Choices...

Sadly, I am smart enough now to be aware just how much a mess my relationship with food is, and always has been.

At times it is like a separate personality, the foolish defiant teenage angst you should be done with by now, that piece of you that wants instant gratification. The rebellious slice that demands you throw societal convention into the wall and do what you damn well please, they can get bent; you don't need their approval anyway...right? That is the lie we tell while we binge on the foods we know are our personal undoing. Mine? Chips and dip. This little bit of kryptonite should never be allowed within the walls of my Fortress of Solitude.

Food never says no, or talks back, or ignores you, or judges you. This may well be why so many people in this country full of needy, self-indulgent, media addicted, non-communicators are obese and unhealthy. (says the girl blogging about her issues, first world problems, baby) Comfort food, the name says it all, we find our comforts from the familiar tastes that drive sense memory to the past and give us that scrap of nostalgic joy of something not quite remembered. We do this because it is simple, easy, attainable and in lieu of creating new memories full of happiness.

It is looking at what you are "supposed to be" and knowing that is never going to happen that drives so many cars for Big Macs. That defeated sense of why bother, where we forget that perfection differs person to person. Magazines and Hollywood don't hold the keys to good looks (most of the shows I watch are filmed in Montreal, thank you SyFy, but you get my point!) and certainly not to healthy attitudes. I suppose the trick must be finding a way to use an internal sense of self to establish your ideal you, rather than allowing the constant barrage of external sources for Health/Beauty/Value. Neat trick if you can manage it without rolling right back around to the Teenage-Angst-Beast previously discussed.

Realizing, repeatedly, that no amount of exterior help or support can make the choice for you. Knowing that even with all the right tools readily available, you can still opt out on yourself. The golden moments (plural, it will happen over and over) when you recognize your failures, values, strengths and pick your health over all the noise of the blaring world.

Willpower can't be bought or sold or found, only made.

Made through an unending series of choices.

Choose wisely.