect that no one but me can really appreciate; all those early morning leaflets when he was there with me; how she taught me so very much of what I know; her in a skimpy Halloween costume drinking gin and tonics; the guacamole on the table that he made during one of the scariest days we've had, and how the dog ended up eating it while we were out of the room; the way she didn't run away or fall apart when things got really, really tough; the memories of our life together so far, with all of its screaming fits and drunken rages and days and nights of making love and feeling absolutely certain that this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with if I don't kill him in the next twenty-four hours.
What is love, anyway?
I did some talking about this today, not early in the morning, more mid-morning, perhaps even late morning.
A lot of people toss around the term quite liberally, but neither of us are that type. We mean something by it, and I'm not sure that we mean the same thing. When I think about love, I think about three different occasions, and three different people. All of the situations involved a rather huge level of sacrifice on their part so that I could be happier. Pretty grand gestures, rather Casablanca-like, as in, "She went, but she knew you were lying."
(yes, yes, round up the usual suspects)
But there's that kind of little love too, the small every day love that usually doesn't involve sex, that's about turning up at the office with an extra bag of baked chips and leaving them on my desk. The "Are you okay?" text message when it's been awhile. The fact that we've all done some stupid things that probably weren't a good idea but we get over it and stay friends because after all, nobody else would laugh at our jokes or keep our secrets.
Maybe we have fun cooking together. Maybe we bond over nutrition information and the ongoing frustration of being a thin girl and getting called anorexic. Maybe we'll share a bottle of French red and tell ex-boyfriend stories. Maybe we'll win, maybe we'll lose, either way we're going to be in this foxhole together.
[Side note: did anyone hear the NPR contest for the best twelve word novel? My favorite was, "There are no atheists in a foxhole," said the chaplain, "So get out." That's thirteen words, so I'm sure I screwed it up, but I thought it was really funny.]
I don't love you because of what you eat, or what you don't eat. I love you for who you are. Just the way you are, right now. Maybe you'll change, and so might I. But that indestructible core at the middle of you is what I love, and it's not going away.
That being said: you really would feel better if you ate a high protein breakfast.
Posted by april at December 18, 2007 10:40 PM
Comments
Stunning post. :-)
Posted by: Sara at December 19, 2007 5:13 AM
And if this were my list, the white powder part would be augmented by "and the amazing pointy high heels she braved New York in."
I want a widget where I tell you "THIS WAS A GREAT POST" on every post.
Posted by: allswellinhell/ashley at December 19, 2007 2:26 PM
Sometimes people think that librarians love them less if they have overdue books.
Posted by: Marti at December 19, 2007 4:13 PM
Thanks for this April--nice timing. Lately I've been sniffing around the CR community again after a long absense. I haven't thought about diet and food management and health for months and months and months. Or rather, I've thought about all of those obsessively for months and months and months but been unable to write my own blog about them because I was feeling in my "failure" (to use less than compassionate language to describe myself) to stick with it, I had nothing to offer this community. I thought if my blog were truthful, it would be a disappointment to those who enjoyed reading it during it's short period of activity. I've been wanting to get back to it, thinking it would help, but not wanting to face everyone. So your message is a nice wakeup call that I've been engaging in some silly thinking.
Posted by: Chris at December 20, 2007 9:23 AM
Thank heaven I have no overdue books.
a
Posted by: april at December 21, 2007 1:13 PM
Hi April
Nice post. Hey, I like the widget idea Sara proposes, sort of like the diggit one. And I hope Chris just starts up CRON again and doesn't worry what people think of him.
Cheers, Arturo
Posted by: Arturo at December 21, 2007 1:33 PM
Hi April - great post! I think falling off the CR wagon is a source of guilt for many, but look at the other side of the coin. If I strayed then I would feel guilty because I had failed myself, but that means at the very least that I take personal responsibility for what I eat and drink. So many people blame their bad eating habits on others. Deciding that it's all someone else's fault is a fine excuse for making no effort to improve. There's a bit of steel in CRers which I admire!
Posted by: Linda at December 22, 2007 4:27 AM
As someone who's been an on-again-off-again-and-now-back-on-again CRONie, I really appreciate this post, April. It's been a real struggle for me, and the self-discipline is so elusive. It's been difficult not to feel like such a failure and that I've disappointed people, including myself, because CRON is so important to me and so good for me.
But there's more to me than just CRON, and this post just reminds me of that.
Thanks, April. :)
Nen
Posted by: Nenette at December 22, 2007 9:06 AM